The Lange qualified privilege defence does not extend by analogy to media publications criticising the conduct of judicial officers; the defence is confined to government and political matters facilitating representative and responsible government. The defence of comment under the Defamation Act 1974 (NSW) is directed to the imputation rather than the words of the published matter, and the fact/comment distinction must be assessed from the perspective of the ordinary reasonable reader having regard to the whole of the published matter including its context and placement. Where an article contains some inaccurate material but also contains proper material for comment, the defence under s 30(3)(b) may still succeed if the comment represents an opinion which might reasonably be based on the proper material.
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