It’s nasty stuff but this particular Pauline Hanson tweet hadn’t mentioned Islam at all

Pauline Hanson’s tweet was crude and rude but it seems she has essentially been found guilty of criticising the extreme political beliefs of a woman who, by chance, is brown and Muslim.

Pauline Hanson was smashed in the Federal Court last Friday. Her One Nation party now faces bankruptcy, with legal bills estimated at $900,000.

Many will cheer, but this verdict is deeply troubling.

It seems to me Hanson has essentially been found guilty of criticising the extreme political beliefs of a woman who, by chance, is brown and Muslim.

Two years ago Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi responded to the death of the Queen with a brutal tweet: “Condolences to those who knew the Queen. I cannot mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised peoples.”

Pauline Hanson was smashed in the Federal Court. Picture: Nikki Short

That tweet predictably caused much anger.

But Faruqi blamed the backlash on what Hanson tweeted in response: “Your attitude appalls (sic) and disgusts me. When you immigrated to Australia you took every advantage of this country. You took citizenship, bought multiple homes, and a job in a parliament. It’s clear you’re not happy, so pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan.”

Note that nowhere there did Hanson say Faruqi was a Muslim or “woman of colour”.

Yes, she’d mentioned Pakistan, but told the court she’d have told Faruqi to “piss off back to New Zealand” had she been a Kiwi instead.

Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi responded to the death of the Queen with a brutal tweet. Picture: Monique Harmer

I believe her. I’m sure Hanson would have said the same to an immigrant from any other country who’d similarly attacked our head of state, our past, our culture and our system of government.

After all, Faruqi in her first speech as a Senator also declared we lived “on stolen land” which “always will be Aboriginal land, claimed “bigotry and xenophobia have been allowed to flourish”, and said our “culture of online harassment” targeted “everyone who is not a straight white man”.

I’d guess many Australians would also then wonder why Faruqi chose in 1992 to come to this racist, stolen, women-hating land with its thieving head of state?

You’d ask that even if she were white, Christian and male, because the incongruity is so striking.

Couldn’t Faruqi at least make more speeches saying this “racist” country must actually be great if a brown Muslim woman could now own four properties and be in parliament?

Yet Justice Angus Stewart decided Hanson’s response to Faruqi was racist and unlawful under the Racial Discrimination Act, ordering her to take it down and pay Faruqi’s legal costs.

He conceded “it is true the words in Senator Hanson’s tweet did not refer to skin colour”, but added: “The tweet was directed to a Muslim woman of colour who immigrated from Pakistan”.

Hanson’s response to Faruqi was ruled to be racist and unlawful under the Racial Discrimination Act. Picture: Dan Peled

Duh! Yes, of course it was, because that happened to be the author of that nasty anti-Queen post.

What’s the judge suggesting? Hanson’s response would have been OK had she been criticising a white Christian instead?

Maybe so. Faruqi once told Prime Minister Scott Morrison to “just f … off”, but the judge noted she defended that as “not racist”.

Anyway, once the judge decided Hanson had offended a brown Muslim woman with her “age-old racist trope”, all that was left was to prove racism had indeed been Hanson’s secret agenda. Mind readers, some judges.

This involved putting Hanson on trial, in effect, for everything she’d ever said about Muslims.

Hanson’s past caught up with her. The judge pointed out Hanson had once said she wouldn’t sell her house to a Muslim, that no Muslim should be allowed to immigrate here, and “Islam is a disease we need to vaccinate ourselves against”.

Nasty stuff. But to repeat: this particular Hanson tweet hadn’t mentioned Islam at all.

It got worse. The judge gave other examples of Hanson’s “Islamophobic claims” including saying Islam was “not compatible with our way of life”. Is that now an opinion that cannot be safely debated?

Faruqi once told Prime Minister Scott Morrison to ‘just f … off’. Picture: Max Mason-Hubers

The judge also attacked Hanson for making “negative, derogatory, discriminating or hateful statements” by criticising multiculturalism and attacking the “white guilt industry”.

Those don’t seem “hateful” statements to me. Even former prime ministers agree with them.

So what next? It’s a perilously small step from suggesting an immigrant not stay here to saying others not come at all.

Will Opposition Leader Peter Dutton now be dragged before the Federal Court, to be told that when he said it was too dangerous to bring in Palestinians from terrorist-Gaza he was actually being racist to brown Muslims?

I’m told Hanson is shattered by this verdict, and her party cannot afford to appeal it unless donors bail it out.

I hope some will, because Hanson’s tweet was crude and rude, but banning it is far more dangerous.