A judge has sensationally slammed online comedian FriendlyJordies as a “bully” over what he described as a “shameful” and “disgusting” video in which he racially attacked former deputy premier John Barilaro.
Mr Barilaro is suing tech giant Google for damages over its failure to remove two videos posted by former model Jordan Shanks to his YouTube channel in 2020.
The Federal Court has previously heard Mr Barilaro was considering self-harm and withdrew from politics as a result of the videos, which used racial slurs such as “wog” and which he says painted him as a “corrupt conman”.
Mr Barilaro sued Mr Shanks, over the videos “Bruz” and “Secret Dictatorship”, however settled last year after the content creator apologised and edited both of the videos.
However, the former member for Monaro pursued Google in the Federal Court over its failure to pull the videos.
The court heard that when Mr Barilaro was asked about one of the videos by a journalist in 2020, he criticised them as being racist.
In response, Mr Shanks posted another video making similar claims, his barrister Sue Chrysanthou said.
“Like many bullies, Mr Shanks can’t take it if he’s called out and has to lash back with more bullying,” Justice Steven Rares said.
“And that’s what we say happened,” Ms Chrysanthou replied.
“They’re shameful; I mean, they are just disgusting,” Justice Rares said.
In the Federal Court on Wednesday, the trial entered its closing stages, as Ms Chrysanthou began her closing arguments.
Ms Chrysanthou said Google violated it own policies on the use of racial epithets by allowing the videos to stay up following his complaints.
“There has been a grotesque ignoring of these policies by Google in deciding to leave this material up,” Ms Chrysanthou said.
“And that is improper and lacks bona fides and my client has given evidence that he is upset about it.”
As well, they had failed to fact check many of the claims in Mr Shanks’ video, which were disputed by publicly available information and news stories.
The court heard that in one of the videos, it was claimed Mr Barilaro was trying to drive young people out of his electorate to increase his chance of being re-elected.
“It is frankly absurd and cannot stand up to any sort of scrutinyxjmtzyw by any person with half a brain who can speak English,” Ms Chrysanthou said.
Earlier, Mr Barilaro was grilled by Google’s barrister, James Hmelnitsky SC, who asked the former Nationals MP about the state of mind he was in when the videos were first released.
The court heard Mr Barilaro had threatened to quit NSW Cabinet and walk away from a Coalition with the Liberals because of a dispute about koala policy around the time the videos went up on YouTube.
He agreed the videos, which depicted Mr Barilaro as a bribe-taking corrupt conman and mocked his Italian heritage, came out when he was in a “fragile” state because of the dispute within the government and the death of his father in August 2020.
Questioned about another Friendlyjordies video posted in December 2021, Mr Barilaro agreed he had not asked Google to take that video down until after a deadline on a settlement offer with Google had expired in January 2022.
He previously told the court he felt Google never acted on complaints about the video because it wanted to pressure him to accept the settlement offer.
The video in question, labelled only with a tongue emoji, included brief excerpts of evidence Mr Barilaro gave to a NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) probe into former premier Gladys Berejiklian.
It showed Mr Barilaro being asked about the disclosure of intimate relationships and was followed by Mr Shanks explaining that someone purporting to be Mr Barilaro had an account on the Ashley Madison website, which facilitates extramarital affairs.
Mr Barilaro has denied having an account on the website and Mr Shanks said in the video it was possible someone else could have created the account.
“For me, it felt like another video that was just another video of harassment, if anything,” Mr Barilaro said.
“I don’t recall it actually saying that I wasn’t being truthful.
“It reflects on an Ashley Madison account, it reflects on evidence at ICAC, it leaves it in the air for the public to consider what was in the video, it leaves it hanging … it’s the sort of horrible video I’ve received consistently. He (Mr Shanks) covers himself and qualifies himself very very well.”
Mr Hmelnitsky told Mr Barilaro “there’s never been any suggestion by you that there’s any defamation imputation in that video about evidence you gave”.
“You’ve never told Google in any other way that you think the video was defamatory of you, so far as it deals with your ICAC evidence.
“You didn’t tell Google a reason to take it down, save for what we saw. Giving Google an extra very good reason to take the video down might have helped.”
Mr Barilaro, whose marriage ended last year before it was revealed he commenced a relationship with his former media adviser, said “at some point in time you’ve got to focus on what you call out”.
“In my mind, Mr Shanks qualified everything he said, which I thought was clever on his behalf,” Mr Barilaro told the court.
The court heard Google had previously removed a different video which accused Mr Barilaro of adultery.
Mr Barilaro’s barrister, Ms Chrysanthou, said Mr Hmelnitsky’s questions to Mr Barilaro “culminated in a suggestion” that Mr Barilaro had lied to ICAC.
When asked how he felt about the questions, Mr Barilaro said he was “taken by surprise”.
“The defence from Google seems to be to defame me further; that’s how I feel this morning,” he said.
“I just want this all to end. I’ve had enough.”
The hearing continues.
