Pauline Hanson loses Federal Court appeal after breaching Racial Discrimination Act

A court has once again found One Nation leader Pauline Hanson breached the Racial Discrimination Act when she lashed out at a Greens senator, telling her to “piss off back to Pakistan”.

Senator Hanson breached the Racial Discrimination Act when she tweeted Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi in September 2022 on the day Queen Elizabeth II died, Judge Angus Stewart found back in November 2024.

Just a few weeks after the decision was handed down, Senator Hanson appealed with the Federal Court.

On Monday, following a three-day hearing late last year, the court again found that Senator Hanson had breached the Racial Discrimination Act, and her appeal was thrown out.

Outside court, Senator Faruqi gave an emotional speech to an awaiting media scrum, declaring justice had “prevailed”.

“Today, the full court of the federal court has unanimously dismissed Pauline Hanson’s appeal against Justice Stewart’s judgment that she didn’t engage in racist behaviour,” she said.

“She did engage in racist and Islamophobic behaviour. She continues to engage in racist and Islamophobic behaviour.

“Today’s win is for every single person out there who has been told to go back to where you came from.

“Today is a win for every single person who has been made to feel that their belonging in this country is conditional. Today is a win for every single person who has been told to sit down, to shut up, and to just be grateful for being in this country.”

Senator Faruqi gave a stern reminder to all Australia’s that “hate speech is not free speech”.

“Hate speech is being normalised in this country right now and I for one will not be a bystander,” she said.

“I will stand up to hate in the streets in parliament and in courtrooms.”

Meanwhile, Senator Hanson in a statement said she was “disappointed” by the court’s decision.

“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 said.

“Public discussion in Australia has become almost totally silenced by laws and rules which prevent ordinary people expressing their personal views in case some small part of our society takes some sort of offence or feels hurt or distressed.”

In their judgement, Justices Melissa Perry, Geoffrey Kennett, and Elizabeth Bennett found an offensive remark directed at one person because of their race may also affect others who share that racial background, who will then be “burdened by those same corrosive stereotypes”.

“Understood in this light, the distinction sought to be drawn by Senator Hanson is illusory: a reason for the Hanson Tweet was the race, colour, national or ethnic origin of Senator Faruqi,” they said.

Their honours also ruled that while political communication must “allow room for insult and invective” it does not mean any restriction on such speech is automatically invalid.

In the hours following Queen Elizabeth’s death, Senator Faruqi lashed the “racist empire” of the British monarchy following a tweet from Greens Leader Adam Bandt, who said it was time for Australia to become a republic.

In the landmark decision last year, Senator Faruqi argued that Senator Hanson’s tweet contravened section 18C of the Act by targeting her as a migrant, person of colour and Muslim.

The section makes it unlawful to publicly engage in conduct that is likely to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” based on race, colour or national or ethnic origin.

In her original post, Senator Faruqi shared her condolences to those who mourned the Queen but added she could not mourn the “leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised people”.

A few hours later, in response, Senator Hanson said Senator Faruqi’s attitude “appals and disgusts” her.

“When you immigrated to Australia you took every advantage of this country. You took citizenship, bought multiple homes, and a job in a parliament,” she said at the time.

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