''Eyre v New Zealand Press Assoc Ltd'' (

968 Year 968 ( CMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Emperor Nikephoros II receives a Bulgarian embassy led by Prince Boris (the ...

NZLR 736) is a cited case regarding the

defamation Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...

defence of common law privilege, ie.reporting of statements made by the plaintiff

Background

In the run-up to the 1966 general election, the outgoing MP and Defence Minister,

Dean Eyre Dean Jack Eyre (8 May 1914 – 19 May 2007) was a New Zealand politician of the National Party. Biography Early life and career Eyre was born in Westport in 1914. His father was an official with the Customs Department and due to this the fa ...

, made an election speech regarding the

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. The New Zealand Press Association subsequently printed an article on the speech, and rather than print the entire speech, just quoted selected parts of his speech, including that he "would give

North Vietnam North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; vi, Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa), was a socialist state supported by the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Southeast Asia that existed f ...

a basinful of bombs tomorrow morning if he had his way", plus a quote that "we are dealing with Oriental people. They are different from ourselves". The Minister found these statements to be defamatory, as with regards to the "basinful of bombs" quote, it should have been qualified by the fact that he had said this regarding only military targets, and with regards to the "oriental people" quote, the article giving this quote only 3 sentences after the basin of bombs quote, gave the impression that the Minister was saying that Oriental people deserved to be bombed, when in reality, this second quote was only made at the end of the meeting. The Minister sued the NZPA for defamation, which the NZPA defended the basis of fair reporting of a public meeting, as the Minister did make these statements at the meeting.

Held

The Court held that these selected statements combined were inaccurate reporting, and so was defamation. The District Court's previous award of $15,000 damages was thus upheld.

References

{{reflist High Court of New Zealand cases New Zealand tort case law 1966 New Zealand general election 1968 in New Zealand law 1968 in case law