Sappideen and Vines describe the law of defamation as an inadequate “patchwork of rules” which creates a convoluted system whose difficulty ultimately bars a large scope of the general population from being able to launch a defamation cause of action. It was only in 2004 that the Uniform Defamation Acts were introduced in Australia. Whilst this helped to harmonize the individual defamation acts of the eight jurisdictions within Australia, the stagnation in regards to reform since this occasion mean that great inequalities still exist in regards to defamation law. As it stands, there is no Commonwealth defamation act, rendering the Commonwealth legislature powerless in regards to defamation. This effects the equality of defamation law in Australia due to a lack of central legislation – in comparison, New York Times Company v Sullivan was successful in that it was ruled unconstitutional to limit free speech regarding criticism of public figures: “an unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment”. This lack of uniformity clouds the accessibility of defamation law for a majority of individuals within Australian society. Again, the absence of an overarching definition of what does, and does not constitute freedom of speech within the Australian Constitution thus complicates an already convoluted
Sappideen and Vines describe the law of defamation as an inadequate “patchwork of rules” which creates a convoluted system whose difficulty ultimately bars a large scope of the general population from being able to launch a defamation cause of action. It was only in 2004 that the Uniform Defamation Acts were introduced in Australia. Whilst this helped to harmonize the individual defamation acts of the eight jurisdictions within Australia, the stagnation in regards to reform since this occasion mean that great inequalities still exist in regards to defamation law. As it stands, there is no Commonwealth defamation act, rendering the Commonwealth legislature powerless in regards to defamation. This effects the equality of defamation law in Australia due to a lack of central legislation – in comparison, New York Times Company v Sullivan was successful in that it was ruled unconstitutional to limit free speech regarding criticism of public figures: “an unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment”. This lack of uniformity clouds the accessibility of defamation law for a majority of individuals within Australian society. Again, the absence of an overarching definition of what does, and does not constitute freedom of speech within the Australian Constitution thus complicates an already convoluted