Defence Minister Peter Dutton has been awarded $35,000 in a defamation action against refugee advocate Shane Bazzi over a tweet that accused him of being “a rape apologist”.
The now-deleted tweet was accompanied by a link to a story published in The Guardian in 2019, containing comments Mr Dutton made about women on Nauru when he was Home Affairs Minister.
Mr Bazzi had denied defaming Mr Dutton, saying he was only exercising fair comment and honest opinion.
But on Wednesday, the Federal Court found the tweet did defame Mr Dutton, and awarded damages.
Justice Richard White ruled the tweet was defamatory and it implied Mr Dutton was a person who excused rape.
“I consider that the ordinary reasonable reader would have understood Mr Bazzi to be asserting that Mr Dutton was a person who excuses rape, and that the attached link provided support for that characterisation of him,” he said.
“Mr Bazzi has not established the statutory defence of honest opinion, or the common law defence of fair comment on a matter of public interest.”
But Justice White rejected suggestions that the tweet implied Mr Dutton condoned rape and that Mr Bazzi had acted out of malice. He threw out Mr Dutton’s application for an injunction to prevent Mr Bazzi from commenting further, saying there was little risk of a repeat.
“It is particularly pertinent in this respect that Mr Bazzi removed the tweet shortly after receiving the concerns letter from Mr Dutton’s solicitors, and there is no evidence that he has thereafter repeated it,” Justice White said.
Tweet ‘went against who I am’: Dutton
The Federal Court began hearing the case in October after the parties were unable to agree on a settlement.
Mr Dutton told the court he had been the subject of many offensive and profane remarks over the years, but Mr Bazzi’s comment was different.
“This went beyond that,” Mr Dutton said.
“It went against who I am, my beliefs. This went to a different level.
“It was hurtful and I was offended by it. I do not believe this is a freedom of speech issue.”
Mr Dutton said he found out about the tweet from his staff, and formed the view that it was more than someone having a rant about him, particularly because Mr Bazzi had a blue tick on his account — meaning his account was verified by Twitter.
The court heard he had accepted an apology from Senator Larissa Waters which included the same comment.
The case will return to court next month, for the parties to argue over costs.
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