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ABC to defend lawsuit against The Checkout

No crying over spilt milk as ABC stands behind a story that A2 Milk claims defamed their company.

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ABC will defend a legal case brought against The Checkout by A2 Milk, which lodged a writ in the Federal Court, following a segment on April 30 in which Kirsten Drysdale accused it of “the latest bogus developments in milk science.”

Fairfax reports the story gave A2 Milk “a B minus for science” and suggested claims made by the company were “bullshit”.

Lawyers for A2 Milk claim the statements were “misleading or deceptive in contravention of section 18 of the Competition and Consumer Act” and say ABC breached its code of conduct by failing to provide balance, as well as reporting factual errors and inaccuracies.

But ABC has declined to apologise and will defend the claim, noting section 19 of the Act provides broadcasters with an exemption from engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct.

The Checkout has previously attracted legal action over stories including a defamation case brought by Avni Sali, the father of Swisse vitamins founder Radek Sali.

The Checkout is produced by Giant Dwarf and CJZ Productions.

14 Responses

  1. One of the best shows on TV, good on them for telling the truth.

    I agree it’s a sign they are doing a good job at informing the public when companies feel the need to sue. Sad truth is many people probably haven’t seen the show and any law suit is just going to make people more aware of the claims made about A2 milk.

  2. If this show wasn’t doing its job properly it would face next to no legal threats. Because it is doing its job properly, it has to face pedantic company minders who think they are untouchable. I watched this episode. There was a lot of factual information and the A2 body seemed not at all interested in doing the right thing such as a decent reply. The A2 milk people could have come up with a very clever response which would have saved them a whole lot of face and given them a whole lot of free advertising and customer goodwill to boot. Instead they now face a long drawn-out battle which will state over and over just how bad they are as a corporate body. Once again we can thank our lucky stars we have an ABC.

    1. A2 is marketing strategy, they need to defend that no matter what for their business model to work and it did given them a newscycle.

      Just the threat of a lawsuit and costs will intimate most people and make them think twice about saying anything in the future. It will be years before the case gets to court and A2 can offer a peanuts sealed settlement to save face or simply drop the case at any time if they think they won’t win (as Denyer did with his defamation suit against Woman’s Day).

  4. Great show. Commercial networks don’t have such an ability to exercise freedom of speech. It is programs like this that are truly about the people. Long live the ABC.

  5. Agree with the (at the time of writing) three comments below. The show is an excellent example of why we need a network that is free of being beholden to the advertising dollar.

    The Checkout is pretty thorough with its research and with having their scripts passed by ABC’s legal team. A2’s action is about saving face but they’ll just end up with more egg on it.

  6. The ABC might get a lot of Government and taxpayer flack but this is another reason why we need to keep media that is not controlled by commercial interests. There is no way the commercial channels would touch this show because they are too scared of reporting the truth that might affect their advertising bottom line.

    1. Commercial networks can’t run a show attacking their major advertisers in general. Morrow has stated that The Checkout was pitched to Nine and the TV people were keen but the advertising people said no way. They will run news and current affairs stories on individual cases where advertisers have been found to have violated consumer rights.

      The Swisse suit was after a story on complementary medicines in ep. #1.1 The judge quickly rejected all 9 imputations alleged by Avni Sali, but allowed him to proceed with a defamation suit, which is still pending in Victoria.

      The ABC has been more careful in using names as a result, because defamation law is so unpredictable. Alleging that alleging misleading and deceptive conduct under the Competition and Consumer Act is misleading and deceptive conduct under the Competition and Consumer Act to stop peer reviewed science from being…

      1. Back in the 1980s and ’90s the ABC had a Checkout-type show called The Investigators. It was axed after several years, a decision that caused outrage. Channel Seven announced that they would do a Neighbours-style revival of the show and it all seemed to be falling into place when Seven suddenly pulled the plug and nothing more was heard about it. Never a truer word said about “commercial pressures”.

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