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Ch18 Parliamentary committees / CONDUCT OF INQUIRIES / Publication of evidence / Media coverage



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House of Representatives                                Ch 18                                                 p 677

 

Parliamentary committees / CONDUCT OF INQUIRIES / Publication of evidence

 

Media coverage

Committees have a responsibility to ensure that inaccurate media reports of their proceedings which may adversely affect witnesses, or the committee or its members, are corrected.

A notable instance occurred in 1972, when the Joint Committee on the Australian Capital Territory insisted that a newspaper correct an article in which it was alleged, inter alia, that an officer of the Department of the Interior had written the committee’s report. The newspaper published on its front page a correction, withdrawal and apology. It apologised unreservedly ‘for any reflection that may have been cast upon members and officers of the committee, the Department of the Interior, and officers of the department’. 1 No further action was taken by the committee. During the 40th Parliament the Department of the House of Representatives commenced activities to disseminate more proactively information about committee activities

Section 10 of the Parliamentary Privileges Act provides that it is a defence to an action for defamation that the defamatory matter was published by a defendant without any adoption by the defendant of the substance of the matter and was contained in a fair and accurate report of proceedings at a meeting of a committee.



Canberra Times , 16 September 1972.