The history of defamation law in Australia is one which has seen multiple attempts at reform in order to create a less convoluted tort. However, there ultimately still remains a number of inconsistencies within defamation law that demonstrates a need for additional reform in Australia. This notion is highlighted by various factors contained in the recent highly publicized Australian defamation case Hockey v Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd [2015] FCA 652. In this case, Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey successfully claimed that The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Canberra Times for defamation in regards to a series of articles, posters and internet publications which contained the words “Treasurer For Sale”. The case bears some similarity
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Sappideen and Vines describe the law of defamation as an inadequate “patchwork of rules” which creates a convoluted system whose difficulty ultimately bars a large scope of the general population from being able to launch a defamation cause of action. It was only in 2004 that the Uniform Defamation Acts were introduced in Australia. Whilst this helped to harmonize the individual defamation acts of the eight jurisdictions within Australia, the stagnation in regards to reform since this occasion mean that great inequalities still exist in regards to defamation law. As it stands, there is no Commonwealth defamation act, rendering the Commonwealth legislature powerless in regards to defamation. This effects the equality of defamation law in Australia due to a lack of central legislation – in comparison, New York Times Company v Sullivan was successful in that it was ruled unconstitutional to limit free speech regarding criticism of public figures: “an unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment”. This lack of uniformity clouds the accessibility of defamation law for a majority of individuals within Australian society. Again, the absence of an overarching definition of what does, and does not constitute freedom of speech within the Australian Constitution thus complicates an already convoluted
Sappideen and Vines describe the law of defamation as an inadequate “patchwork of rules” which creates a convoluted system whose difficulty ultimately bars a large scope of the general population from being able to launch a defamation cause of action. It was only in 2004 that the Uniform Defamation Acts were introduced in Australia. Whilst this helped to harmonize the individual defamation acts of the eight jurisdictions within Australia, the stagnation in regards to reform since this occasion mean that great inequalities still exist in regards to defamation law. As it stands, there is no Commonwealth defamation act, rendering the Commonwealth legislature powerless in regards to defamation. This effects the equality of defamation law in Australia due to a lack of central legislation – in comparison, New York Times Company v Sullivan was successful in that it was ruled unconstitutional to limit free speech regarding criticism of public figures: “an unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment”. This lack of uniformity clouds the accessibility of defamation law for a majority of individuals within Australian society. Again, the absence of an overarching definition of what does, and does not constitute freedom of speech within the Australian Constitution thus complicates an already convoluted