A judge has said he is dumbfounded by the behaviour of Google in John Barilaro's defamation case and is considering referring the technology giant to court charges.
Former New South Wales deputy premier John Barilaro is suing Google for refusing to take down online videos that he claimed were vulgar and offensive despite complaints from the tech giant's legal team.
The videos were published by the popular YouTube commentator and comedian, Jordan Shanks, known as FriendlyJordies.
After apologising for any offence and agreeing to edit some of his content, Mr Shanks settled a separate defamation action brought by Mr Barilaro last year.
Mr Barilaro claimed the videos portrayed him as a corrupt man who made a fortune from dodgy dealings and included racial slurs that referenced the former MP's Italian heritage.
In the final day of the defamation hearing in the Federal Court, Justice Steven Rares launched a scathing attack on Google for sitting back while Mr Shanks posted video after video taunting Mr Barilaro.
It is amazing that Google is acting in this way. He said that I'm dumbfounded by this.
The judge said he was particularly concerned that Google had not removed a video posted last year that accused Mr Barilaro'sBarilaro's legal team of incompetence and dishonesty.
Justice Rares said it looks like a serious, likely finding of contempt by a publication that was designed to intimidate lawyers from acting and stop Barilaro's access to justice.
Shanks was determined to frustrate the course of justice to get to the point that his lawyers wouldn't want to appear for him.
This is something I consider to be incredibly serious. In court, James Hmelnitsky, Google's lawyer, admitted in court that the videos had caused a lot of harm to Mr Barilaro, who resigned from politics last year.
The videos broke him, cause him to consider self-harm and led to a number of threatening confrontations in public with FriendlyJordies fans, according to the former Monaro MP.
Barilaro appeared distressed on a number of occasions during the defamation hearing.
As he listened to the final day of evidence, Mr Barilaro became upset and temporarily excused himself from the courtroom.
His lawyer, Sue Chrysanthou, SC, argued that his client deserved damages of the highest order because his case was possibly the most extreme example of damage to reputation.
She stated that Google's decision to rely on rubbish defences for seven months, only to withdraw them without explanation this week, only aggravated the damage done.
Hmelnitsky said that he, too, thought defences were baseless, which gave rise to some amusement in the courtroom.
Justice Rares was not allowed to take any possible contempt into account when it came to damages, as per Mr Hmelnitsky.
He argued that Google was only liable for damages for the period after Mr Barilaro complained and not from the time when the videos were uploaded.
But your client facilitated all that because they kept it up on the internet and you're trying to tell me to moderate the sum? Justice Rares said something.
During the hearings, the judge has criticised the multinational company for failing to send any representatives to court.
Justice Rares accused Google of wasting the court's time and Mr Barilaro'sBarilaro's money.
The Federal Court has a duty to cooperate quickly and efficiently to get to the real issues and not waste the court's time, he said.
This could have been heard last year if this was uncontested. Justice Rares considers his judgement while the hearing is adjourned.