18 March 2009

Margaret Spalding tests the defamation waters

| johnboy
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Cast your mind back to the fiasco of the Narrabundah Longstay Caravan Park sale. The Zivcos, the statements by the charity (Koomarri) pocketing $2 million and walking away, the crazy residents. It was a Canberra FUBAR circus of the first water and kept local news hounds entertained for months.

Less entertained however was the CEO of Koomarri, Margaret Spalding. The Canberra Times brings word of her efforts to sue 2CC for defamation over their reporting and opinionating of the whole sorry business.

    “Ms Spalding is claiming the remarks were defamatory because they implied she was a liar, was a knowing party in a cold, ruthless plan to throw residents on to the street and had behaved deplorably.”

It’ll be interesting to see how honestly held opinion holds up as a defence here.

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regularbrowse12:53 pm 18 Mar 09

midlife +1. Same as what I’ve heard too.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy11:16 am 18 Mar 09

Nice.

Having worked for Koomarri at the time I know the original plan was to hold the park for the required 5 years and then get rid of it ASAP after then. It was a backdoor way for the government to look after Koomarri. After all Koomarri only paid $1 for the park. Remember Margaret was the partner of Ted Quinlan at the time (I do not have more up to date information than that). I may be a slightly disgruntled worker but Koomarri has frequently appeared in the AAT for the way it has dismissed staff. [Redacted]. Even Margaret refered to the organisation as a sheltered workshop for management.

Clown Killer10:31 am 18 Mar 09

Well either way Koomarri are still in my charity sin bin over the way they managed the whole affair. It’ll take a while before they get any of my philanthropic attention.

Feel free to move around\insert punctuation in that sentence at your leisure.

Purely out of “Could be needed at some point in future” where does one find out about the laws relevant to slander\defamation in the ACT, and who is a good local lawyer in the relevant field?

We’re finding the letter of the law matters much less than deep pockets and a willingness to wave lawyers around.

Putting think in like that doesn’t protect you against defamation. The word ‘allegedly’ also doesn’t protect you from defamation.

However don’t worry, nothing you typed could be considered defamatory (and if it was I think JB should be more concerned than you).

I THINK this is a major mistake and will just remind everyone how koomarri messed up, just when we were forgetting.

unless she rally is just after the money…

This will be a very interesting case. I hope 2CC doesn’t settle.

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