John Barilaro sues over ‘vile’ YouTube slurs

John Barilaro is suing YouTube comedian Jordan Shanks-Markovina for defamation over two ‘vile and racist’ videos that accused him of being a conman who had ‘committed perjury’.

NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro is suing YouTube comedian Jordan Shanks-Markovina for defamation over alleged “vile and racist” videos that accused the Nationals stalwart of being a “dangerously incompetent” conman who had “committed perjury” on nine occasions.

Mr Barilaro, 46, is suing the YouTuber – who’s also known as Friendlyjordies – over two videos titled Bruz and Secret Dictatorship, which were uploaded in September and October last year.

In a statement of claim filed on Thursday, Mr Barilaro’s lawyers say the comedian defamed him in multiple ways, including by suggesting he is “a corrupt conman”, “acted corruptly by engaging in the blackmailing of councillors” and should be jailed for perjury.

They also say Mr Shanks-Markovina is waging “a smear campaign” against the Deputy Premier by suggesting that he is a “fat, decadent conman” who “corruptly gave $3.3 million to a beef company” and allegedly ­corruptly “voted against a royal commission into water theft”.

It further states that Google, which runs YouTube, also defamed Mr Barilaro by failing to remove the videos despite requests from his lawyers.

Mr Barilaro will argue the videos “greatly injured” his personal and professional reputation, which has been “brought into public disrepute, odium, ridicule and contempt”.

It is alleged Mr Shanks-Markovina aggravated the hurt and harm to the Deputy Premier’s reputation in a later video by calling him a “conman to the core, powered by spaghetti”, a “ball of grease”, “Giovanni, the greasy ­little scrotum” who looked “a bit like a meatball”.

Mr Barilaro is seeking damages, including general and aggravated damages; an order that the “other defamatory and/or offensive videos” be deleted from YouTube; and that Friendlyjordies’ channel be restrained from publishing videos about him in future.

In the second video, Secret Dictatorship, Mr Shanks-Markovina suggested Mr Barilaro had “acted corruptly by engaging in the blackmailing of councillors” and had “pocketed millions of dollars” which had been “stolen from Narrandera Shire Council”.

Mr Barilaro is understood to have briefed high-profile Sydney silk Sue Chrysanthou SC, who on Thursday was restrained from acting for former Attorney-General Christian Porter in his defamation case against the ABC. Mr Barilaro’s statement of claim was prepared by top defamation lawyer Paul Svilans.

Earlier this month, the YouTuber published a 44-minute video accompanied with screenshots of a letter sent by Mr Barilaro’s legal team to Friendlyjordies’ Facebook page. Mr Shanks-Markovina mocked and goaded the Deputy Premier by “waving the letter” throughout the video, according to court documents.

The legal letter demanded he remove the videos, apologise and pay him compensation “for the hurt and harm that he has suffered by reason of your conduct”. “Your vile and racist attacks on our client have caused him immense personal hurt,” it read.

Mr Shanks-Markovina has labelled the Deputy Premier’s decision to launch defamation proceedings as “dangerous”.

“This suit could have terrible implications for free speech in this country,” he told The Australian. “The very fact that John filed it proves he doesn’t care about his constituency, (most who value freedom of speech and can’t afford expensive lawyers) as he’ll be too busy in court to do his job.

If John’s suing me for calling him corrupt I’ll be using a truth defence and there’s a lot of people I’m excited to subpoena.”