Former Labor leader Mark Latham plans to turn defamation proceedings that have been launched against him into a test case on whether those who criticise white people can legitimately be described as racists.
Latham is being sued by commentator Osman Faruqi over a broadcast in which he said Faruqi and others were fomenting hatred of white people and effectively encouraging terrorists.
“This is very much a test case,” Latham said yesterday. “They are challenging my right to object to anti-white racism.”
He told The Australian non-white people could lodge complaints under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act over remarks that caused them to feel offended, insulted, humiliated or intimidated. “But you can apparently say anything about white people,” he said.
The case, which has been filed in the Federal Court in Sydney, comes after the Australian Human Rights Commission rejected a complaint last November from senator David Leyonhjelm, who objected to Fairfax Media describing him as an “angry white male”.
In the latest case, Faruqi is suing for damages over an August 2 episode of the online program Mark Latham’s Outsiders that named Faruqi and said the rise of anti-white racism was “phenomenally unacceptable”.
Faruqi, who works for Junkee Media, wants the Federal Court to impose a permanent restraining order on Latham to prevent him publishing any defamatory imputations from the episode.
Latham’s defence, which was filed this week, shows his primary argument is that the imputations asserted by Faruqi do not arise. But if the court disagrees, Latham hopes to prove the defamatory meanings are substantially true and are protected by several other defences.
He plans to argue that they are his honest opinion, are fair comment and amount to constitutionally protected free speech on political and government matters. He also intends to argue that his program contained other meanings, including that Faruqi is a racist who has committed anti-white racism and that by contributing to fomenting anti-white racism Faruqi had given succour to terrorist fanatics.
Latham has submitted more than 10 pages of tweets in which Faruqi disparages white people. His defence document says it is open to the Federal Court to infer that the defamation claim had been launched by Faruqi, through solicitor Josh Bornstein of Maurice Blackburn, for an illegitimate and improper purpose. The ulterior and collateral purpose of the claim was to generate attention and notoriety for Faruqi and elevate him in the eyes of his followers to the status of “a celebutante, hero, paladin or martyr”.
The defence says Mr Bornstein, a prominent Melbourne solicitor, did not have his client’s statement of claim settled by independent counsel and “apparently attached greater priority to his role as Faruqi’s media spokesman”. Mr Bornstein “made no endeavour, or no concerted, serious or genuine endeavour to ensure the statement of claim was competent, viable and valid”, Latham’s defence document says.
The statement of claim “is embarrassing and incompetent on the grounds that it does not allege any factual basis” for the court’s jurisdiction.
It was “ambiguous, confusing and confounding”, parts were “frivolous and vexatious”, while another part “fails to disclose a reasonable cause of action”.
