PRIVILEGE DEFENCE IN LIBEL CASE

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 284, 30 August 1945, Page 7

PRIVILEGE DEFENCE IN LIBEL CASE

Editor’s Reply To Minister

(Received August 29, 7 p.m.) SYDNEY, August 29.

Replying to the statement by (he Minister of Information. Mr. Colwell, giving his reasons for withdrawing his suit against Brian Penton, editor of thi»_Sydney “Daily Telegraph.” claiming £25,000 for alleged libel, Mr. Penton says, in part: “The defence of privilege was not raised to checkmate the action, but to throw on Mr. Calwell the onus of proving that the statements he made in Parliament were true.

“Mr. Colwell’s excuse for evading this action is typical,” continued Mr. Penton. "His pathetic complaint that I chose to defend myself with the qualified privilege extended by law to the man who answers slanderous attacks'on himself will amuse tlm public, which has become accustomed to Mr. Cnlwell’s use of absolute Parliamentary privilege to blackguard generally without the remotest care for facts every individual and institution he does not like. The statements Mr. Colwell made in Parliament, bitterly critical of the organization T work for and of its executive heads were, we said, deliberately false, and the idea of privilege would have obliged Mr. Cnlwell to go into the witness box and produce evidence to support his statements. If lie had been able to do so. our Plea of privilege would have collapsed and he would have been assured of heavy damages. “We pleaded justification as well as qualified privilege. Under the plea of justification we would have been obliged to prove certain facts. If wc had failed the damages would have been aggravated.”