Former senator Brian Burston should not receive damages after a judge found he sexually harassed two staff members but did not sexually abuse them, a court heard.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson should not have been ordered to pay “a cent” to former senator Brian Burston after a Federal Court judge found she had proven he sexually harassed two female staff members but had not proven this amounted to sexual abuse, an appeal court has heard.after Burston, a former One Nation senator, successfully sued her for defamation.
“It shouldn’t be allowed that a senator of the Australian parliament who’s found to have conducted himself in this way ... should be given a cent by this court.”Bromwich also found Burston had pushed Hanson’s chief of staff James Ashby at the Great Hall in Parliament House during an altercation in February 2019, but he said Ashby had provoked him by filming him and asking questions.
“I accept that it was plainly sexual. It is likely, although I haven’t turned my mind to the elements of the statutory offence, it would meet the definition of indecent assault. “The theme of our case ... is that Mr Burston was proved at trial, by cogent evidence and by reason of witnesses that were wholly accepted by his honour, to have engaged in inappropriate conduct that was so disreputable that he should have been given no damages at all.”Chrysanthou said the “damning findings” made against Burston were “so serious ... that a transient statement by my client in the course of a 10-minute interview largely about another topic ...
The “serious imputations” of sexual abuse and physical assault “without provocation” were “in a different category to sexual harassment” and had not been proven, Bromwich said.
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