Heath, Mary; ILB Editor --- "Kumarangk News" [2000] IndigLawB 52; (2000) 5(1) Indigenous Law Bulletin 26

• Kumarangk News
• 8 May – Defendant Happily Settles Kumarangk Defamation Case
• 29 June-The Abc’s Defamation Case

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Kumarangk News

8 May – Defendant happily settles Kumarangk defamation case

The developers of a marina on Kumarangk (Hindmarsh Island) settled their defamation action against Dean Whittaker, (now a Deacon of the Uniting Church working at Jabiru, NT). Rev Whittaker was sued in 1997 over four letters he wrote to his local paper, the Southern Argus, between June 1994 and March 1997. The settlement included a denial of liability by Rev Whittaker, and he regarded the result as a vindication. The other terms of the settlement remain confidential.

Editor

29 June - The ABC’s defamation case

The Full Supreme Court of SA handed down its judgment in Chapman and Chapman v Australian Broadcasting Corp [2000] SASC 146. The Court found for the ABC in this appeal from a strike out application in the substantial defamation case the Chapmans have taken against the ABC over some of its coverage of the Hindmarsh Island Bridge issue, involving 22 separate publications between 1992 and 1997. Consequently, a significant number of paragraphs in the Chapmans’ statement of claim have been struck out as incapable of bearing the meanings the Chapmans pleaded for them. The case continues.

Mary Heath