One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has issued defamation warnings to Lidia Thorpe and Channel Nine’s Today show after the senator labelled her ‘a convicted racist’ on national television.
Senator Hanson’s top legal team, which is also managing her racism case against Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi, fired off the legal letters following Senator Thorpe’s appearance on Thursday morning’s program.
The letters, titled ‘urgent defamation’, demanded Ms Thorpe apologise for calling Ms Hanson a ‘convicted racist’ or face legal action.
‘This morning, you gave an interview broadcast on the Nine Network during the Today Show in which you referred to our client,’ the letter from solicitors Gillis Delaney read.
‘You alleged during that interview that Senator Hanson has been convicted of racism. That never occurred.
‘No such criminal offence was raised against our client and no such conviction exists.
‘It is highly irresponsible of you to have used this language on national television. It cannot have occurred innocently given how self-evidently false your claim is.’
The letter continued: ‘We require you to immediately and publicly withdraw the allegation that our client stands convicted of a criminal offence and to apologise to her for your inappropriate conduct.
‘You are a public servant who has a platform that should be used responsibly. Part of that involves urgently correcting yourself when you speak in error.
‘We look forward to your prompt response.’
A statement from Ms Hanson added: ‘Media outlets repeating the false claim by Lidia Thorpe that Senator Pauline Hanson has been “convicted of racism” have been put on notice they may face court proceedings.’
A Federal Court on November 1 found Ms Hanson had racially vilified Ms Faruqi by telling her to ‘p*ss off back to Pakistan’ in a message on X, formerly Twitter.
Ms Hanson’s legal team has filed an appeal on the judgement, saying her sledge wasn’t racist as she previously told another senator to ‘go back’ to New Zealand.
Her team also claimed Ms Hanson’s comment couldn’t be considered racial vilification as she didn’t mention Ms Mehreen’s skin colour.
Ms Hanson is using nearly $700,000 donated by supporters to help fund her legal team. She will be represented by leading barrister Sue Chrysathanou and her solicitor Anthony Jeffries, who also represents Lisa Wilkinson in the Bruce Lehrmann defamation trial.
Justice Angus Stewart’s findings handed down on November 1 found Ms Hanson’s post of X, formerly Twitter, broke section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act and was an ‘angry personal attack’ and conveyed a ‘strong form of racism’.
However, Ms Hanson’s attack wasn’t racist as ‘it only targeted Ms Faruqi, there is no explicit or implicit reference to colour’, the judge found.
Tensions between Ms Hanson and Ms Thorpe escalated after the controversial Indigenous politician yelled that Ms Hanson was a ‘convicted racist’ following a furious spray from independent senator Fatima Payman.
Ms Payman, who left Labor to set up her own party earlier this year, unleashed on the One Nation leader, accusing her of racism and claiming she spread hatred and division.
Their dispute was triggered by a document Ms Hanson tabled in which she questioned whether Ms Payman’s Afghan citizenship disqualified her from serving in parliament.
Section 44c of the n constitution prevents anyone who holds citizenship of another country from sitting in parliament.
Ms Payman was born in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, but gained n citizenship in 2005.
This, however, did not automatically revoke her Afghanistan citizenship, therefore raising questions over her eligibility to sit in the senate.
On Wednesday, Ms Payman lashed out at the One Nation leader in parliament, suggesting she ‘go to Afghanistan and talk to the Taliban about this’.
‘All that Senator Hanson has done in this place is spread hatred, spread division,’ Ms Payman seethed.
‘I am very honoured that I live rent free in Senator Hanson’s mind, but I think you’ve got better things to do than worry about Section 44.’
Ms Hanson called on Ms Payman to provide a ‘lot more evidence’ of her attempts to revoke her Afghanistan citizenship, arguing that to fail to to do so would set a ‘dangerous precedent’.
‘There’s a very good reason why the architects of our Constitution required that our elected representatives have undivided loyalties,’ Ms Hanson said.
‘It’s also the expectation of the n people that no foreign citizen or dual citizen be permitted to sit in the seat of our democracy.’
Her comments came after Ms Payman had accused her of racism by listing previous comments made by Ms Hanson, including her first speech in which she said was ‘in danger of being swamped by Asians’ and that ‘Aboriginality would no longer exist’ if her party were in power.
‘If that is not racist, what is it?’ Ms Payman yelled as she slammed her fist down on the table in the Senate.
‘Somebody bring the dictionary because Senator Hanson does not know the definition of racism.
‘The fact that you would say just weeks ago to Senator Faruqi, “piss off back to Pakistan”; you’re not just vindictive, mean, nasty, you bring disgrace to the human race. No dignity whatsoever as a senator in this prestigious place.’
Ms Thorpe could be heard repeatedly shouting ‘You are a convicted racist!’.
In a speech outside parliament on Thursday, following her suspension from the chamber for the rest of the sitting year, Ms Thorpe labelled the whole of ‘racist’ and cited her activism as the reason for her ban.
‘This is a very racist, divided country,’ she told reporters.
‘But that’s not what we want, we want peace, we want liberation, we want self determination. We want to decide our own destinies, not this place with the native police.’
Ms Thorpe earlier told the Today show that she had ‘no regrets’ about ‘standing up’ against racism.