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Graduate Centre

Defamation - Advice to Students

Students should be advised that it is a civil and criminal offence in Australia to publish anything which defames another person.

Any person who, by spoken words or by words intended to be read, publishes any defamatory imputation concerning any person is said to defame that person.

A defamatory statement is one that tends to disparage a person's reputation, one which injures a person in trade or profession, or one which displays a person in such a way as to make others shun, avoid or ridicule him or her.

Publication in this regard is, in the case of spoken words, the speaking of such words in the presence of any other person other than the person defamed and, in the case of written matter, the exhibiting of it in public, or causing it to be read and seen, or showing it, with a view to its being seen by any other person than the person defamed.

The term person includes corporations which may protect their reputations by resort to the civil law of defamation, just as much as a private individual.

There are a number of defences to a claim of defamation, including justification (truth) and fair comment on a matter of public interest, but students who have any concerns in this regard should seek the advice of the Graduate Centre.

Approved
Research Degrees and Scholarships Committee
13 September 2000

This page was last updated on Friday, October 23, 2009 10:45