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Porter v ABC - Media Watch - Media Watch
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Christian Porter s fight highlights flaws in Australian defamation law
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Note: the following story mentions sexual assault.
After weeks of vigorously resisting calls for an independent inquiry into a historical rape allegation, Attorney-General Christian Porter threw a curve ball yesterday when he filed a defamation action against the ABC and journalist Louise Milligan.
If Porter’s claim proceeds to trial (and that’s a big if), it could act something like an inquiry putting the deceased victim’s friends and confidants on the stand and scrutinising the details behind her complaint in open court.
It means the Porter affair may not go away for many years.
But the attorney-general has a star-studded legal team and Australia’s traditionally plaintiff-friendly defamation law on side. For now, it’s the ABC that is playing catch-up.
Last modified on Tue 16 Mar 2021 21.31 EDT
After subsequently identifying himself as the minister, Porter strenuously denied the allegation, and through his lawyers has said the defamation case should end the “trial by media” he says he has faced.
What will be determined by the case? Does it preclude an independent inquiry that Labor and friends of Porter’s accuser have called for? And can Porter sue over an article that didn’t name him?
How does Porter say he has been defamed?
On 26 February, the ABC published a story online headlined “Scott Morrison, senators and AFP told of historical rape allegation against Cabinet Minister”.
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“A critic is entitled to dip his pen in gall for the purpose of legitimate criticism,” NSW’s ninth Chief Justice, Sir Frederick Jordan, opined in a 1940s defamation case involving an unflattering newspaper review of an obscure detective novel.
“No one need be mealy-mouthed in denouncing what he regards as twaddle, daub or discord.”
Regrettably, “twaddle” and “daub” – the latter connoting fakery – have fallen out of modern usage. But Sir Frederick’s observation echoes through decades of Australian defamation cases involving opinions, from cartoons and culinary reviews to gossip columns and
Media Watch broadcasts.
Businesswoman Elaine Stead, right, won her defamation action against The Australian Financial Review and its columnist Joe Aston, left.
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