Peter Dutton abandons High Court bid in failed defamation case

Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has abandoned his bid for a High Court appeal in his failed defamation case over a six-word tweet.

Duttonlaunched Federal Court defamation proceedings in April last year against refugee advocate Shane Bazzi over a tweet in February that year accusing him of being a “rape apologist”.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in parliament on Monday.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in parliament on Monday.Alex Ellinghausen

The federal Liberal MP’s lawyers argued the tweet conveyed the defamatory meaning that he “excuses rape”.

Justice Richard White found in Dutton’s favour in November last year andawarded him $35,000 in damages and $825 in interest,plus some of his legal costs. The damages award fell well short of the statutory maximum of $432,500 that could have been awarded.

Bazzilaunched an appeal in December,arguing the tweet did not convey the defamatory meaning alleged by Dutton’s lawyers,namely that Dutton excuses rape.

In a decision in May this year,the Full Court of the Federal Court – Justices Steven Rares,Darryl Rangiah and Michael Wigney – agreed the tweet did not convey this meaning and dismissed the proceedings.

Dutton,who waselected leader of the federal parliamentary Liberal Party in May after the Coalition’s election loss,filed a High Court special leave application in June in an attempt to appeal against the Full Court decision.

However,public records indicate Dutton filed a notice of discontinuance of his special leave application on Friday and the Full Courtmade orders on Monday finalising the proceedings.

“I am very relieved that this matter has now been finalised,” Bazzi said in a statement. He said fighting the case had been a “harrowing ordeal for me and my family” and it had caused him “immense distress”.

His lawyers,Sydney firm O’Brien Criminal&Civil Solicitors,said:“We accept that there should be some boundaries to things you can say about people,even politicians,but we never for a moment believed that Mr Bazzi had crossed that line and,in the end,neither did the court.”

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In his February 25 tweet last year,Bazzi posted a link to aGuardian Australia article reporting Dutton’s assertion on Sky News in 2019 that some women on Nauru “have claimed that they’ve been raped and came to Australia to seek an abortion”. Dutton suggested they were “trying it on” in order to secure a medical transfer to Australia.

Bazzi wrote above the link:“Peter Dutton is a rape apologist.”

In a joint judgment,Rares and Rangiah had said it was “not sufficient that the tweet was offensive and derogatory” and Dutton “had the onus to establish,on the balance of probabilities,that the reader reasonably would have understood that the tweet conveyed the imputation that he asserted it conveyed”.

In a separate judgment,Wigney said the tweet “no doubt conveys an impression that is derogatory and critical of Mr Dutton’s attitude to rape or rape allegations,but it does not go so far as to convey the impression that Mr Dutton is a person who excuses rape”.

A spokesman for the Leader of the Opposition said:“The parties have agreed to settle the proceedings,including in relation to the payment of costs.

“As part of the settlement,Mr Dutton has not,and will not,be paying any amount to Mr Bazzi or his lawyers.

“This has demonstrated that it is completely unacceptable to call someone a rape apologist,or descriptions of a similar grotesque nature. The same rules should apply online as they do in the real world.”

Bazzi and Dutton had been locked in a dispute over whether the MP should have to pay the former's legal costs when they had been covered by funds raised via crowd funding. Bazzi's lawyers said on Monday that the parties had reached a resolution and no further argument in court was necessary.

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Michaela Whitbourn is a legal affairs reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.

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