Fierravanti-Wells v Nationwide News Pty Ltd & Anor

Fierravanti-Wells v Nationwide News Pty Ltd & Anor - [2010] NSWSC 648 - NSWSC 2010 case summary — Zoe

[10]

The first article 4 The first article was printed over two pages (the pleadings do not identify where in the newspaper the articles appeared). On the first page, in large, bold, print, is the headline. It is: " Tour de farce: Our jet set MPs 'study' abroad " 5 For the purposes of these proceedings, the headline and paragraphs (and other parts of the article) have conveniently been given numbers that did not appear in the original publication. I will adopt that numbering system. 6 The opening paragraph of this article (given the number 2) is as follows: "Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe is 'forward-thinking', the Islamist paramilitary organisation Hezbollah is 'not radical' and chickens in Thailand are scrawny. These are among the startling findings of $4.9 million in taxpayer-funded political study tours." 7 The opening paragraph sets the tone for the balance of the article. In the following seven paragraphs, the article asserts that Federal Members of Parliament spent "the record sum" in just six months of "globetrotting". The subject matter is travel entitlements of members of Federal Parliament, and the manner in which those entitlements are used. It is fair to say that the article is critical of the sums of money expended, and the results obtained from that expenditure. In short, the article, in a sardonic fashion, satirises the "political study tours" referred to in the opening paragraph, and questions, in a scornful tone, the value of the travel so undertaken by Members of Parliament. Between paragraphs numbered 4 and 10 the article names three Members of Parliament (not the plaintiff) and makes reference to their travel, in two cases, to the cost of the travel, and to reports of their travel said to have been tabled in Parliament by them. The prevailing message of the article to this point is that large amounts of public money have been squandered for no useful purpose. It is hinted that the reports are of no or little value, and trivial and/or naïve. It is, perhaps, putting it too highly (but not by much) to say that these passages ridicule the Members of Parliament to whom they relate. 8 Between paragraphs numbered 22 and 33, another four Members of Parliament are named, with reference to their travel and what they subsequently claimed to have gained from it. 9 On the first page is a photograph of one of the named Members of Parliament (not the plaintiff). 10 In the paragraph numbered 13 the plaintiff is introduced. Between the paragraphs numbered 14 and 21, reference is made to travel to Italy she is said have undertaken. It is as well to set out the whole of that portion of the article: "13 Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells jetted to Italy for two weeks to find solutions to the Australian wool-industry crisis.

[26]

Imputation a: the plaintiff rorted her study tour abroad 18 The imputation is obviously derived from the heading of the breakout, "WIDE WORLD OF RORTS", in conjunction with the description of the plaintiff's travel. 19 The submission made on behalf of the defendants assumed that "rorted" involves some notion of dishonesty or trickery. The article, they argued, fell well short of this. 20 The Macquarie Dictionary Online defines "rort" as (so far as conceivably relevant): " Colloquial 1. an incident or series of incidents involving reprehensible or suspect behaviour, especially by officials or politicians. 5. to take wrongful advantage of; abuse: to rort the system. " 21 Neither in the paragraph concerning the plaintiff in the breakout, nor in the paragraphs numbered 13 to 22, which are the paragraphs concerned with the plaintiff and her travel, is there any suggestion of any "reprehensible or suspect behaviour". However, what was published, as a whole, is capable of suggesting that the plaintiff took wrongful advantage of, or abused, the system which provides for parliamentary "study trips". 22 It is true that the overriding message from the article as a whole, including that which refers to the plaintiff, is that all of the travel referred to was unproductive and a waste of public funds. But there is no suggestion that the plaintiff obtained anything to which she was not entitled (as distinct from anything to which the author of the article might have thought she ought not to be entitled) or that she engaged in anything underhand or otherwise questionable to obtain the funding for her travel. The attack is, throughout, on the system, which allows Members of Parliament to travel, at public expense, on what are said to be "study trips". That system is attacked by illustrations of what the various named Members of Parliament had achieved and what they had reported. 23 In paragraph 13, the purpose of the plaintiff's travel is identified as: "… to find solutions to the Australian wool-industry crisis."

[51]

Imputation a: the plaintiff deceived taxpayers by pretending she went to Italy to study the wool industry when her real reason was to shop in Milan and visit her property in Umbria 50 On two occasions during the article it is said that, during a two-week trip, the plaintiff had spent a weekend on the property. One of these (paragraph 4) appears to attribute that information to the plaintiff; the other (paragraph 8) directly attributes the information to the plaintiff's husband. The imputation as framed is directed to what the plaintiff told the public (taxpayers) or led them to believe, whether before or after she undertook the travel. That is, the nub of the imputation is the asserted deception of taxpayers. 51 There are two reasons why this imputation is not capable of having been conveyed. The first is that there is not the slightest suggestion that the plaintiff deceived taxpayers. In paragraph 3 it was asserted that the plaintiff said that the purpose of her trip was to find solutions to the Australian wool industry crisis. There is no suggestion that that was not true. The use of the word "but" to commence the next paragraph might have been intended to question that claim by the plaintiff but, the sentence being incomplete, it is not possible to know what was intended. The assertions that the plaintiff shopped in Milan and spent a weekend on her property are contained in a clause that is unrelated to the purpose of the travel. But there is nothing in the assertion that the plaintiff shopped in Milan and spent a weekend on her Umbria property during the trip that suggests that her identification of that purpose was deceptive, or a pretence. Nor is there anything that suggests that shopping in Milan or spending a weekend on her property during the trip were her "real reason[s]" for her travel, or were incompatible with travel for the stated reasons. Readers would be well aware that business travel frequently allows opportunities for diversions from the principal purpose of the travel. The article, far from suggesting that shopping and staying at the property were the real reasons for the trip, suggests that these were incidental to what the plaintiff did. 52 I accept that the use of the word "admitted" (on two occasions) colours the content of the paragraphs in which the word appears. It suggests something of which the plaintiff has been caught out, or which is discreditable. 53 But it does not go so far as to suggest that staying at the property, or shopping, demonstrated that the plaintiff had deceived taxpayers or engaged in a (false) pretence about the purpose of her travel. 54 This imputation is not capable of having been conveyed. It will be struck out.

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