The inter-relationship between the defences of justification (s 25) and contextual truth (s 26) under the Defamation Act 2005 (NSW) remains unresolved, including whether a defendant can rely on the truth of a plaintiff's pleaded-back imputations to 'overwhelm' the effect of unproven imputations through a holistic assessment of reputational harm. The question of the correctness of Kermode on the pleading point was left open. A defendant whose contextual imputations are pleaded back by the plaintiff retains the ability to prove the truth of those imputations to reduce damages.
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