How Australia Became the Defamation Capital of the World
How Australia Became the Defamation Capital of the World
A court ruling in favor of a billionaire businessman against The Sydney Morning Herald illustrates the sorry state of the country’s defamation laws
The businessman Chau Chak Wing was awarded nearly $200,000 in a defamation lawsuit against one of Australia’s biggest billionaire companies In the decade I spent reporting from China, the most immediate obstacles to journalism were often physical. They took many forms: barricades blocking access to certain places men in military buzz cuts trailing me; plainclothes thugs stationed in front of the homes of people
I planned to interview and of course the threat of police detention. In one memorable incident an official threw himself in front of the car I was riding in with colleagues to delay our departure precipitating an unseemly shoving match. These physical manifestations of state power were designed to muzzle through intimidation and brute force, occasionally reinforced with threats of visa refusal. Then I moved to Australia. To my surprise writing about China from Melbourne proved no simpler. But there I was hobbled by different forces, namely Australia’s oppressive and notoriously complex defamation laws. The challenges of such reporting were underlined recently by an Australian federal court which awarded nearly $200,000 (about 280,000 Australian dollars) to a Chinese-Australian businessman Chau Chak-wing, after finding that a 2015 Sydney