The Commonwealth plan for reforming defamation law in Australia

The lack of uniformity in defamation law between the states and territories has been the subject of much criticism for over twenty five years. The Commonwealth Attorney-General has put forward a broad blueprint for a nationally consistent law. Unless the states and territories agree to bring their defamation laws into line with the paper, the Commonwealth has said it will develop legislation to override existing state and territoriy law. In this Research Note Angus Martyn briefly reviews the Commonwealth proposal