Some thoughts on being threatened with defamation by Melinda Tankard Reist

The irony is too delicious, MTR is claiming some sort of character assassination on your part when in fact her character has just committed suicide. Everybody now knows who she really is.

MTR, Barbara Streisand just called; she wants her internet meme back.

Jennifer, its probably not very comforting hearing from random posters on your blog but I think I speak for many when I say ‘we got your back’. If MTR follows through with any sort of actual legal action, support will flow for you very quickly. It will be painted on the rooftops.

Coach Pete

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Melissa Tankard Reist needs to be attacked on every level in every way – Go, Jennifer!

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Paul Skinner has made a very sage point. Tanky has been forced to show her true colours and from my vantage-point, I see little of any alleged “Christianity” involved; certainly nothing of what I’ve ever been familiar with that would constitute that.
In fact, if THAT’S “Christianity”, I’ll go out and join a coven, so I can feel clean again.
Since we are under surveillance, I’d suggest that the Thought-Gestapo return to their mistress with advice to consider the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man, a New Testament parable obiously no come across by the so-called “Christians”, on their eyes-wide-shut travels. The victims suffer in this life, their oppressors burn throughout eternity.

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Stuff it, I’ll contribute $1,000

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I worked with MTR at a Christian organisation. I know from experience that her opinions derive from her religious views – some of which are truly shocking in their conservatism. I couldn’t describe them as anything other than anti-feminist views. I can’t shed any light on the brand of christianity that she subscribes to – I presumed she was Catholic given her close association with Tony Abbott and the Catholic conservatives on both sides of politics, but she was very close with the Baptists in our workplace.

I truly wish you all the best – the Age article on MTR seemed to studiously avoid her devisive religious views, which meant that it only told a fraction of the story. This oversight deserved to be highlighted.

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I often tell people not to sue for defamation – the upside is tiny compared to a costs order on the downside.. & when threatened with a concerns notice, settle it.. if you can live with the result, even if not happy with it.
The costs are simply out of all proportion.
That said, I can’t see anything sounding in damages for the “Baptist” imputation, even if made out and a multitude of defences fail? The “duplicitous” imputation might be carried but it seems there are defences to that… does the imputation set out in the concerns notice really say “opinion”?
Who knows how and what evidence will come out though..
You need specific advice though about your current position. Posting more can add to the damages.

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I’ve heard of MTR only through her legal threats against you. It’s clear from a little searching that she’s an exceptionally unpleasant person, a bully, a monomaniac, with no great commitment to making sure that what she says in public is true.

I might suggest that you start collecting cache images of MTR’s many appearances as featured speaker at Belconnen and other Baptist churches. They may start disappearing.

And Jennifer, I’ve heard of you only as because of MTR’s threats. And a bit of reading shows your blog is excellent, and you’re on my regularly checked blogs, now.

I will contribute to your defence fund if needed. I think you should also be looking at getting this issue out widely, because I think Australians will want to help you stand up to this crappy attempt at bullying.

(By the way, in your position, I’d not withdraw and apologise, or give MTR any money as demanded. There seems no need to knuckle under to this. It’s a bugger having to fight, but it’s the best thing to do when bad people come at you.)

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First, I would like to thank MTR and her silly lawsuit for pointing me to this brilliant blog through Sydney Morning Herald article.
Second, there are many people ready to support you financially to stand the case. I’m one of them.

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Hold the line, Jennifer. If you back down the bottom-feeding lawyers that MTR has engaged will hound you all the way to bankruptcy.

I was sued for defamation a few years ago and due to pressure from my co-defendents I backed down and printed an immediate retraction. The bill from their lawyers for a couple of threatening letters came to around $20k, which would have put my family in the poor-house if not for the support of a number of close friends.

Amazing how people who think they hold the moral high ground resort to such cheap tactics as threatening to sue rather than engaging in open debate…

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I’m another who came to this blog because of the MTR thing. But will be staying because its a darn good read.

May you have the strength & fortitude to stand up to this tactic. Given that all sorts of things could arise in a court case that will then be on the public record *forever*, it is a dangerous game that she plays. Remember that.

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I have discovered (via furious purpse) both you and MTR thanks to the latter’s cowardly threats.
Your blog I like. Her opinions I **** ***** because **** and she makes me ****.
My only hope is that her legal cronies don’t find a way of censoring this comment!
The ball is still in her court. Hopfully she will realise how foolish she’ll look if she goes ahead with this.
Good luck.

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Hi, I am so sorry you have been subjected to this rubbish and I am so so glad that you have had the courage to bring this into the open.

Definitely seek free legal advice from any community legal service, or any newspaper in your area could point you towards qualified and experienced defamation lawyers. Most legal letters are just puff designed to intimidate people into stopping some activity, they are NOT a legally binding document.

If you want to set up a community defence fund to raise funds for legal costs etc, I would happily contribute and I am sure many others would also.

I do not believe that MTR has a case for defamation as I understand the law on defamation. Here is the link to a website which provides legal advice for journalists:

http://www.thenewsmanual.net/Resources/medialaw_in_australia_02.html

two things:

1. MTR would have to prove that the information you have published is somehow defamatory eg. would cause people to shun or avoid her. I think it would be very interesting to see someone try to prove that being called a Baptist would cause people to shun them.

2. There are a number of defences to defamation law which you could use successfully – the most obvious one being that you are engaged in political debate, and you honestly believed or can prove that MTR is a baptist.

As I said, don’t take my word for it, and again, if you would like to take up some sort of community defence fund collection I will happily donate AND promote the cause.

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Just thought I add that one of the pieces of info that has come to light is that the Belconnen Baptist Church has said that MTR isn’t listed as one of their parishioners. I always thought the Baptist link was doubtful given MTR’s association with Harradine, a Catholic.

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For those with info/tips/advice on legal precedents, tactics etc,(I doubt they will ever be needed by Jennifer.)

We need to get the free speech wagon rolling fwd, but need to be as clever as the ***ts are sleazy.

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Jennifer,

Several days ago I tweeted this:

I had tweeted it in response to the news that Senator Abetz, as Minister responsible for the Australian Public Service, had welcomed the (effectively forced) resignation of Daryl Adams (@FlyOpineMonkey) from his job with the ATO following a prolonged period of suspension from duty. Daryl had previously operated the parody Twitter account ‘@FakePaulKeating’, on which he had tweeted critically with respect to MTR on 18 January 2012 during the ‘#MTRsues’ tweetstorm.

Yesterday I received a DM from Noel Towell, a Canberra Times journalist, who tweets as ‘@noeltowell’ (a verified Twitter account), inviting me to discuss my legal situation, one seemingly in relation to something I had said in that tweet, I had to infer. Understandably, he did not wish to have such a discussion in a public forum, and included a contact telephone number in his DM. I was unable to respond to his DM, for, as you know, my outgoing DMs don’t work on this account. I advised him of this:

I had assumed Noel Towell had meant Daryl Adams (@FlyOpineMonkey) as ‘having a legal position’ in this matter, as Adams, in hindsight could be seen as having been a victim of what may have been an essentially private vendetta pursued with the co-option of improper assistance of public officials at public expense. Senator Abetz, while in opposition, had named Adams in Parliament under privilege, which naming seemed to precipitate further disciplinary action by the employing agency, the ATO, against Adams more to MTR’s satisfaction. Adams eventually lost his job. Adams’ offending tweet was made in a private capacity, and his parody account was not obviously that of a public servant. He had not, at the time of tweeting, to my knowledge been ‘outed’. Any remedy at law justifiable should have been sought privately by MTR.

However.

As you can see from the Twitter conversation, Noel Towell sees you, Jennifer, as having a legal position in some way arising out of my first embedded tweet in this post. The post Towell refers to in the second embedded Twitter conversation was presumably the one by you to the comments thread of this very discussion, to which I had linked in my tweet. This one, on January 20, 2012 at 9:51 pm: https://noplaceforsheep.com/2012/01/17/some-thoughts-on-being-threatened-with-defamation-by-melinda-tankard-reist/#comment-10738

The revelation that MTR had sought to coerce OnLineOpinion into not publishing YOU long before your response to the Rachel Hills article of 8 January 2012 says to me that the real reason behind both the defamation threats against you and the pursuit of Adams’ employment was the implementation of censorship of political views not favoured by MTR, rather than the seeking of any justified and proportionate remedy at law for claimed ‘damage’.

All of which, in the context of MTR’s 12 years of experience around the traps of Parliament as a staffer to former Senator Harradine, calls into question whether Adams’ pseudonymity was unmasked in a due process of law instituted by MTR, or was an unmasking able to be effected by covert governmental surveillance capabilities perverted to the pursuit of an essentially private and political vendetta. In other words, was Adams FIRST identified as a public servant (whose employment was therefore considered vulnerable) with the aid of government surveillance, to SUBSEQUENTLY become the subject of a private complaint?

The prospect of the unjustified use of government surveillance capabilities in the service of attempts at the suppression of the expression of political opinion is very topical at present in the case of Michaela Banerjee (@LaLegale), who also lost her job at the former DIAC (now DIBP). In her case it seems her pseudonymity was unmasked with the aid of Radian6 technology, whereby the locations from which she tweeted on her own mobile devices in her own time may have been used to infer that the tweeter was an employee of DIAC. Acting on these inferences DIAC terminated her employment, asserting in the process that ‘on the basis of probabilities’ Michaela Banerjee was ‘@LaLegale’. In other words, they had insufficient proof but they sacked her anyway. There was no suggestion that any of @LaLegale’s tweets were offensive, just that they were deemed (probably by some software algorithm) politically critical.

To defend her employment Michaela Banerjee had to resort to injunctive process. Prior to her dismissal she initially had maintained that she could not be identified with the Twitter account ‘@LaLegale’, as she had every expectation of being entitled to: such is the whole point of pseudonymity if one is not otherwise breaking the law, which she wasn’t. So learning that she would have to resort to injunctive process to defend her employment, Michaela Banerjee, being a lawyer and probably seeing wisdom in avoiding the slightest appearance of perjury or deception of the Court, OUTED HERSELF!

Not a word of this ‘outing’ leaked to, or was picked up by, the media until the Federal Court announced its denial of the injunctive relief sought, to wit, Michaela Banerjee’s reinstatement. Upon that announcement the decision was reported in the Canberra Times. Early in that news item were the words “Ms Banerjee initially denied that the account was hers …”, thereby creating, in the absence of any report as to DIAC having proceeded to a dismissal without sufficient legitimately obtained proof, the impression that Michaela Banerjee was deceitful, when in fact anything but was the case.

I have no idea as to whether Noel Towell has any information that may be to your advantage with respect to the ‘#MTRsues’ wash-up, or why he may see you as having any case to pursue at law, as his initial tweet directed to me seemed to imply was the case. It is Daryl Adams who appears to me the biggest victim of disproportionate retribution in the light of what we now know. I cannot help but observe, in the light of subsequent events, what I remember from that 8 January 2012 Rachel Hills article: that it was headlined ‘Who’s Afraid of MTR?’. Overtones of intimidation, or what?

PS Jennifer, I intend posting the phone number given subsequently to this blog thread, but at a time when you are effectively ‘in attendance’ so that you can record it, then take that isolated post down to minimize any breach to Noel Towell’s privacy, given that I can’t DM it. I assume its a work number, but it may not be.

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