CANBERRA — Tensions in the Australian Senate reached boiling point as Greens Deputy Leader Mehreen Faruqi launched a fiery broadside against One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, accusing her of using “racism, dog whistling, and scapegoating” for political gain. The bitter chamber clash comes on the heels of Hanson’s decision to take her free-speech battle to the High Court of Australia.
Taking the chamber floor during a contentious debate, Faruqi unleashed a direct attack on Hanson’s three-decade political legacy. “Senator Pauline Hanson is a racist. She has always been a racist, and she will always be a racist,” Faruqi declared, drawing immediate intervention from the Senate President. Under standing orders prohibiting personal reflections on fellow parliamentarians, the President ordered Faruqi to withdraw the comment.
While Faruqi complied with the formal withdrawal, she refused to back down from her broader critique, pointing to judicial findings and accusing One Nation of acting as “merchants of hate who find it easier to destroy communities than to build them”. Faruqi argued that One Nation deliberately redirects public anxieties over housing and cost of living toward “an invented enemy: migrants and Muslims”.
The parliamentary confrontation marks the latest chapter in a multi-year legal and political war between the two politicians. The feud stems from a 2022 social media exchange in which Hanson told Pakistan-born Faruqi to “pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan“.
The Full Federal Court dismissed Hanson’s appeal, unanimously upholding the original ruling that Hanson had breached section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. The judges affirmed that the comment constituted an exclusionary racist trope that treated Faruqi as a “second-class citizen”. Following the ruling, the Australian Greens Media Release declared the decision a victory for migrant and Muslim communities, affirming that “hate speech is not free speech”.
Hanson is escalating the battle to the nation’s highest court. Hanson’s legal team is seeking special leave to argue before the High Court that section 18C impermissibly infringes upon the constitutionally implied freedom of political communication.
As recorded in the official Parliament of Australia Hansard Transcript, Faruqi also criticised major political parties for failing to unequivocally condemn One Nation’s rhetoric, warning that political appeasement has normalised anti-migrant hostility across the nation.