NAAJA chair Colleen Rosas sues CEO Priscilla Atkins for ‘hurt feelings, humiliation, loss’

The defamation action claims the deputy chairwoman and her fellow director have ‘been greatly injured in their feelings, credit, personal and business reputation’.

The plaintiffs claim they were defamed by NAAJA chief executive Priscilla Atkins. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA) deputy chairwoman Colleen Rosas is suing the organisation’s chief executive Priscilla Atkins for defamation, claiming hurt feelings, embarrassment and economic loss.

Documents filed with the Supreme Court and obtained by the NT News show Ms Rosas and fellow director of the Territory’s biggest law firm, Vernon Hill, filed the amended writ on June 7.

The original writ, filed in December last year, also included NAAJA’s chief financial officer Madhur Evans, deputy CEO Phillip Brown and board members Shirley Garlett and Rebecca Moore, along with former director Natalie Ellis, who have since been removed as plaintiffs.

North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency chief executive Priscilla Atkins leaves the Federal Court. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

The writ claims Ms Atkins “committed the tort of defamation” against Ms Rosas and Mr Hill from December 29, 2022 onwards “by way of various publications”.

“By reason of the defamation by the defendant the plaintiffs have,” the document reads.

“(a) Been greatly injured in their feelings, credit, personal and business reputation;

“(b) Been humiliated and embarrassed;

“(c) Suffered loss and damage; and

“(d) Suffered economic loss.”

Ms Rosas and Mr Hill are seeking “damages for non-economic and economic loss” and “aggravated damages”, as well as “permanent injunctions restraining the defendant from continuing to defame the plaintiffs” along with interest and costs.

The amended writ was filed just weeks out from Thursday’s Federal Court judgment in Ms Atkins’ favour following a trial in Darwin last year in which Ms Rosas was a key witness.

In that case, Justice Natalie Charlesworth found Ms Atkins had exercised a recognised workplace right in making a complaint against Ms Evans in November 2022.

Colleen Rosas says she was ‘humiliated and embarrassed’ by ‘the defamation by the defendant’.

In subsequently suspending and then terminating Ms Atkins’ employment as well as engaging an external audit of her alleged “misconduct”, Justice Charlesworth ruled NAAJA had breached the Fair Work Act.

In the scathing judgment, Justice Charlesworth also found Ms Rosas’ testimony was at times “dubious”, “implausible” and both “startling and unconvincing in equal measure”.

Justice Charlesworth said she “simply cannot accept” Ms Rosas’ “could have a genuine belief” Ms Atkins had “tampered with” board minutes recording approval of a salary increase for the CEO, as she claimed in court.

“I consider that aspect of her evidence to form a part of a pattern in which she sought to avoid confronting questions about her knowledge of objective facts by denying them outright,” she said.

“In this instance by making a very serious allegation that the person who prepared the minutes (who she suggested was Ms Atkins) had fraudulently manipulated them to record a resolution that had not in fact been made.”

The defamation action will return to the Supreme Court for a directions hearing on July 23.