The Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi has applied to the federal court to reopen her racial discrimination case against Pauline Hanson, in a bid to air new evidence alleging that the One Nation leader knew Faruqi was a Muslim when she tweeted for her to “piss off back to Pakistan”.
Faruqi has alleged she had been racially discriminated against and vilified by Hanson under section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act and last week the federal court spent four days hearing evidence from both senators.
Faruqi’s legal team argued Hanson had targeted the Pakistani-born senator because she was a “Muslim migrant woman of colour”, but Hanson has denied that there was racial intent. Hanson told the court she was being rhetorical and had only learned Faruqi was a Muslim recently, well after she wrote the tweet.
Hanson gave evidence she had not noticed Faruqi wear Muslim garb in the Senate, adding, “I’ve never seen her wear a burqa or a hijab”, and telling the court she did not know 97% of people Pakistan were Muslim.
“When I put the tweet out, I wasn’t aware of her religious background … I don’t ask people their religious beliefs,” she told the court.
On Thursday, Faruqi’s legal team applied to have their case re-opened, claiming there was additional evidence for Justice Angus Stewart to consider.
According to Faruqi’s lawyers, that includes a Sky News podcast in which the former senator Cory Bernardi directly referenced Faruqi’s religion, describing her as a “Muslim woman” of “Pakistani origins” who had been in the NSW parliament and was now in federal politics.
In submissions published on Thursday, Faruqi’s lawyers say Hanson, who was also on the podcast, was “present and participating in the conversation”, when Bernardi made the comments.
Also included in the file was a tweet where Faruqi allegedly responded directly to Hanson: “I’m curious. @PaulineHansonOz am I a good Muslim or a bad one? #auspol?”
Hanson told the court she was expressing a genuinely held opinion, as she was “upset and offended” by Faruqi’s criticisms of colonisation on the same day Queen Elizabeth II died.
She previously told the court she did not have access to X, then Twitter, on her phone or computer and her staff ran the account under her name. She said she had learned of Faruqi’s original tweet after a staff member called her to tell her about it, and dictated a response over the phone. Hanson said she had not seen any of the responses to her tweet, and was unaware of the abuse Faruqi said she had been subjected to.
A decision on whether to hear the new evidence is yet to be made.
