Adam Bandt said comments Mark Dreyfus made about the Greens and pro-Palestinian activists were “utterly unfounded”.
- Greens leader Adam Bandt says his lawyers have written to Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus over “defamatory” comments.
- Dreyfus made the comments about pro-Palestinian protests in an interview with the ABC.
- It comes after the government and Opposition condemned the protests and accused the Greens of inflaming tensions.
Mr Dreyfus spoke on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing where he directed his anger about the issue towards the Greens leader.
“I think that the Greens political party and particularly the leader of the Greens political party have got something to answer for here in the way that they have been encouraging criminal damage of MPs electorate offices, encouraging really riotous behaviour, sometimes violent behaviour, that has been occurring outside electorate offices,” Mr Dreyfus said on the program.
Here are the comments in question, as reported by the ABC.
I understand SBS’s desire to avoid potentially platforming misinformation, but the story is pretty meaningless without this context.
Shortly after, Mr Dreyfus spoke on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing where he directed his anger about the issue towards the Greens leader.
“I think that the Greens political party and particularly the leader of the Greens political party have got something to answer for here in the way that they have been encouraging criminal damage of MPs electorate offices, encouraging really riotous behaviour, sometimes violent behaviour, that has been occurring outside electorate offices,” Mr Dreyfus said on the program.
Yeah, that does seem pretty defamatory. Maybe the meaning of ‘encourage’ could be weaseled about by the defence if it does go to court, but “they have been encouraging criminal damage” doesn’t seem very ambiguous. If he’d said ‘they have been encouraging protests resulting in criminal damage’ he might have more of a leg to stand on.
Doubt it’ll go to court, he’ll probably just make a public pseudo-apology and that’ll be that. But if it did go to court, I imagine the defence will argue that by not explicitly condoning, and in some instances fully supporting the protests, they were “encouraging” any criminal damage that may have occurred. I would hope that argument wouldn’t work, but a lot has happened in the last six months that I previously would have hoped would never happen so who knows at this point.
This would be a good use of defamation laws, the implications if this case goes ahead would lead to much better behaviour from politicians and perhaps force a bit more truth into political advertising
