Mike Rann may rue defamation suit

MIKE Rann should cast a wary eye over Kennett v The Australian now that he has sued the Seven Network

MIKE Rann should cast a wary eye over Kennett v The Australian now that he has sued the Seven Network for alleging he conducted an affair with a married woman in Adelaide.

Another premier, also at the height of his political power, found to his great cost there is no such thing as an open-and-shut case when it comes to defamation.

There are some parallels between Mr Rann having his day in court -- assuming the action he has filed in the South Australian Supreme Court proceeds -- and the case Jeff Kennett mounted against this newspaper in 1999 in Victoria are striking.

Like Mr Rann, Mr Kennett was a successful two-term premier who was gearing up for what seemed to be the formality of a third state election victory when he sued The Australian over an article that referred to "however unfactual" rumours about the state of his marriage.

Mr Kennett said the report falsely imputed that he had cheated on his wife, Felicity, before their temporary separation.

The Australian refused to retract or apologise to Mr Kennett, maintaining the article was not defamatory. A jury of six agreed with The Australian, finding that the article was not defamatory.

The defamation Mr Rann alleges is more clear cut in one sense: there is no ambiguity in the paid interview Seven put to air on November 22 with former parliamentary waitress Michelle Chantelois. She alleged she had had sex repeatedly with the South Australian Premier during a torrid affair in 2004 and 2005, including encounters in his Parliament House office.

Mr Rann, having denied the relationship went beyond friendship, says in his statement of claim that promotions for the interview by Seven and the segment itself were broadcast with reckless indifference to the truth, to maliciously cause him embarrassment and harm. If the case goes to trial, it will be heard by a Supreme Court judge alone.

Mr Kennett's defamation claim was determined by a Victorian Supreme Court jury in March 1999 amid expectations, ramped up by The Age, that "every lawyer in court thought that Kennett was going to win". He didn't.

The Australian's legal team did not present evidence at the five-day trial to rebut that of Mr Kennett and other witnesses, relying on what turned out to be a masterful closing by Jeff Sher QC. The jury evidently accepted Mr Sher's argument that The Australian had reasonably reported the pressures faced by the Kennetts as a political couple and on any commonsense reading the article was not defamatory. People who entered public life had to "pay the price" of dealing with "unsubstantiated, unfounded rumours", he said.

For Mr Kennett, the cost of the trial arguably exceeded the hefty legal bill he had to foot, estimated at more than $250,000. When the Liberal lost the election in a boilover later that year, some in the ALP traced the turning point back to the defamation case.

Mr Rann completed Labor's clean sweep of state governments by taking office in 2002. He will be hoping history does not repeat.