Mr Atkinson's reported comments are interesting as an expression of hostility or fear: he reportedly "expected The Advertiser and AdelaideNow to 'publish false stories about me, invent things about me to punish me'".
They are also of interest for apparent hyperbole, with a reported characterisation of the newspaper's site as "not just a sewer of criminal defamation" but also "a sewer of identity theft and fraud". Strong words from a leading politician in condemning the state's leading newspaper. It is unclear whether Mr Atkinson is invoking the 'identity theft' provisions in sections 144A through 144F of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 (SA) in dealing with the "sewer".
The fracas reflects disagreement about restrictions on anonymous/pseudonymous comment on elections, with a state election due to take place next month.
Changes via the Electoral (Miscellaneous) Amendment Act 2009 (SA) [here] to the Electoral Act 1985 (SA), in effect from 6 January this year, require anyone publishing a comment on the election to include their real name and postcode as part of the publication.
The requirement has been construed by some critics as covering bloggers, people whose letters are published by the editors of print publications such as the Advertiser (and a newspaper's online presence such as the AdelaideNow site), the ABC's The Drum site, Facebook and Twitter.
Media organisations are obliged to retain a person's real name and full address on file for six months, with a potential penalty of $5000 if they do not provide that information to the state Electoral Commissioner.
The requirement is a significant extension of the identification requirements in party political advertising - for example s 328 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 (Cth) - and in the words of one contact has the potential to be misused for political blacklists. Should we allow anonymous and pseudonymous political comment? Is the legislation going to be effective, given the ease with which South Australians - irresponsible, malicious, conscientious or otherwise - can establish online publications offshore with faux identities?
Section 116(1) of the amended Act specifies that -
A person must not, during an election period, publish material consisting of, or containing a commentary on, any candidate or political party, or the issues being submitted to electors, in written form, in a journal published in electronic form on the Internet or by radio or television or broadcast on the Internet, unless the material or the programme in which the material is presented contains a statement of the name and address (not being a post office box) of a person who takes responsibility for the publication of the material.A "journal" is defined by that section as being "a newspaper, magazine or other periodical", a characterisation that arguably excludes tweets, blogs and frenetic SMS.
Section 116(2) provides that the obligation does not apply to -
(c) the publication in a journal (including a journal published in electronic form on the Internet) of an article, letter, report or other matter if —The South Australian Government has so far been discomforted by responses to gesture-based lawmaking such as the anti-bikie statute recently overturned by the state Supreme Court. As with much gesture legislation, typically announced in the lead-up to an election and often redundant, it will be interesting to see whether the Government takes action against any breach of the Act and whether that action is upheld by the High Court.
(i) the name and address (not being a post office box) of a person who takes responsibility for the publication of the material is provided to the publisher of the journal and retained by the publisher for a period of 6 months after the end of the election period; and
(ii) the journal contains a statement of the name and postcode of the person who takes responsibility for the publication of the material
