The one simple question race row senator should have been able to answer - but ... trends now
Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi has replied 'no comment' when asked outside her defamation hearing whether all white people are racist.
Senator Faruqi is suing fellow Senator Pauline Hanson for $150,000 in damages over online comments the One Nation leader made in September 2022, telling her to 'p*** off back to Pakistan' following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
Senator Hanson's comments were sparked by the Greens deputy leader's tweet declaring she 'cannot mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised peoples'.
Senator Faruqi was approached by independent journalist Chris De Bruyne outside the Federal Court in Sydney this week where she gave the eyebrow-raising response to what he said should have been a simple question.
'Are all white people racist?' Mr De Bruyne asked.
Senator Faruqi shook her head and replied 'no comment'.
'That's not a no,' Mr De Bruyne pushed.
Senator Faruqi's solicitor then advised her not to respond and the pair walked away.
Senator Mehreen Faruqi outside Federal Court this week replied 'no comment' when asked 'are all white people racist?'
She is suing Pauline Hanson (pictured with her lawyer Sue Chrysanthou) for $150,000 in damages over what she claims was a racist tweet aimed at her
Senator Faruqi took action over Senator Hanson's tweet after claiming it was racially discriminatory and provoked a 'torrent' of nasty comments online.
She has accused Senator Hanson of beaching section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act which prohibits acts that offend, insult or humiliate a person based on their race, ethnicity or nationality.
She told the Federal Court this week that verbal attacks on white people in Australia are not racist because racism is 'tied to power' and that 'power ... is held by white people' in this country.
'It is tied to who holds the power and who has the authority to perpetrate racism and oppress people,' Ms Faruqi said when asked about comments her son, journalist Osman Faruqi, had made criticising white people.
'And in this country, the power of that is held by white people.'
Senator Hanson has accused Ms Faruqi of hypocrisy.
In his closing submissions in the Federal Court on Wednesday, Ms Faruqi's barrister Saul Holt KC labelled Senator Hanson a 'a high-profile purveyor of hateful speech' against people with migrant characteristics.
'The words published (in her tweet) were a version of a well known, anti-migrant, racist phrase 'go back to where you came from',' he said.
'And they were plainly targeted (at) a brown, Muslim, migrant senator.'
Senator Faruqi was born in Pakistan before migrating to Australia, where she became Australia's first Muslim senator in 2018.
Mr Holt argued the words sent 'a clear message' of 'the idea of banishment' and that Senator Faruqi was 'of a lesser status' because of her ethnic origin.
'Being told ... not to bite the hand that feeds you, is really to be told to shut up and stop engaging in controversial speech because you're a migrant,' he
