One Nation senator Pauline Hanson made a racist remark when she advised a Muslim senator to pack her luggage and return to Pakistan, a decide has discovered.
Friday’s ruling marks a win for Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi in a Federal Court docket lawsuit in opposition to the One Nation chief.
Justice Angus Stewart discovered Hanson engaged in “critically offensive” and intimidating behaviour by the September 2022 social media submit that breached the Racial Discrimination Act.
The submit was racist, nativist and anti-Muslim, the decide stated.
The proceedings concerned a submit by Hanson on Twitter, now referred to as X, telling the Greens deputy to “piss off again to Pakistan”.
“It’s a sturdy type of racism,” Stewart stated on Friday.
Talking after the ruling, Faruqi stated it was a “good day”.
“At present is an efficient day for folks of color, for Muslims and all of us who’ve been working so onerous to construct an anti-racist society,” she stated.
“And consider me, there are too many people who’ve been subjected to this final racist slur far too many instances on this nation. At present’s ruling tells us that telling somebody to return to the place they got here from is a robust type of racism,” she stated.
Hanson’s submit on X was in response to at least one from Faruqi on the day Queen Elizabeth II died.
Faruqi wrote she couldn’t mourn the passing of the chief of a “racist empire constructed on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised peoples”.
Hanson’s declare that she didn’t know Faruqi was a Muslim when she despatched the tweet was rejected by the courtroom.
Hanson’s argument that she merely engaged in political discourse by declaring hypocrisy from Faruqi in criticising the monarchy whereas benefiting from shifting to and residing in Australia was additionally shot down.
“Her tweet was an indignant private assault on Senator Faruqi,” Stewart stated.
Hanson has been ordered to delete the tweet inside seven days and to pay Faruqi’s authorized prices of working the lawsuit.
Faruqi stated the courtroom’s ruling was an “affirmation for migrants and other people of color” that they don’t have to be “grateful or quiet”.
“I will probably be talking out extra loudly and extra strongly than ever earlier than,” she stated.
“I do hope that it emboldens people and communities to claim their proper to stay free from racism.”
The decide didn’t make an order proposed by Faruqi that Hanson pay an quantity in damages to charity.
