Hussein v Nationwide News Pty Ltd

Civil and Administrative Tribunal

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation:	Hussein v Nationwide News Pty Ltd [2016] NSWCATAD 139
Hearing dates:	19 April 2016
Date of orders:	06 July 2016
Decision date:	06 July 2016
Jurisdiction:	Administrative and Equal Opportunity Division
Before:	J Conley, Senior Member
Decision:	Leave for the applicant’s complaint of racial vilification to proceed is refused.
Catchwords:	Anti-Discrimination – Leave to proceed when complaint is declined as lacking in substance – whether fair and just for complaint to proceed – racial vilification
Legislation Cited:	Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW)
Cases Cited:	Sunol v Collier & Anor (No2) 2012 NSWCA 44; Ekermawi v Administrative Decisions Tribunal of New South Wales 2009 NSWSC 143; John Fairfax Publications Pty Ltd v District Court of NSW & Ors [2004] NSWCA 32; Sunol v Collier & Anor (No2) 2012 NSWCA 44; Burns v Dye [2002] NSWADT 32; Burns v Laws (no 2) [2007] NSWADT 47; Veloskey v Karagiannakis [2002] NSWADTAP 18; John Fairfax Publications Pty Ltd v Kazak [2002] NSWADTAP 35 Nicholls & Nicholls v Director-General Department of Education and Training (No2) [2009] NSWADTAP 20; Jones v Trad NSWCA [2013] NSWCA 389 (20 November 2013)
Category:	Principal judgment
Parties:	Qurban Ali Hussain (Applicant) Nationwide News Pty Ltd (Respondent)
Representation:	Solicitors: Qurban Ali Hussain (Applicant in person) Nationwide News Pty Ltd (Respondent in person)
File Number(s):	1610137

reasons for decision

Background

1. The applicant Mr Qurban Ali Hussein is a Hazara Afghan who brought proceedings in the Federal Circuit Court under the Commonwealth Race Discrimination Act (the RDA) against Centrelink. On 29 May 2015 the Federal Circuit Court handed down the judgement of Judge Manousaridis in the matter of Qurban Ali Hussein v Commonwealth of Australia Department of Human Services Centrelink [2015] FCCA 1440 (29 May 2015) and the applicant’s complaint under the RDA was dismissed.

2. After the judgement was handed down, the respondent in these proceedings contacted the applicant and he was interviewed for a newspaper article. The respondent published an article in the newspaper and online version of the Daily Telegraph on 5 June 2015 about the decision of the Federal Circuit Court. The published article was headlined, “Afghan migrant takes racial abuse action against Centrelink”. The article included references to his own allegations before the Court. The article also included references to allegations made against him by Centrelink staff which were also before the Court. The decision of the Court was to dismiss his complaint. As part of the judgement some specific allegations which had been made against him were found not to have been proven. The applicant complains that the article should not have mentioned these allegations because they were not true. The online article also included a series of comments left by readers in response to the article.

3. The applicant complained to the Anti-Discrimination Board (the ADB) in relation to the published article. He alleged that the respondent engaged in racial vilification under section 20C of the Anti-Discrimination Act (the ADA). The respondent…