Flegg v Hallett

[2015] QSC 167

SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION:

Flegg v Hallett [2015] QSC 167

PARTIES:

BRUCE STEPHEN FLEGG

(plaintiff)

v
GRAEME NORMAN HALLETT

(defendant)

FILE NO/S:

No 11629 of 2012

DIVISION:

Trial Division

PROCEEDING:

Trial

ORIGINATING COURT:

Supreme Court at Brisbane

DELIVERED ON:

18 June 2015

DELIVERED AT:

Brisbane

HEARING DATE:

15, 16, 17, 20, and 22 October, 20, 25, and 26 November 2015

JUDGE:

Peter Lyons J

ORDER:

1.   General damages are assessed at $275,000.

2.   Special damages are assessed at $500,000.

CATCHWORDS:

DEFAMATION – STATEMENTS AMOUNTING TO DEFAMATION – PARTICULAR STATEMENTS – IMPUTATION – where the plaintiff was a government Minister and the defendant was his media adviser – where the plaintiff’s son was a registered lobbyist under the Integrity Act –  where the defendant made a conference announcement and later received a concerns notice which referred to s 14 of the Defamation Act – where, at a media conference and during a later radio interview on 13 November 2012, the defendant stated, amongst other things, that he had lost trust in the plaintiff, that the plaintiff had tabled an inaccurate lobbyists’ register, and had opened himself to a charge of misleading a Parliamentary Committee – whether the defendant’s statements at the media conference and the radio interview were capable of conveying, and did convey, to an ordinary reasonable audience member that the plaintiff committed a serious offence of misleading a Parliamentary Committee; was aware that the lobbyists’ register was inaccurate when tabled; refused to correct the Committee’s record; was lobbied by his son in breach of his son’s employment contract; should be dismissed as a Minister; and, that the lobbyists’ register was grossly inaccurate, untrue, incorrect and had been doctored

DEFAMATION – STATEMENTS AMOUNTING TO DEFAMATION – IN GENERAL –  where the plaintiff was a government Minister and the defendant was his media adviser – where the plaintiff’s son was a registered lobbyist under the Integrity Act – where, at a media conference and, during a later radio interview on 13 November 2012, the defendant conveyed that the plaintiff tabled a grossly inaccurate and doctored lobbyists’ register at a Parliamentary Committee meeting, and at the media conference, also conveyed that the plaintiff was aware that document was wrong – whether the defendant’s statements were defamatory

DEFAMATION – PRIVILEGE – QUALIFIED PRIVILEGE – IN GENERAL – where the plaintiff was a government Minister and the defendant was his media adviser – where the plaintiff’s son was a registered lobbyist under the Integrity Act – where the plaintiff informed the defendant on 12 November 2012 that the defendant would not continue in his position as the plaintiff’s media adviser –  where the defendant attempted to bargain with the Director of Government Media for redeployment within Government in exchange for not holding the media conference – where the defendant then made a conference announcement which included a statement that the plaintiff had dismissed him and so he was going to publicly disclose that the plaintiff was not a fit and proper person to…