No comments can be made at this stage...but
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Editorial, The Courier-Mail
Wednesday August 18th 1999
One Nation's parliamentary leader Bill Feldman chose to use his condolence speech on the death of former MP Charles Rappolt to launch an extraordinary attack on The Courier-Mail and some of its staff. It was a disgraceful misuse of parliamentary privilege to make defamatory accusations based on complete falsehoods.
The Courier-Mail, in keeping with guidelines being developed by the Australian Press Council, takes great care in reporting suicides and attempted suicides. Mr Feldman, on the other hand, determined to use Mr Rappolt's self-inflicted death (as he did his attempted suicide last year) to advance One Nation's hysterical claims of a conspiracy by the media in general and this newspaper in particular against Mr Rappolt. He claims we have blood on our hands.
Mr Feldman based his attack on the claim that The Courier-Mail disregarded a Supreme Court injunction and legislation concerning domestic violence orders. These claims are simply untrue. Mr Rappolt and his partner had sought such an order, but failed to obtain one. The material The Courier-Mail published was intended to show that Mr Rappolt had lied to the public about his de facto relationship with his then partner.
Mr Rappolt (sic - this should be Feldman) also claimed a reporter used stolen documents. That is false. He then stated that this newspaper is a signatory (whatever that is supposed to mean) to a court action against Scott Balson over the alleged publication on an Internet site of the name of a person facing committal procedures on sex charges. He implies that The Courier-Mail has taken a different stance in relation to the naming of the person (than it did about Rappolt) because he has a Labor background. Both aspects of this claim are complete nonsense.
In the first place, Mr Balson is being prosecuted by the Crown and no private individual has any part in that prosecution. Secondly, Mr Feldman ignores the fact that The Courier-Mail published the person's name when it was legal to do so - before he was charged with an offence. Indeed, The Courier-Mail has brought before the public the names of politicians of all political persuasions where there has been evidence that they have failed in their legal duty, cheated on their ministerial entitlements or physically abused their wives.
As The Courier-Mail pointed out last year when Mr Rappolt resigned his seat, One Nation should have been more careful in selecting its election candidates to ensure that they would be able to face the rigour of public scrutiny if they were successful. Rather than examining their own policies and behaviour, One Nation and its supporters have responded to exposure of their numerous shortcomings by defaming journalists, who traditionally do not resort to the courts to obtain financial compensation for damage to their reputation. It would be a different matter if Mr Feldman were to make his latest allegations without the protection of parliamentary privilege. His incredibly cowardly attack could then be shown to be based on lies spread by him and One Nation.