SYDNEY, July 27 (Reuters) – An Australian court on Monday rejected an appeal from right-wing leader Pauline Hanson to overturn a ruling that she racially discriminated against a Muslim senator by telling her to “piss off back to Pakistan”.
The three-judge panel of the Full Federal Court of Australia unanimously upheld a 2024 ruling that the comment, addressed to Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi on social media, was unlawful and unprotected by free speech defences.
“Today, justice has prevailed,” Faruqi told reporters outside court. “Today’s win is for every single person out there who has been told to go back to where you came from.”
Hanson said in a statement she was disappointed in the outcome.
“My legal team and I will now closely review the decision in the coming days, with a view to commencing an appeal in the High Court of Australia,” she added. The High Court of Australia is the country’s final court of appeal.
Hanson, who leads the hard-right One Nation party, made the remarks in September 2022 after Faruqi posted on Twitter, now known as X, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
Faruqi wrote that she could not “mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised peoples.”
Hanson replied: “When you immigrated to Australia you took every advantage of this country … It’s clear you’re not happy, so pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan.”
A judge in 2024 found Hanson’s post breached Australia’s laws against racial discrimination as it was reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate and intimidate Faruqi, as well as Muslim Australians and people of colour who had migrated to the country.
Hanson appealed the decision, arguing she did not breach the law and the law was in any case constitutionally invalid.
“We have 434 paragraphs of dismissing Pauline Hanson’s appeal, of confirming that indeed Pauline Hanson behaved in racism, Islamophobia, and hate,” Faruqi said.
Founded in 1997, One Nation was long seen as fringe but Hanson’s hard line on immigration has drawn more support in recent polls.
(Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
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