Australian court rejects racial discrimination appeal by Pauline Hanson

What the report says

Al Jazeera, citing its staff and Reuters, reports that Australia’s Full Federal Court has dismissed Pauline Hanson’s appeal against a racial discrimination finding involving Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi. The unanimous decision, issued on Monday and reported on July 27, 2026, upheld an earlier ruling that Hanson’s social media post telling Faruqi to leave Australia and return to Pakistan breached racial discrimination law.

The case stemmed from a 2022 exchange after the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Faruqi, a Muslim senator, had criticised the British monarchy’s imperial legacy. Hanson, leader of the right-wing One Nation party, responded with the post later found unlawful. In 2024, a court ruled Hanson had racially discriminated against Faruqi; the appeal court has now said Hanson failed to make out any of her appeal grounds and that free speech protections did not shield the comment.

According to Al Jazeera, the three-judge panel agreed with the earlier court’s view that Hanson’s post carried an anti-Muslim and Islamophobic message and echoed a longstanding anti-immigrant “go back” slogan. The court also rejected Hanson’s constitutional arguments and did not accept that the post was protected as fair comment on a matter of public interest.

Faruqi welcomed the ruling outside court in Sydney, framing it as a victory for people targeted with demands to “go back” elsewhere. Hanson said she and her lawyers would review the judgment and planned to seek an appeal in the High Court. The decision matters beyond the two senators because it tests the boundary between political expression and racial vilification in Australian public debate, amid continued attention to One Nation’s hardline immigration platform.