Former NSW deputy premier John Barilaro has been awarded $715,000 in defamation damages over two YouTube videos.
Mr Barilaro sued Google in the Federal Court over its failure to remove the sketch videos, which were made by comedian Jordan Shanks and published in September and October 2020.
The former Monaro MP said they were "vulgar", "offensive", portrayed him as a corrupt conman and included "racial slurs" referencing his Italian heritage.
Justice Steven Rares today said the videos of Mr Shanks, better known as FriendlyJordies, constituted a "relentless and vicious campaign against Mr Barilaro".
He accepted the retired politician was "traumatised" and said Google had failed to take responsibility for its conduct as a publisher.
Justice Rares noted Mr Shanks had called Mr Barilaro "disgusting" names and related him to the Mario brothers from Nintendo's video games.
"Although Mr Shanks styles himself as a comedian, his repeated use of such terms was not comedic," the judge said.
"It was nothing less than racist hate speech."
Google initially fought the case but progressively abandoned all its defence arguments.
The judge found the tech giant failed to apply its own policies designed to prevent hate speech, cyberbullying and harassment.
It failed to explain why it left the "many racist attacks" on YouTube once Mr Barilaro's staff had complained in late 2020.
In December last year, a further video published from Mr Shanks referred "pointedly" to Mr Barilaro's solicitor and the judge said they made allegations "without factual or intelligible basis" attacking the professional integrity of his legal team.
Justice Rares said this was a "splenetic and vindictive attack ... calculated to bring improper pressure to intimidate each of them from continuing to act for Mr Barilaro".
The judge referred the conduct of Mr Shanks and Google to the Principal Registrar of the court to consider proceedings against them for "what appear to be serious contempts of court".
Outside court, Mr Barilaro said he felt vindicated and was happy it's "the end of the journey".
"You've got to be either courageous or stupid to take on Google, maybe it's a bit of both," he said.
Mr Barilaro accepted even if the original videos were removed, the material would remain online in other forms.
"That's the reality, and that's the beast that is social media and the online world," he said.
But he said all he ever wanted was an apology.
"It's all I ever wanted from the outset," he said.
"It's why we settled with Jordan Shanks. He was prepared to apologise.
"It was never about money. It was about an apology, removal."
As for life after politics, the former deputy premier said he was "enjoying" the next phase of his life, particularly after a traumatic final 18 months in office dealing with the videos.
"Life's good. I'm just enjoying life. There'll be plenty to do. I'm 50, there's a next chapter."
Earlier this year, Mr Barilaro told the court the videos caused him to consider self-harm and triggered many threatening confrontations in public with fans of Mr Shanks.
In November, he settled a parallel case against Mr Shanks, after the comedian apologised for any offence caused and agreed to edit his videos.
