A court has found One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson committed racial discrimination after told a Greens senator to “piss off back to Pakistan” on X.

The message was aimed at Greens Senator and Deputy Leader Mehreen Faruqi in September 2022, on the day Queen Elizabeth II died.

Faruqi had posted that she could not mourn for someone who was “the leader of a racist empire” that was supposedly built on the foundation of “stolen lives, land, and wealth of colonised peoples.”

In response, Hanson wrote: “Your attitude appalls and disgusts me. When you immigrated to Australia you took every advantage of this country. You took citizenship, bought multiple homes, and a job in a parliament.”

“It’s clear you’re not happy, so pack your bags, and piss off back to Pakistan.”

After that response drew criticism, Hanson posted another message offering to drive Faruqi to the airport.

Greens Senator Accuses Hanson of Racial Discrimination

Faruqi claimed the phrase breached the Racial Discrimination Act and took the matter to the Federal Court.

On Nov. 1, a judge found she had been racially discriminated against and ordered the X post be deleted and for Hanson to pay Faruqi’s legal costs.

In the morning, Hanson appears to have complied with the first part of the order, as the post is no longer visible. However, she announced on X that she intends to appeal the decision and said she was “disappointed” with the court’s finding.

The Greens senator had also sought additional penalties requiring Hanson to attend anti-racism training at her own expense and to make a $150,000 donation to a charity chosen by Faruqi.

However, Federal Court Justice Angus Stewart declined to impose these, remarking that “it is not at all clear that Senator Hanson would benefit from such training” and that there was “no evidence about the intended beneficiary” of any donation.

The complaint had originally gone to the Australian Human Rights Commission, which attempted to mediate between the two senators, but Hanson “did not indicate a willingness to participate in this process,” according to a letter from the Commission’s president.

The judge said Hanson’s post was an “angry personal attack” with no discernible link to the issues Faruqi raised. He rejected the One Nation leader’s defence that it fell within the legal exemption allowing fair comment on a matter of public interest.

Earlier this year, Hanson gave evidence that she didn’t know Faruqi was a Muslim at the time she commented, and her lawyers argued that the reply had nothing to do with religion or colour.

Calls And Emails

Following the exchange, Faruqi’s office says it received multiple abusive calls and emails which she attributed to Hanson’s statement.

She produced evidence from several expert witnesses who testified that being on the receiving end of racist comments caused stress that impacted emotional, psychological and even physical health.

She also submitted nine affidavits from people who responded to a public invitation to document how reading Hanson’s X post made them feel. Despite objections, the judge ruled these as admissible.

Faruqi also introduced “tendency evidence” referencing some of Hanson’s past comments over the past 30 years, totalling 93 examples.

The judge allowed most of this to be introduced, but ruled that her “it’s okay to be white” motion, moved in the Senate in 2017, was inadmissible as it was protected by privilege.

Judge Rejects Argument That the Law is Unconstitutional

Hanson also said in her defence that the sections of the Racial Discrimination Act under which she was charged were unconstitutional as they infringed the implied freedom of political communication in the Constitution, causing the federal Attorney General to intervene to defend the statute.

However, the judge found that while the Act did “burden” such freedoms, “the burden is light” and at the “outer edges of political communication; not at the content of ideas but in the way in which they might be expressed.”

But Hanson, reacting to the verdict on X, said, “The outcome demonstrates the inappropriately broad application of section 18C [of the Racial Discrimination Act], particularly in so far as it impinges upon freedom of political expression.”

NSW Libertarian MP John Ruddick said he “stood with Pauline Hanson.”

“This is 18C in real-time,” he wrote on X, saying the Liberal Party had failed to repeal it when it was in power.

Meanwhile, the Green’s Faruqi characterised the judge’s findings as a “warning to people like Senator Hanson and others that they will be held accountable for the hate speech that comes out of their mouths.”

“This ruling draws a line that hate speech is not free speech.”

Her lawyer, Marque Lawyers Managing Partner Michael Bradley, said the judge had made “quite stark and clear findings about Senator Hanson’s long-standing behaviour.”