In this week’s ABR podcast, David Rolph, Professor of Law at the University of Sydney, analyses the implications of the aborted Murdoch v Crikey defamation case concerning the January 6 attacks on the Capital building. Rolph argues that it was set to be an early test of the new public interest defence within federal defamation law but that Lachlan Murdoch likely dropped the action because of its implications for legal proceedings in the US involving his media company. Listen to David Rolph, the author of books including Reputation, Celebrity and Defamation Law, read ‘Who blinks first: Lachlan Murdoch v Crikey’, from the June issue of ABR.

Lachlan Murdoch’s defamation proceedings against Crikey promised to be a test case on the new public interest defence. Following Murdoch’s discontinuation of his claim in April, the scope and application of the public interest defence to defamation await another appropriate vehicle.