The Queensland Court of Appeal held that the Polly Peck approach — whereby a defendant pleads alternative defamatory meanings and then justifies those meanings — is not available in Queensland given its imputation-focused defamation law under the Defamation Act 1889 (Qld). The Court struck out the respondents' amended defence as excessively repetitious and prolix, and for impermissibly deploying alternative meanings not genuinely offered in denial of the appellant's pleaded imputations, but granted leave to replead within 28 days. The Court also considered the permissibility of disclosing spent convictions under the Criminal Law (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act 1986 (Qld) in the context of defamation proceedings.
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