ABC has spent more than $700k settling defamation battles since 2020

The ABC has spent more than $700,000 settling the various defamation lawsuits brought against it over the past three years, according to documents handed over to the Senate.

The settlement figures were revealed last week in response to a throng of questions taken on notice by the ABC during Senate estimates hearings in May, and were limited to reporting periods that saw the broadcaster involved in three or more defamation settlements, reaching back to the 2019-20 financial year.

In that year, the ABC settled fewer than three cases and wasn’t required to report, as the question taken on notice from Senator Ross Cadell asked the broadcaster to provide costs of litigation and settlement for years with more than three legal cases. The following financial year, 2020-21, the ABC spent $339,450 settling suits brought against it, as well as a further $871,088 on litigating those cases in court, from inception until settlement.

For the 2021-22 financial year, total defamation settlement costs were $414,000, with external costs of $315,626. The ABC’s external costs for these two financial years included all external legal fees tallied, including from previous financial years, the documents read.

The ABC’s total defamation costs are likely to far exceed those reported to the Senate last week, given the question’s limited scope and the broadcaster’s reported legal costs for overlapping periods.

The ABC did not respond to a request for comment.

Questions about the ABC’s total legal costs for the same period went unanswered. In December 2021, the broadcaster disclosed to the Senate that its legal bills had soared through the 2020-21 financial year to $2.59 million as it fended off two high-profile defamation suits.

One of the cases involved former attorney-general Christian Porter, who sued the ABC in March 2021 over an article that included rape allegations made against him (though he was not named in the report). Another case involved Four Corners journalist Louise Milligan, whose $200,000 legal bill was covered by the broadcaster after former Liberal MP Andrew Laming launched a suit against her for a tweet that accused him of “upskirting” a woman.

The ABC currently finds itself a party to at least four defamation proceedings, a separate question returned to the Senate on notice revealed.

The cases include the ongoing action brought by former commando Heston Russell, who launched defamation proceedings against the ABC in November 2021 over a TV broadcast and an online story he claimed defamed him by way of linking him to alleged war crimes.

The ABC is also being sued by the former Liberal Party staffer Bruce Lehrmann, whose lawyers said in June that the decision to air a live National Press Club address by Brittany Higgins in February last year was “recklessly indifferent, negligent and wilfully blind” to the possibility that Higgins would repeat “defamatory” claims against Lehrmann.