THE chief executive of Fairfax Media Greg Hywood warned treasurer Joe Hockey that he should be “thankful” he was getting a printed apology for a false article because he could end up being “another Craig Thomson,” if he took the matter to court.
On the first day of the defamation trial between Treasurer Joe Hockey and Fairfax Media, the court heard that an article that ran a headline “Treasurer for Sale” was motivated out of “petty spite” after a dispute between Mr Hockey and the editors of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Darren Goodsir and Andrew Holden.
On May 5 last year, the Herald and The Age ran the story under the headline “Treasurer for Sale” on their front pages, claiming the North Sydney Forum charged annual membership fees of up to $22,000 for perks including “VIP” meetings with Mr Hockey.
Mr Hockey claims the articles falsely implied he accepted bribes to influence his decisions, corruptly sold privileged access to businessmen and lobbyists, and knowingly permitted a Liberal fundraising forum with which he was associated to accept money from the “corrupt Obeid family”.
The Herald and Age were forced to apologise to Mr Hockey after an earlier report that incorrectly claimed the Treasurer personally had to pay back money to Australian Water Holdings. AWH was being examined by the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption and was connected to corrupt former NSW Labor MP Eddie Obeid’s family. NSW Liberal figures, including senator Arthur Sinodinos, were also connected to the company.
Mr Hockey’s barrister Bruce McClintock SC told the court when Mr Hockey contacted Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood after the first story Mr Hywood told him to be “thankful”.
“Be thankful you are getting what you are ... Be careful if an issue like this gets to court you are not another Craig Thomson.”
In 2011, Mr Thomson, the then federal Labor MP, dropped a defamation case against Fairfax over articles that claimed he had misused his union credit card, including paying for prostitutes. The allegations were later found to be accurate.
Mr McClintock went through emails between Mr Goodsir, Mr Holden and political correspondent Mark Kenny.
The court heard that Mr Kenny was told to rewrite an analysis piece to go with the story because Mr McClintock claims it did “not put the boot in” hard enough to Mr Hockey.
Mr McClintock also told the court the “Treasurer for Sale” story was all but finished by the end of March but was released a week before the federal budget to do “maximum damage” to Mr Hockey.
Mr McClintock said the the North Sydney Forum was ostensibly a small business forum and was not unlike any political party event where members paid money to attend events with politicians.
Documents reveal that Mr Hockey’s office was furious about the March story written by Fairfax political correspondent Mark Kenny, with Mr Hockey’s press secretary calling Goodsir’s home at 2am the day it was published demanding an apology.
According to Goodsir’s affidavit, Mr Hockey personally contacted Fairfax chief executive Greg Hywood about the story. He in turn contacted Goodsir.
“I have had a call personally from Joe Hockey about an article in today’s paper. He was insistent there be a correction, an apology. He was very upset,” Mr Hywood told Goodsir.
“Greg, the matter is in hand,” Goodsir replied.
“Thanks Darren, I’ll leave it to you,” Mr Hywood said.
After being forced into running an apology, Goodsir urged Holden not to run a follow-up story immediately but rather “have a red-hot go at this issue next week, and really go for it”.
On March 21, Goodsir told NSW political reporter Sean Nicholls to “drop all other work and be full-time on digging into NSF”, describing it as a “slush fund”.
After being updated by Nicholls of his progress on the story several days later, Goodsir wrote in an email to Holden and senior Fairfax reporters: “Given what Andrew and I endured last week with Hockey, I want to have this nailed to the cross in more ways than one ... I have long dreamed (well, actually only since last Friday), of a headline that screams: Sloppy Joe! I think we are not far off, but perhaps even more serious than that.”
Holden also discussed a news story in text messages the day after the initial controversial story ran. “In that story you can run Hockey’s claim he knew nothing though as members of the forum entitled to meet him he must have seen membership list. Beyond that f..k him,” Holden texted Goodsir.
Holden also complained about the government “freezing us out”.
“Amazing they freeze us out and then think they have a relationship that allows them to call in the middle of the night.”
The case continues.