Pauline Hanson has lost a bid to reduce the costs she is liable to pay Mehreen Faruqi over the Greens deputy leader’s successful racial discrimination case.
In November the federal court ruled in favour of Faruqi finding that Hanson’s tweet telling her to “pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan” was racially discriminatory, and ordering Hanson to pay costs.
The One Nation leader, who is also appealing against the judgment, applied to reduce the costs by at least 50% on the basis Faruqi could have brought the case in a lower court.
Hanson also argued Faruqi had failed in a bid to force her to pay $150,000 to the Sweatshop Literacy Movement, a group that helps culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
On Wednesday the federal court justice Angus Stewart refused to reduce the costs order, noting that Faruqi had been “successful in relation to important substantive relief” in winning a declaration that the tweet breached section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, and an injunction for Hanson to delete the tweet.
Stewart said the case had functioned as “a test case” for both Faruqi, who wanted to prove a “common form of egregious behaviour is unlawful”, and Hanson, who wanted to prove that 18C breached the implied freedom of political communication “to ensure that she and others can continue to say the sorts of things that I found to be unlawful”. Hanson failed in that bid.
Stewart noted Hanson’s legal team had suggested she might apply to go straight to the high court and had publicly raised funds for the case, claiming she wanted to raise $1m to test “serious questions” about the validity of 18C.
Stewart concluded that the case was legally complex and controversial, so it was “clear” it would not have been more appropriate for Faruqi to bring it in a lower court.
In November Hanson announced an appeal of the primary judgment, thanking her supporters for their “generosity and support” and claiming her office had been inundated with “calls offering moral and financial support”.
“I’ve been warning for years the extreme far left will use 18C to attack and silence those with whom they disagree,” she said in a statement.
“After my case, who’s next in their sights? Opposition leader Peter Dutton is now being referred to the human rights commission over the same thing.”
Faruqi has described her case as “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”.
In November Faruqi described the case as a “landmark” and 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”.
