28/09/2023, 14:44 Barilaro v Google LLC [2022] FCA 650 63 This occurs with the camera panning over a double bed with the sheets covering occupants as Mr Shanks lifts the bed covers to parody the well-known scene from the movie “The Godfather” in which a horse trainer awakes to find his prize horse’s severed and bloody head in the bed next to him. Mr Shanks screams as he “discovers” that the big Mario doll is in the bed with him. Mr Barilaro’s reaction to the bruz video 64 Mr Barilaro said that he was aware that Mr Shanks had engaged in commentary on his calling out of the racism in earlier videos. Mr Barilaro said that he learnt of the bruz video when his staff asked whether he had seen it. He obtained the link and watched it. He said that he “realised it was a… disgusting video in retribution”. He testified that his reaction then and when it was played in the hearing was that “It’s just raw, it’s disgusting, it’s vile… It was complete racism. The accents … the terms that he used … and the total violation of my privacy”. Mr Barilaro’s concern about the violation of his privacy was because of the use of the Dungowan Estate house which was not only used in his wife’s running of the Airbnb business but also as the second home for his family. 65 Mr Barilaro accepted that, as a politician, he was open to public scrutiny for his public conduct and policy stances. He noted that, ordinarily, when the media wanted to make “a story on you, they will put to you questions, they will put… issues, they will put to you an opportunity to respond”, but the bruz video “came out of nowhere”. Mr Barilaro was deeply hurt by that publication and broke down watching it in Court the day before he gave evidence and did so again in the witness box. He gave this testimony which evinced the emotional scar that he experienced: that was just a vile attack on me using racism and claims of corruption … I would assume he thought it was funny, but it wasn’t. And, to this day, … I just can’t let it go; I’m traumatised by it; have always been. And I know, you know, people say, “You’re a politician; you’re used to this stuff”, but you’re used to the banter in the bear pit. You’re used to the banter. You get questioned by the media, you get a fair run, and, often, there’s two sides to the story. They… write the response, but not … with Friendlyjordies. This was clear it was retribution because I had the guts to call out racism, and ... that’s all to it; that’s ... at the heart of this. (emphasis added) 66 Mr Barilaro’s expression “the bear pit” is a well-known epithet for the chamber of the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales. 67 Mr Barilaro realised as he watched the bruz video that Mr Shanks’ references to news media and other material in it “clearly don’t justify the attacks”. He said, and I find, that there has been no formal allegation of corruption made against him. He testified that although he and his officers had submitted all their documents in relation to the perjury allegations “nothing came from it”. He was hurt because Mr Shanks “picked the headline and not the content” of news media publications and amassed “an online community to believe the garbage that I was a conman or corrupt, that I perjured myself … and did it through racism”. And, he found very offensive the Mafia undertone in the mock bedroom scene based on The Godfather, connected to his Calabrian heritage, which he also saw as a threat. He felt the unfairness of Mr Shanks’ false accusation in the context where, unlike the mainstream media, who ask the person accused of wrong doing for his or her version, Mr Shanks “was judge and jury; he just declared I was corrupt and he used those videos for that purpose. But it was all in retribution because I called him out”. Mr Barilaro felt disgusted by the allegations saying “I didn’t get into politics to be corrupt.” He said that he had spent the previous 20 years in securing his financial position through his success in business before entering public life. He said that “you get called names in politics, but no one has had the guts to call you [scil: me] corrupt or a conman… I think it was the… start of breaking me”. 68 Mr Barilaro was particularly hurt by the bruz video deprecating his Italian heritage by the use of the slurs “fat wog cock”, the word “bruz”, the Mario materials and the implication of Mafia connection with his Calabrian background. He understood the epithet “greasy” to refer to his ethnicity because, as he said: https://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/single/2022/2022fca0650 18/101