Page 2415 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 29 June 2005
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Australia also has a history of SLAPPs, but I will only mention a few here. In 1993 members of the Helensburgh District Protection Society near Sydney were taken to court by developers over actions, including forwarding letters to the local council over rezoning proposals. The action was later suspended, but it still hangs over the heads of those people, even though their campaign dates back to 1986.
In 1993, again, a forest activist was summoned to the New South Wales Supreme Court by the New South Wales Forestry Commission over comments made in a media interview. The undertaking sought was that the activist and “unnamed persons” be restrained from “conduct for the purposes of and having, or likely to have, the effect of soliciting unknown persons to trespass” in the forests in question. That case was rejected by the court, but not before the forestry commission had used the proceedings to subpoena 32 defendants.
The most recent well-publicised SLAPP is that by the powerful Gunns company, the world’s largest export woodchip company, which has taken out a writ against 20 individuals and organisations. On 14 December 2005, Gunns Ltd sued the Wilderness Society, five of its staff, Senator Bob Brown and 13 other groups and people for what it alleges are a series of wrongful acts. Gunns claims that the defendants engaged in a campaign against Gunns which constituted a conspiracy to injure Gunns by unlawful means and that the defendants illegally interfered with their trade and business, thus causing economic loss. Gunns is claiming a total of $6.4m in damages from all these claims. The claim against the Wilderness Society alone is $3.5m.
While the defendants will, of course, vigorously defend the claims and are likely to win in the court, they all face enormous costs in money, time, stress and worry. Gunns is the largest hardwood woodchipper of old growth forests in Australia. On 14 January 2005 the fightback by the Gunns 20 started with the filing of appearances in the Victorian Supreme Court. Peter Pullinger, defendant No 18, a Burnie dentist, said:
We are united here today to declare our intention to vigorously defend ourselves against this writ from Gunns—a massive export woodchip company.
We will continue to defend Tasmania’s ancient forests. We will continue to defend our clean air and water. We will continue to defend public health and to speak out in the interests of the Tasmanian community.
While the Gunns action is not particularly strong legally, one of its main intentions is to intimidate those who are opposed to its actions as the largest destroyer of Tasmania’s forests. It is also a major distraction for Gunns’ opponents. Even if the case is eventually dismissed by the courts, it will take up the time and resources of the defendants and potentially take away the ability of Gunns’ opponents to focus on their real issue, protecting old growth forests of Tasmania.
There are a number of ways in which people who have been SLAPPed can respond. They can withdraw from the public debate and do the best they can to defend themselves for a number of years against the legal resources that are thrown against them. People can SLAPP back, using the courts to make a case against the party that challenged them in the first place. This would seem to be a recipe for making Australia a more litigious place and does not have a good chance of success. The best way to deal with SLAPPs is
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