Category: Qualified Privilege

After 15 years in the courts, author and self-proclaimed prophet Jeremy Griffith loses his appeal – but only just. The NSW Court of Appeal upholds comment and statutory qualified privilege for the ABC, but finds it untrue that Griffith “publishes work of such a poor standard that it has no support at all from the scientific community” ... more

Qualified privilege gets a top thrashing … High Court finds that wrongly bounced cheques issued by Westpac defamed a Sydney real estate agent because they were not published on an occasion of qualified privilege ... more

Last days of the Prophet of Oz? After 15 years on the defamation roundabout, self-proclaimed prophet Jeremy Griffith has his day in the NSW Court of Appeal. All does not go smoothly ... more

WA Court of Appeal upholds the “newspaper rule” in “a matter of genuine public interest”. The West Australian can keep confidential two audiotapes critical to its defence of a defamation action brought by born-again tycoon Alan Bond ... more

Gold Coast turf wars, part two. The QLD Court of Appeal upholds the defence of qualified privilege after finding that a jury perversely determined imputations pleaded by a candidate for election were not defamatory ... more

Businessman Alan Bond fails to get access to six mysterious photographs taken by The West Australian in the course of his long-running legal battle with the paper over documents allegedly stolen from one of his two Cottesloe homes ... more

The NSW Court of Appeal overturns Greens MP Ian Cohen’s victory against Byron Bay property developer Jerry Lee Bennette. The court finds Cohen was not protected by qualified privilege when he called his old adversary a thug and a bully ... more

NSW Police call for absolute privilege to be extended to statements made by them and to them, in three defamation actions before the NSW District Court. Defamation List Judge Judith Gibson explains why she’s not inclined to oblige ... more

NSW Court of Appeal overturns first damages judgment delivered by the NSW Supreme Court under the uniform Defamation Act 2005. It finds Coffs Harbour MP Andrew Fraser was not motivated by malice when he wrote a defamatory letter about Brett Holmes, General Secretary of the NSW Nurses’ Association ... more

NSW’s Chief Justice at Common Law, Peter McClellan resists “the temptation to generate unnecessary complexity” and finds that the defence of qualified privilege attaches to the defamatory material published, not the defamatory imputations pleaded ... more

NSW Court of Appeal asked to overturn the first Supreme Court damages judgment delivered in NSW under the new Defamation Act 2005. What constitutes malice, improper motive and recklessness is hotly debated by leading silks Tom Blackburn and Bruce McClintock ... more

The correct meaning of “interest” in the common law qualified privilege defence was the main subject of discussion during property developer Jerry Lee Bennette’s appeal against a verdict for Greens MP Ian Cohen. Confusion reigns ... more