Six Years of Australian Uniform Defamation Law: Damages, Opinion and Defence Meanings

Abstract

Since early 2006, largely uniform defamation legislation has operated in Australia. The very achievement of uniformity in defamation has been seen as a ‘watershed’, with efforts towards national reform dating back more than 30 years. The uniform legislation was agreed between state and territory Attorneys-General in the shadow of a Commonwealth threat to enact national legislation that would have operated only within the scope of Commonwealth constitutional power. A media commentator observed at the time: ‘from the perspective of the media, [the Commonwealth’s] original proposal was so appallingly bad that it changed the politics of defamation reform.

JEL Classification: K00, K19