BLAW10002 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Political Communication, Qualified Privilege

• School: University of Melbourne
• Department: Business Law
• Course: BLAW10002
• Professor: All

Document Summary

The plaintiff will allege that the matter contains one or more defamatory imputations". The defendant, to be relieved of liability, must provide a defence to each and every defamatory imputation found to have arisen from the matter. Note: prior law in nsw, act, qld and tas required truth plus public benefit or public interest in the publication of the allegations. This means that minor inaccuracies will not defeat the defence. Absolute privilege is of no use to the media (ref qualified privilege) Fair and accurate reports of judicial and parliamentary proceedings. Publication of matter contained in report of proceedings of public interest (ie council meetings, etc) Arises from the implied freedom of political communication in the constitution. Reasonableness: reasonable grounds for believing that the imputation was true took proper steps to verify the accuracy of the material. Did not believe the imputations to be untrue. Sought a response and published such response (except where not practicable)