Atkins v Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)

Mr Atkins sought leave to appeal from a decision of the primary judge who granted summary judgment in favour of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The dispute concerned an article published on the ABC website on 7 April 2022, which reported on two Supreme Court judgments in which Mr Atkins was involved. Mr Atkins alleged the article was defamatory and claimed substantial damages. The ABC contended that the article was protected by statutory defences, specifically the "fair report" defence under section 27 of the *Defamation Act 2005* (SA) and a defence relating to public documents under section 26 of the same Act.

The legal issues before the court were whether Mr Atkins had an arguable error of law or fact in the primary judge's decision to grant summary judgment. This required the court to consider whether there was a reasonable basis for prosecuting Mr Atkins' defamation claim, particularly in light of the primary judge's findings regarding the adequacy of the concerns notice, the pleading of defamation elements, and the availability of statutory defences to the ABC.

The court determined that leave to appeal should be refused because Mr Atkins had failed to identify any arguable error in the primary judge's decision. The primary judge had granted summary judgment pursuant to rule 144.2(2)(a) of the *Uniform Civil Rules 2020* (SA) on the basis that there was no reasonable basis for prosecuting the claim. This conclusion was founded on several findings: that Mr Atkins had not served a compliant "concerns notice" as required by the *Defamation Act*, that his claim did not plead the necessary elements of defamation but rather complaints about the underlying judgments, and that the ABC had available to it defences under sections 26 and 27 of the *Defamation Act* because the article fairly summarised public documents and constituted a fair report of proceedings of public concern. The primary judge's reasoning was supported by relevant case law concerning summary judgment and defamation defences.

Consequently, the court refused Mr Atkins leave to appeal.