Pauline Hanson responds to Robert Irwin's defamation claims
Pauline Hanson's lawyers have slammed Robert Irwin's “nonsensical”, after he threatened to take legal action against the politician over the latest controversial episode of her Youtube series Please Explain.
The satirical cartoon, features Irwin's misadventures with Bluey as they attempt to promote a new tourism campaign for Queensland.
In the video, their car was stolen by "juvenile delinquents" before Bluey falls into a giant pothole, and then they had to wait six months for healthcare.
Irwin's lawyers alleged that the cartoon was defamatory and involved the “unauthorised and deceptive use of our client’s image”, and demanded them to remove it from social media by 5pm Monday.
However, the politician has ignored their threats of taking legal action, with her lawyers responding that the video was a “satirical assessment of the various failings of the Queensland State Government” and that it was not defamatory in any way.
They said that the video, which referenced a recent tourism campaign Irwin was in, was “a humorous critique of that advertisement published primarily for a political purpose”.
“Your clients’ claims of passing off and defamation are so plainly inconsistent as to be nonsensical," they wrote in a letter addressed to Irwin's lawyers.
“It is difficult to comprehend how a viewer could understand that the video represents an affiliation with your client if he is also being defamed in the same publication.”
Hanson also insisted that she would not take down the video.
“I will not be removing the latest episode of Pauline Hanson’s Please Explain,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“I look forward to the day when Robert and I can have a good laugh over this and turn our focus to making Queensland a better state.”
Image: Instagram/ X/ Getty