High Court to Hear Pauline Hanson's Appeal Over Racial Discrimination Ruling

High Court to Hear Pauline Hanson’s Appeal Over Racial Discrimination Ruling

by

High Court Agrees to Hear Pauline Hanson’s Racial Discrimination Appeal

The High Court of Australia has consented to adjudicate Pauline Hanson’s appeal against a ruling that she committed racial discrimination against Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi, a decision that paves the way for a constitutional confrontation over free speech boundaries in the digital era, The Guardian reported. On Thursday, the One Nation leader obtained special leave to appeal following the full federal court’s unanimous affirmation earlier this year of a 2024 judgment declaring her tweet unlawful under the Racial Discrimination Act.

The case now heads to the nation’s highest court to determine whether Hanson’s 2022 comment telling Faruqi to “pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan” breached Section 18C of the RDA, or whether that law improperly burdens the implied freedom of political communication enshrined in the Constitution. This question directly challenges how Australia should protect against racial vilification while allowing open political discussion online.

The Tweet That Sparked a Four-Year Legal Battle

The dispute traces back to September 2022, in the hours after Queen Elizabeth II’s death. Faruqi posted condolences but added that she could not mourn “the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land, wealth of colonised peoples,” calling for Treaty with First Nations and reparations. Hanson, a staunch monarchist, fired back on what was then Twitter, writing that Faruqi’s attitude “appalls and disgusts” her. When you immigrated to Australia, Hanson wrote, you took “every advantage of this country” through citizenship, multiple homes, and a parliamentary job, concluding: “It’s clear you’re not happy, so pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan.”

In November 2024, Federal Court Justice Angus Stewart found the tweet unlawful, describing it as “seriously humiliating” and ordering Hanson to delete it, ABC News reported. Stewart ruled that the post portrayed Faruqi as a “second-class citizen” who should be “grateful for what she has and keep quiet”—a position he declared “exclusionary.” He found the phrase about returning to Pakistan was a “variant of the slogan ‘go back to where you came from’,” which he called a “racist trope” and a “strong form of racism.” The judge rejected Hanson’s argument that Faruqi’s tweet justified her response, finding the post was an “angry, personal attack” that did not fall within the fair comment exemption.

From Federal Court to the High Court

That decision was unanimously upheld in July by three federal court judges—Melissa Perry, Geoffrey Kennett and Elizabeth Bennett—who dismissed all seven grounds of Hanson’s appeal. But on Thursday, six High Court justices granted her special leave to appeal in a one-line statement, WAtoday reported.

Hanson welcomed the decision, posting on X that “this case has always been bigger than me and bigger than one tweet.” She argued that “Australians must be able to speak their minds, question their government and disagree with each other without being frightened into silence,” pointing also to Labor’s digital duty of care bill as a threat to lawful debate online. Her lawyers contend that any law making her tweet “unsayable” would break “the flow of political communication between the elected and their electors in a way that goes well beyond its purpose.” Hanson has fought this law before; during a 2016 Senate debate, she warned, “You can’t say or do anything anymore, otherwise you’ll be dragged off to the law courts.”

Faruqi responded with a two-word challenge: “Bring it on.” The Greens senator said the case had been “a long, hard road walked alongside everyone who has been targeted by racism,” adding, “We won’t be backing down now.” She framed the High Court hearing as a chance to determine “once and for all that people in this country are protected against racism,” noting that people of colour, migrants and Muslims “deserve to feel safe in the place they call home” and that the legal system “must be able to provide protection against vilification.”

Pauline Hanson looks to the side seriously
Photo: ABC News & Headlines

Testing the Limits of Section 18C

The High Court will examine whether Section 18C—which makes it unlawful to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate someone based on race—is a valid law, or whether it treads too heavily on the implied freedom of political communication. The section has been a target for conservatives for more than a decade, and the Coalition once tried to repeal it, according to WAtoday. The federal court previously held that the law restricted only a “relatively narrow segment” of political communication to prevent harm, and that most genuine political speech would be captured by the “fair comment” exemption in Section 18D, so long as it was made reasonably and in good faith. The three judges noted that while “insult and invective are a normal feature of political debate,” that does not mean they are “so central to the free flow of ideas that complete freedom must be preserved.”

Legal experts caution that such constitutional challenges rarely succeed. Dr Jemimah Roberts, a lecturer at Macquarie University Law School, told WAtoday that despite some recent high-profile wins, the general history of implied freedom cases shows “it’s actually very rare in Australia for these challenges to be successful.” Dr Jemimah Roberts said judges are very aware of both the importance of limits and their appropriate role, and the High Court has held for decades that the freedom is implied because voting in a democracy requires some degree of free political speech.

A spokesperson for federal attorney general Michelle Rowland declined to comment on the specifics while the matter is before the court, but emphasized that Section 18C was more important to Australia’s social cohesion “than ever” and that “there is no place for racism or racial hatred in our society,” according to the Daily Mail.

The hearing date has not yet been set. When it happens, the justices will weigh whether the Racial Discrimination Act’s protections against racial vilification can coexist with the constitutional guarantee of political communication—or whether one must yield to the other in Australia’s evolving digital public square.

More on High Court

Keep reading

Read next