Common ethnicity and the prominence of the defamed person within an ethnic community are insufficient, without more, to establish the reciprocal duty or interest required for common law qualified privilege when defamatory material is published to the community at large. Volunteered defamatory publications characterised by vituperative, excessive and irrational language will readily support an inference of malice destroying any qualified privilege. The question whether publication to an ethnic community about an office-holder in a community organisation that actively fundraises within the community could attract qualified privilege was expressly left open by Handley AJA.
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