Anti-co-governance campaigner Julian Batchelor has lost his defamation case against TVNZ and a researcher.
District Court Judge David Clark dismissed Batchelor's claim in a reserved judgment released this afternoon, finding all three affirmative defences raised by the defendants — truth, honest opinion, and responsible communication — had been proven.
"Mr Batchelor’s claim has been wholly unsuccessful. It follows he should pay costs."
Batchelor sued TVNZ and Disinformation Project researcher Sanjana Hattotuwa over a 1News story published in August 2023, headlined "Julian Batchelor under investigation over anti-co-governance pamphlets".
The article quoted Hattotuwa describing Batchelor's rhetoric as "dangerous speech" that "incites hate, and it instigates harm offline", and calling it "racist rhetoric".
The court found those comments were defamatory at face value but were true, honestly held opinions, and responsibly communicated.
"On any measure, the answer must be yes," Judge Clark wrote of if Batchelor used racist language, calling the comments "sustained, made over a significant period of time, deliberately targeting Māori" and "in many instances highly pejorative and offensive".
The 2023 story also included Batchelor's position that he denied he was racist, incited hate, or spreading misinformation.
Batchelor, who founded the "Stop Co-governance" movement, held 82 public meetings across New Zealand in 2023 and distributed hundreds of thousands of pamphlets.
During the hearing it emerged a third party Jim Grenon — who is also a director of media company NZME — had been helping to fund Batchelor's legal costs.
A case management conference on costs has been scheduled for April 3.
"At the conference, timetabling for cost submissions will be discussed as well as whether Mr Grenon wishes to be heard and, if so, how," the judge wrote.
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