Gary Forrester - Australia's Longest-running Defamation Suit

Australia's Longest-running Defamation Suit

In 1990, Forrester led a group of eleven public service colleagues in mounting legal and political challenges to improprieties and mismanagement within the State of Victoria's accident compensation scheme, known at the time as "WorkCare." Approximately 25 court cases were lodged, based on allegations of racism, workplace espionage by WorkCare's fraud investigations unit, and other improprieties. Following airing of these grievances in the Victorian parliament on 29 March 1990, and a nationally-screened report by ABC television on 31 July 1990, the management of Victoria's Accident Compensation Commission (ACC) mounted Australia's longest-running defamation case, against the ABC, in Victoria's Supreme Court.

Victoria's State Ombudsman found that an ACC general manager had ordered one of his fraud investigators, Gary Mutimer, to spy on the ACC's chairman Professor Ronald Sackville. Spy operations were also carried out against Mr. John Halfpenny, secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall Council, an ex-offico member of the ACC board.

Following repeated urgings by Supreme Court Justice David Byrne, the ACC/ABC defamation case eventually settled on 28 March 1992, when the ABC issued an "apology" to the ACC's former managing director and two other managers. However, the ABC declined to pay any financial compensation to the three, and the ABC's chairman, David Hill, told the Australian Senate that the apology was simply a "commercial decision." The case had cost the taxpayers of Victoria over two million dollars in legal costs.

In separate litigation in the Federal Court of Australia, Forrester was awarded a six-figure settlement by the ACC in November 1992. In a case before the Equal Opportunity Board, Forrester's colleague, African-born lawyer Dr. Nii Wallace-Bruce, received $33,000 in costs in July 1991, in the course of settling his claims of racism and other improprieties. Gary Mutimer was awarded compensation for stress caused by being required to carry out improper surveillance operations on Professor Sackville. The ACC general manager who had ordered the spying operations submitted his resignation from ACC in March 1990. On 25 July 1991, the ACC's managing director was removed from office by Victoria's State Government.