Pauline Hanson makes a sad admission after losing court battle over her ‘go back to Pakistan’ sledge

Pauline Hanson has revealed she retreated from the world after she lost a defamation case brought by Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi but has vowed to fight the decision on behalf of all Australians.

The One Nation leader was dealt a devastating blow when a judge found earlier this month she had racially vilified Ms Faruqi when she told her to ‘p*** off back to Pakistan’ in a tweet.

The Federal court ruled that the tweet was racist, that Senator Hanson must remove it and that she must pay Senator Faruqi’s legal fees after she launched the defamation action on September 9, 2022.

The judge found Ms Hanson’s tweet was unlawful under Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act and declined to make orders proposed by Senator Faruqi that the One Nation leader pay $150,000 to a charity or undertake anti-racism training.

However, Ms Hanson will take the case to the Court of Appeal, as she seeks to make her fight a test case for all Australians.

On Wednesday, Ms Hanson said she was ‘devastated’ after the interview, having previously broken down, claiming Australia is ‘not the country that I grew up in’.

‘I basically shut myself away for a couple of days,’ she told Sky News Australia host Chris Kenny.

‘I just had to rebuild my strength and realise ‘okay, pick yourself up, dust yourself down, I can’t go anywhere, I have to fight this’.

One Nation leader Paul Hanson has revealed she retreated from the world after she lost a defamation case brought by Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi

Senator Faruqi outside court after her win. Senator Hanson was ordered to remove the tweet and pay legal costs. She has so far raised over $650,000 for an appeal

‘It’s just not about Pauline Hanson anymore. It’s about people’s freedom of speech in this nation that we have a right to have an opinion and every which way they’re trying to shut it down.’

Ms Hanson, who has raised over $650,000 to help fund her appeal, said she was grateful for the ‘overwhelming’ amount of support she had received since the court’s ruling.

‘The phones at my office never stop ringing, either at my parliamentary office or whether it was in Queensland head office,’ she said.

‘The letters and wishes of support and prayers, it’s been so welcomed.’

In a scathing judgment, Justice Angus Stewart found Senator Hanson engaged in ‘seriously offensive’ and intimidating behaviour with the tweet.

The day of Queen Elizabeth’s death, Senator Faruqi took to Twitter, now known as X, to offer condolences to those who knew the monarch. 

But she added she could not mourn the passing of the leader of a ‘racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised peoples’.

In a response, Senator Hanson said she was appalled and disgusted by the comments.

Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi said the tweet provoked a ‘torrent of racist abuse’ and she launched defamation in the Federal Court 

‘When you immigrated to Australia you took every advantage of this country,’ she wrote.

‘It’s clear you’re not happy, so pack your bags and p*** off back to Pakistan.’

Justice Stewart said this post was othering and exclusionary.

‘It is a message that Senator Faruqi is, as an immigrant, a second-class citizen, and that she should be grateful for what she has and keep quiet,’ he said in his Federal Court ruling.

The phrase ‘go back to where you came from’ was a racist, anti-immigrant and nativist trope traceable to the White Australia Policy, the judge noted.

Migrants and other Muslims would have been offended, insulted, humiliated and intimidated by the tweet, he said.

‘It is a strong form of racism,’ Justice Stewart said.

He found Senator Hanson had a decades-long tendency to make negative, derogatory, discriminating or hateful statements against people of colour, migrants and Muslims.

Justice Stewart rejected the One Nation leader’s claim she did not know her Greens rival was a Muslim at the time of the tweet.

Similarly he dismissed arguments the post was a fair comment in a political discussion about alleged hypocrisy from the Greens deputy in criticising the monarchy while benefiting from life in Australia.

But on Wednesday Ms Hanson reiterated her argument that neither Senator Faruqi’s skin colour nor her Islamic faith factored into her post.   

‘Let me just point out also, that under the 18C, religion doesn’t come into it so her being a Muslim has got absolutely nothing to do with it,’ Ms Hanson said.

‘So (the judge) said because she came from Pakistan which is a Muslim country, I was basically having a go at her.

‘I don’t care about a person’s colour of their skin or what religion she was, had nothing to do with it.’

Ms Hanson also claimed there were a lot of messages from other Australians who ‘also were insulted by her tweet, not me’.

***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk