Tamborine Mountain school principal turns to QLD highest court for secrecy

A school principal who is suing parents for more than $1 million for defamation has turned to Queensland’s highest court in a bid to keep the reasons for her suspension from the school a secret.

A GOLD Coast high school principal who is suing parents for more than $1 million for defamation has turned to Queensland’s highest court in a bid to keep the reasons for her suspension from the school a secret.

Long-serving Tamborine Mountain State High principal Tracey Brose has launched landmark legal action against five parents, alleging they defamed her in social media posts.

Mrs Brose, who has been principal at the school since 2001, alleges in court documents she was falsely called ‘an evil, nasty woman’ and a ‘lying, manipulative bully’ in posts on Facebook and a Change.org petition.

The petition and a Facebook supporters site were set up to have her reinstated after she was mysteriously suspended from the school in February 2016. She returned to work four months later.

A defamation trial in Southport District Court last week heard the reasons for her suspension had never been made public.

Last week, three of the parents being sued successfully sought to have letters from the Education Department to Mrs Brose relating to her suspension to be disclosed, arguing her reputation was already damaged before the alleged defamatory posts.

Lawyers for one of the parents told the court the documents would prove their case that she was a ‘bad principal’ who ‘behaved horrendously to those she felt were beneath her’.

But Mrs Brose’s lawyers immediately signalled an appeal and won a temporary stay preventing the letters from being given to the parents.

The Court of Appeal has been asked to hear an urgent appeal against Judge Catherine Muir’s order that the documents be handed over.

Arguing for a permanent stay until the appeal can be heard, Mrs Brose’s barrister, Holly Blattman, told the court today that making them available now could damage her client’s reputation and disadvantage her case.

“There is a well-founded concern in relation to the documents making their way into the public domain,” she said.

“This is a defamation proceeding and it’s a matter of her reputation (at stake), and these documents can affect that.”

Ms Blattman said if the Court of Appeal found Judge Muir had erred and the documents ‘never ought to have been anywhere other than in the plaintiff’s private possession’, it would be too late if they were already disclosed.

Two of the parents being sued by Mrs Brose, Donna and Miguel Baluskas, opposed the stay application, saying they had been seeking the documents since she first sued them in 2016.

Mr Baluskas accused Mrs Brose and her lawyers of not playing with ‘the rules of engagement’.

Judge Muir expressed concern that the trial could be delayed or even aborted as a result of the legal challenge.

She will rule on the stay application on Tuesday morning.