Good afternoon. An emotional Mehreen Faruqi has said she “will be speaking out more loudly and more strongly than ever before” after the federal court ruled Pauline Hanson engaged in racial discrimination when she told the Greens senator to “pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan”.
The proceedings centred on an interaction the pair had on Twitter in 2022, shortly after Queen Elizabeth II died, when Hanson responded to a tweet in which Faruqi wrote: “I cannot mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised peoples.”
Justice Angus Stewart found Hanson’s comment that Faruqi should “piss off back to Pakistan” was a “variant of the slogan ‘go back to from where you came from’” which he said was a “strong form of racism”. The One Nation leader was ordered to delete the tweet and pay Faruqi’s costs, which Faruqi’s lawyer said would likely total “many hundreds of thousands of dollars”.
Faruqi said the win sent “a strong message to racists that they will be held accountable” and made clear that “hate speech is not free speech”. Hanson, who was not present in court, wrote on X that she had “instructed her lawyers to prepare and lodge appeal documents”.
Top news
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Passport office officials under investigation | At least 18 officials within the federal government’s passport office are facing investigation after a scathing audit report revealed multiple instances where conflicts of interest were not declared and preferred suppliers had wrongly been identified ahead of time.
Victorian Greens co-deputy quits over relationship with staffer | The Prahran MP, Sam Hibbins, will quit the state party room and sit as an independent after revealing he had a “consensual relationship” with a staff member in his office, in breach of the party’s rules.
Police investigate death of police dogs | NSW police said they believed a possible engine failure was to blame for the death of German shepherds Xtra and Soldier, who were found dead by their handler in a police vehicle in southern Sydney on Thursday.
Senior police officer referred to Victoria’s corruption watchdog | Victoria police confirmed it had referred the deputy commissioner Neil Paterson to the state’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission over an alleged road rage incident involving a heated argument outside a Melbourne school in July.
Victoria to end licence suspensions for medicinal cannabis | The state has given magistrates the power to exercise sentencing discretion for drivers caught with traces of the drug in their system if they hold a valid prescription and are unimpaired while driving.
US election latest | Jennifer Lopez joined Kamala Harris on stage at a rally in Las Vegas, telling the crowd that the city is “Harris country”. Earlier, the cast of Marvel’s Avengers movies came out in support of Harris in a video playfully riffing on their respective characters. Meanwhile, Donald Trump reiterated threats against the “enemy within” at a rally in Arizona, a state where many residents fear political violence as polling day looms.
UN should consider suspending Israel, special rapporteur says | Francesca Albanese said no other country had defied so many UN resolutions for so long, reasserting in a new report that Israel was not just committing war crimes or crimes against humanity in Gaza, but a genocide.
Mexican state bans Halloween costumes | Authorities in Sinaloa ordered residents not to don masks or costumes for Halloween to avoid being confused with criminals. Amid a worsening cycle of cartel violence, the measures were reportedly aimed at discouraging people from glorifying drug traffickers.
In pictures
Jacaranda season in Sydney
It’s the most wonderful time of the year – Sydney’s jacaranda trees are in full bloom, blanketing the city in purple and attracting crowds of people trying to capture that perfect frame.
What they said …
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“The [Department of Environmental Conservation] came to my house and raided my house without a search warrant to find a squirrel!”
Mark Longo, who turned a rescued squirrel into a social media star called Peanut, is pleading with New York authorities to return his beloved pet after they seized it during a raid. It is against state law to own a wild animal without a licence. By Thursday night, Longo had gathered nearly 20,000 signatures urging the return of Peanut, and says he has hired a legal team to get him back.
In numbers
Since launching its Ukraine offensive in February 2022, Russia has levied huge fines on social media companies accused of hosting Kremlin-critical or pro-Ukraine content. The total sum of legal claims against Google in Russia has reached two undecillion roubles (US$20 decillion), according to the Russian news outlet RBK – a figure higher than all the money in the world combined.
Before bed read
Dolly Parton: ‘I was sorry when Dolly the sheep died – though I don’t want to be cloned’
As she launches a new LP and her own wine, the country legend answers Guardian readers’ questions on her tough childhood, how she recorded Jolene, and why she’ll never retire.
Daily word game
Today’s starter word is: ACES. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.
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