A tweet by Pauline Hanson that is at the centre of a long-running racial vilification case was “not just garden-variety racism” but Islamophobic, an appeal court has heard.

The One Nation leader and Queensland senator is seeking to overturn a Federal Court ruling last year that she breached the Racial Discrimination Act in a post on Twitter, now X, telling Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi to “piss off back to Pakistan”.

Hanson’s three-day appeal is being heard by the Full Court of the Federal Court. Her barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, SC, argued on Monday that the context of the tweet “doesn’t support a racist motive”.

In a decision in November last year, Justice Angus Stewart found the post was a variant of the racist trope “go back to where you came from”. He ordered Hanson to delete the

See Full Page