Proposals for a National Defamation Law

This submission to the Attorney-General of Australia concerning proposals for a National Defamation Law relates primarily to the proposed defence of \u27honest and reasonable opinion\u27 and its requirement that to be defensible a defamatory opinion must be one a reasonable person, aware of the facts the opinion is based on, could have formed. The submission is also relevant to the abolition of defamation juries. The submission draws on new findings of a survey of a representative sample of some 3,000 adult residents of Australia, which the CLC commissioned in late 2003. The survey involved asking respondents about hypothetical media reports that impute various acts or conditions to a number of imaginary people. The findings suggest that: * on a range of issues one in three Australians has such strong views that those who take a contrary position on the issue cannot be considered reasonable; * when a number of acts or conditions are imputed by the media, for almost one in three Australians the act or condition in question is so acceptable that someone who would think less of a person to whom that act or condition is imputed cannot be considered reasonable