Australia’s government plans to water down ferocious libel laws
Dec 12th 2019SYDNEYIT WAS THE sort of story that was bound to cause a sensation. In 2017 the Daily Telegraph, one of Australia’s best-selling newspapers, reported that Geoffrey Rush, an Oscar-winning actor, had harassed a female co-star. Mr Rush sued the tabloid’s parent company, Nationwide News, saying it had painted him as a “pervert” and “a sexual predator”. The woman in question, Eryn Jean Norvill, testified that Mr Rush had made “groping” and “hour-glass” gestures at her, and claimed he deliberately touched her breast during a production of “King Lear”. Mr Rush denied the allegations and won the case. In May a judge ordered the company to pay him damages of A$2.9m ($2m). It has filed an appeal.Australia’s press is forced to pay eye-watering sums with surprising regularity. Last month a wealthy Queensland family, the Wagners, won A$3.6m from a commercial television channel, after it alleged that the collapse of a wall at a quarry which they own caused flooding which killed 12 people. The Wagners were awarded A$3.8m in a separate dispute with a radio station last year. In another case, Bauer Media, a magazine publisher, was told to pay A$4.7m to the actor Rebel Wilson, after a judge found she had lost work because a series of articles had portrayed her as a liar. The sum was later slashed by an appeals court.Choose us for news analysis that respects your time and intelligenceSubscribe to The EconomistWe filter out the noise of the daily news cycle and analyse the trends that matterWe give you rigorous, deeply researched and fact-checked journalism. That’s why Americans named us their most trusted news source in 2017Available wherever you are—in print, digital and, uniquely, in audio, fully narrated by professional broadcastersThis website adheres to all nine of NewsGuard‘s standards of credibility and transparency.ORContinue reading this articleRegister with an email address