Former senator Brian Burston sexually harassed two female staff members but One Nation leader Pauline Hanson must pay him $250,000 in damages for wrongly accusing him of sexual abuse and an unprovoked assault, a Federal Court judge has ruled.
Burston, a former One Nation senator and later leader of Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party in the Senate, launched defamation proceedings against Hanson in June 2020 over comments she made in a 2019 Facebook post, a television interview and a text to his wife. He had split from One Nation in 2018.
Pauline Hanson and Brian Burston.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Burston claimed the publications conveyed a range of defamatory meanings, including that he “sexually harassed staff in his office”.
He said the interview on Nine’s Today program also conveyed the defamatory meanings that he “sexually abused a female staffer in his parliamentary office” and “physically assaulted [Hanson’s chief of staff] James Ashby in the Great Hall of Parliament House without provocation”.
In a defence filed in court, Hanson said the defamatory meanings alleged by Burston were not conveyed but sought to rely on a range of defences, including truth, in the event the court found the meanings were conveyed.
In a judgment delivered on Wednesday, Justice Robert Bromwich upheld the claim in relation to the two Today claims only. He ordered Hanson to pay $250,000 in damages plus interest.
Bromwich accepted the evidence of two of Burston’s former staff members, Wendy Leach and Terrie-lea Vairy, that he sexually harassed them both but did not make a finding of sexual abuse.
He said he was not in “any doubt” that Burston sexually propositioned Leach by saying: “Oh Wendy, you probably just need a good f—. I’m not joking. I can come around to your place. No one would need to know. It will be the best f— you’ve ever had.”
Bromwich said Burston harassed Vairy, including by kissing her on the lips without her consent and making sexualised or suggestive comments. Vairy also told the court that Burston had put, or attempted to put, $100 down her top or between her breasts after she tried to return money he had given her in a birthday card.
“She rejected the suggestion that the event did not take place, and I accept that evidence,” Bromwich said.
However, the judge said there was some uncertainty about whether Burston tried or succeeded in putting $100 down her top or between her cleavage or whether it was “shoved forcefully between her breasts”.
“There was no greater clarity sought about what took place than that,” Bromwich said. On that basis, he said the evidence “clearly proves sexual harassment” but did not make a finding of sexual abuse.
Bromwich said Burston “crossed an important line in key areas between giving evidence of merely a different recollection of what had taken place, and giving an account that he must have known was not correct”.
But Bromwich said an incident at Parliament House in Canberra in February 2019, in which Burston threw Ashby’s phone across the floor and pushed him, was not unprovoked and Ashby had been filming him at the time.
Burston subsequently smeared blood on Hanson’s office door.
Bromwich said the “serious imputations as sexual abuse and physical assault without provocation” were “in a different category to sexual harassment or treating staff improperly”.
Hanson said in a statement that she was considering her appeal rights and the court had “accepted the candid evidence of two brave women who were willing to speak out about their experiences”.
“I am grateful to Ms Leach and Ms Vairy for their courage and resilience in extremely difficult circumstances.”
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