Erin Molan, Daily Mail Australia decision over comments about Pacific Islanders
Erin Molan has won a defamation action against Daily Mail Australia after she claimed the publication accused her of being racist.
Justice Robert Bromwich found in favour of Molan and awarded her $150,000 in a judgment delivered in Sydney on Tuesday morning.
The broadcaster sued Daily Mail Australia in the Federal Court over publications she said portrayed her as racist and ‘an arrogant woman of white privilege’, among other things.
Molan uttered the phrase ‘hooka looka mooka hooka fooka’ during a segment on the Nine Entertainment-owned 2GB’s Continuous Call Team program in 2020.
Daily Mail Australia alleged Erin Molan mocked the names of Pacific Islander NRL players live on 2GB radio as part of The Continuous Call Team. She is pictured in the 2GB studios
Molan uttered the phrase ‘hooka looka mooka hooka fooka’ during a segment on the Nine Entertainment-owned 2GB’s Continuous Call Team program in 2020. Molan is pictured at a charity ball in August
She made the comment in reference to a story told previously on air about the pronunciation of Pacific Islander footballers’ names but said she was not mocking Polynesians.
Daily Mail Australia sought to establish Molan regularly made fun of people with ethnic backgrounds during the radio program by adopting foreign accents, which she denied.
The publisher played to the court a series of segments in which Molan used voices including one it said was an attempt by her to sound like an Asian prostitute.
Closing submissions filed on Molan’s behalf asserted that no aspect of her language or conduct was racist, a suggestion rejected by Daily Mail Australia.
An emotional Erin Molan denied saying ‘hooka looka mooka hooka fooka’ during a rugby league radio program was meant to mock Pacific Islander footballers. Stock image
‘That would be a bold submission at any time in the last century but is especially so now, in 2021… ‘, the publisher stated in a document tendered in court.
Daily Mail Australia submitted that Molan’s definition of racism required a specific intent to be racist, which would exclude unconscious and casual racism.
But the ‘pernicious consequences of racism’ – overt, unconscious or casual – were now widely acknowledged and Molan’s narrow definition should not be accepted, the publisher had claimed.
‘The consequence of doing so would be, it is submitted, to sanction conduct that is racist and to condone it,’ Daily Mail Australia said.
The publisher further submitted that on Molan’s argument, racism was not to be judged from the point of view of those who might be offended but by that of an ‘ordinary reasonable listener’.
‘[Daily Mail Australia] submits that [Molan’s] proposed approach to the content of the concept of racism has lost touch with the reality of that perniciously wrong behaviour,’ it said.
Both Nine Entertainment, owner of 2GB, and Molan herself said her ‘hooka looka’ comment was referencing a story fellow broadcaster Darryl Brohman told on air on April 5, 2020. Molan is pictured with fellow Nine commentators Wally Lewis (centre) and Darren Lockyer
Molan’s defamation action cited an article and two tweets in which she alleged Daily Mail Australia accused her of being racist and ‘an arrogant woman of white privilege’.
While giving evidence before Justice Robert Bromwich in August last year she repeatedly denied through tears that she was racist, or regularly engaged in casual racism.
‘There will be an absolute time for reflection once this is done, if standards have changed and what the community expects has changed,’ Molan told the court.
Barrister Bruce McClintock SC, for the publisher, played Molan a series of audio clips aired between 2017 and 2019 which featured the now 39-year-old using various accents.
In one segment from April 1 2017 Molan attempted a Chinese accent at the urging of then host Ray Hadley.
‘Herro, I wery goo looking’,’ she began. ‘I wuv you wery long tiyme, wery handsome man, ohhh, you like to walk with me in a circle.’
Molan denied she had been attempting to imitate a Chinese prostitute, saying instead she was quoting from a movie she had not seen and could not name.
Molan alleged Daily Mail Australia additionally defamed her by claiming she refused to apologise for deliberately mocking Pacific Islander names with her ‘hooka looka’ comment
She later accepted the film was Vietnam war classic Full Metal Jacket, which featured a scene in which a prostitute solicited a customer in a bar.
Molan also denied she was mocking the way Chinese people supposedly speak.
‘To mock is to do something in a cruel way,’ Molan said. ‘I’ve never done anything in a cruel way in my life.
Molan denied putting on the accent was an ‘ugly racial stereotype’, a ‘quite horrifyingly racial thing’ and a ‘despicable act of casual racism’.
‘It would never come to my mind that an Asian person or an Asian woman or a Chinese woman is a prostitute,’ she said.
Molan repeatedly denied ever mocking Pacific Islander players’ names and said people had often made fun of hers, calling her ‘Moley, Moley, Moley’.
The court heard Nine Radio’s head of content Greg Byrnes urged Molan to apologise after a ‘firestorm’ which followed publication of her ‘hooka looka’ comment.
Molan denied resisting that suggestion but said she was not keen to use the word ‘sorry’ because she did not believe she had done anything wrong.
Instead, she apologised for any ‘hurt and offence’ caused by the way Daily Mail Australia had reported her ‘hooka looka mooka hooka fooka’ remark.
‘I would not apologise for something I haven’t done,’ Molan said.
Molan had described her ‘hooka looka’ comment in a tweet as ‘clumsy and inappropriate’. She believed Nine Radio’s managing director Tom Malone had inserted ‘inappropriate’ in that statement.
Mr McClintock played a segment from March 17, 2018 in which Molan used a ‘Japanese’ accent to say ‘oh yor soh goo’ and ‘you like raw feesh?’ before jokingly asking ‘was that racist?’
Molan said ‘raw feesh’ was not sexual innuendo and related to sushi, which she ate most days. A mention of ‘mini spring rolls’ had been a reference to Brohman’s penis.
Molan told the court that after reading the story on June 5, 2020 about reactions to her ‘hooka looka’ comment she had been distressed. ‘I felt sick, I felt angry, I was very upset.’ she said. ‘It was saying that I had deliberately mocked the pronunciation of Polynesian names’
Molan denied any of her accents or comments were racist but said the Continuous Call Team program was sometimes politically incorrect.
‘We push boundaries a lot,’ she said.
Molan has said no one had ever complained about racism on the Continuous Call Team before publication of the Daily Mail Australia article.
Mr McClintock put it to Molan that an on-air comment could be ‘just as racist’ if it had not drawn complaints.
‘We never brought race into it,’ she said. ‘The Daily Mail brought race and Polynesia into it.’
Mr McClintock asked Molan if she thought mocking Polynesian names would make someone unfit to be an NRL commentator.
‘Yes,’ she said.
The broadcaster sued Daily Mail Australia over publications she says portrayed her as racist
Mr McClintock had alleged the Continuous Call Team regularly engaged in casual racism, citing Molan laughing ‘hysterically’ at Brohman’s accents. Molan denied it.
Molan said she in fact often tried to pull panellists up if she thought someone was going too far but stopped short of agreeing she was the show’s ‘moral guardian’.
‘I think it’s very obvious from the clips that I’m not a PC policeman,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t call myself the conscience of the of the program.’
Molan said the show’s humour was ‘self-deprecating’ but if times had changed and putting on foreign accents was no longer acceptable, ‘I’m prepared to have that discussion’.
‘The world is changing very quickly and if there are suddenly things we cannot do, that’s fine. I’m open to that.’
Molan wept as she said after publication of reaction to her ‘hooka looka’ comment she had suffered a barrage of social media abuse.
Molan was once part the Nine Network’s rugby league coverage and now co-hosts the 2Day FM Morning Crew with Dave Hughes and Ed Kavalee. She is pictured working for Nine
‘I was worried that people had read the articles and the stories and would think that I was a racist,’ she said. ‘And I was worried that people might berate me in the street.
‘It was probably the lowest that I’d been and probably have ever been.’
Molan has told the court the accusations of racism had changed her forever.
‘I’m different,’ she said. ‘I won’t recover until this is over and even then I’m not sure I will ever really recover.’
Molan explained her ‘hooka looka’ comment on May 30, 2020 came after program host Mark Levy referred to father and son commentators Ray and Chris Warren.
She had thought her fellow panellists would immediately understand her remark as a reference to a story Brohman had previously told about the Warrens.
On April 5, 2020 Brohman had recreated a debate between the Warrens over how to pronounce the name of Haumole Olakau’atu, a Manly forward of Tongan decent.
Brohman took on the voice roles of both Warrens as he told the story.
Molan alleged Daily Mail Australia portrayed her as ‘a racist’ and an ‘arrogant woman of white privilege’ who refused to apologise for deliberately mocking Pacific Islander names. Molan is pictured with her father, Senator Jim Molan
‘His name had about 30 letters in it and I had trouble pronouncing it so I asked Chris “How do you pronounce this bloke’s name?”‘ Brohman said.
‘He said, “Well dad and I have been discussing this today… and dad thought his name was Chuka-lala-lulu.
‘And I said, ‘Well, dad, I think it’s Chuka-lala-lulu-lulu, and he says, “Chris, that’s incorrect – it’s Chukaka-lulalulalo”.’
Two months later when Levy referred to the Warrens calling an upcoming game Molan had exclaimed, ‘Dad, Dad’, before saying ‘hooka looka mooka hooka fooka’.
Molan denied the voice she adopted was meant to sound Polynesian. ‘That was Chris and Ray Warren’s voice,’ Molan told the court.
‘It was poking fun at a father and a son trying to get a name right.’
Barrister Kieran Smark SC said his client had ‘said some gibberish syllables’ while referring to a ‘funny story’ that had previously been told on air.
‘What has happened was taken completely out of context and distorted by the Daily Mail and what that in turn did was set running a social media frenzy,’ Mr Smark said.
Barrister Kieran Smark SC said Molan had been attacked by strangers on social media platforms including one user who called her a ‘racist entitled mutt’
On June 10, 2020 Molan posted a tweet denying she had mocked any Polynesian player’s name, or refused to apologise. Daily Mail Australia argued both statements were incorrect
Mr Smark described the Continuous Call Team as a live, light-hearted, irreverent, unscripted and sometimes ‘silly’ show.
Brohman had also told the Warren story on October 5, 2019 and April 12, 2020; it was well known to listeners and Molan’s response to it was not part of an ‘inside joke’.
Daily Mail Australia published its first story about the ‘hooka looka’ remark on June 4, 2020 but that article was not the subject of the court action.
Molan alleged the publication defamed her in a follow-up story published on June 5 and two tweets published on June 5 and 6 by accusing her among other things of being a racist.
The broadcaster also alleged she was portrayed as being so callous that having deliberately mocked the names of Pacific Islanders on air she then refused to apologise.
Both Nine Entertainment, owner of 2GB, and Molan herself said her ‘hooka looka’ comment was referencing a story fellow broadcaster Darryl Brohman told on air on April 5, 2020
Molan alleged Daily Mail Australia portrayed her as an ‘arrogant woman of white privilege’ who refused to apologise for deliberately mocking Islander names.
The publication in its defence argued these imputations were substantially true, and that her conduct on air was ‘objectively racist’.
Molan claimed the June 5, 2020 article also portrayed her as ‘so disrespectful and incompetent that she is unfit to be an NRL commentator’.
She alleged the article and tweets left her ‘gravely injured in her character and in her personal and professional reputation’.
Molan, who left the Continuous Call Team in 2020, was part of the Nine Network’s rugby league coverage until December last year when she quit to join Sky News Australia.
She co-hosts the 2Day FM Morning Crew with Dave Hughes and Ed Kavalee. The also writes columns for The Daily Telegraph.
