Pauline Hanson Racially Vilified Mehreen Faruqi With ‘Piss Off’ Tweet, Federal Court Rules

Pauline Hanson engaged in racial discrimination against Mehreen Faruqi when she tweeted the Greens senator should “pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan”, a judge has ruled.

The judge ordered Hanson to delete the offending tweet and pay Faruqi’s costs for the proceedings. Faruqi’s lawyer, Michael Bradley, told Guardian Australia that while costs had not been calculated in full, they would probably total “many hundreds of thousands of dollars”.

The proceedings, in the federal court, centred around an interaction the pair had on X, then called Twitter, on 9 September 2022, shortly after Queen Elizabeth II died, with the judgment setting out details of the interaction.

Faruqi greeted the news of the queen’s death by tweeting: “Condolences to those who knew the Queen. I cannot mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised peoples. We are reminded of the urgency of Treaty with First Nations, justice & reparations for British colonies & becoming a republic.”

Hanson tweeted in response: “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 – PH.”

Justice Angus Stewart on Friday found the One Nation leader’s tweet was unlawful and portrayed Faruqi as a “second-class citizen” who took advantage of Australia and who, as a migrant to the country, “should be grateful for what she has and keep quiet” – a position he declared to be “exclusionary”.

Stewart found Hanson’s comment that Faruqi should “piss off back to Pakistan” was a “variant of the slogan ‘go back to from where you came from’” which he said was an a “racist trope” and a “strong form of racism”. He added that Hanson’s tweet, given her profile, likely “empowered others” to make similar or worse comments.

The judge rejected Hanson’s arguments, including that Faruqi’s tweet on the queen’s death justified her response. He found Hanson’s tweet did not fall within the fair comment exemption because it was an “angry, personal attack”.

Hanson, who was not present in court, posted on X shortly after the judgment was handed down, expressing her disappointment with the decision and saying she had “instructed her lawyers to prepare and lodge appeal documents”.

An emotional Faruqi hugged her legal team – many of whom were also in tears – after the judgment was handed down. Addressing media outside the court, Faruqi said Friday’s win sent “a strong message to racists that they will be held accountable” and made clear that “hate speech is not free speech”.

“Today is a win for every single person who has been told to go back to where they came from, and believe me, there are too many of us,” Faruqi said, adding that the case had taken “a very personal toll”.

The judgment was “an affirmation for migrants that people of colour do not have to be grateful or to keep quiet”, she said: “I will be speaking out more loudly and more strongly than ever before.

“Today’s judgment is landmark … It is a warning for people like Pauline Hanson, and I do hope it emboldens individuals and communities to assert their right to live free from racism.”

Bradley said the case had “made law today” and set new precedent for the way that section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act was considered by the courts.

“There have been very few successful 18C cases and this is the first one that has dealt with this idea of coded racism … which has deep meaning attached to it that is well-understood by perpetrators of racism and their victims,” he told Guardian Australia.

Bradley said when cases had been successfully brought under section 18C in the past “it’s usually been stuff that’s in your face, overt racism … This is a different sort of class of racism or racist hate speech and it’s the most insidious type, it’s intergenerational and for people who are exposed to it – people of colour, immigrants, First Nations people – they cop this stuff by way of micro-aggression all the time, their whole lives. This is a real line-in-the-sand moment.”

He added: “It’s an extraordinary judgment. It’s a precedent for the law, absolutely, but I think it has much wider impact. It changes the conversation around the limits of tolerance for racist discourse, and certainly it’s something the media should pay very close attention to, public figures like politicians should read it and have a think about their own language and how they engage in public debate and the weaponising of people’s ethnicity or colour against them.”