Hey, Raycom. References as requested:

Re Ms Heiss: “Each of those assertions was erroneous.” Three of them. (381)

Re Ms Eatock: “The comment is unsupported by any factual basis and is erroneous.” (382)

Re Ms Eatock’s motives: “That statement is untrue.” (382)

Re Ms Cole: “The facts upon which the comment is based are not stated, referred to or notorious.” (383)

Re biology: “was shown to be factually erroneous.” (392)

No reference to cultural upbringing “leaves an erroneous impression”. (392)

“In part, the cultural references, where given, were erroneous.” (398)

“Dr Atkinson was raised in an Aboriginal fringe camp on the ancestral lands of his Aboriginal ancestors.” (400)

“Mr Clark was raised as Aboriginal in a well-known Aboriginal community in Victoria." (400)

“There is other evidence which also suggests to me that Mr Bolt was not particularly interested in including reference to the Aboriginal cultural upbringing of the individuals he wrote about.” (401)

Re Ms Cole’s mother: “That statement is factually inaccurate.” (402)

Re Ms Cole’s father: “That statement is factually incorrect.” (402)

Re Ms Cole’s grandmother: “Mr Bolt disingenuously explained the omission as due to a lack of space.” (403)

Re Prof Behrendt: “The factual assertions … also erroneous.” (404)

Re Wayne and Graham Atkinson in article one: “The facts given by Mr Bolt … are grossly incorrect.” (406)

Re Graham Atkinson in article two: Also “grossly incorrect.” (406)

Re Ms Eatock: “That source made an incorrect assertion …” (407)

Re Ms Eatock: “Mr Bolt repeated the error as to age …” (407)

And, hilariously, “Mr Bolt and HWT contended that the Articles contained no material errors of fact.” (364)

That’s without searching too hard, Raycom. Could be more. You can see they are not confined to paragraphs 394-399 as Murdoch’s lackeys claim.

Rupert’s apologists may characterise the fabrications as “peripheral” or “entirely insignificant” or “only to prop up the judges subjective decision”.

But to Bromberg they were central: “The deficiencies I have relied upon in arriving at the conclusion … are about deficiencies in truth.”

And: “Untruths are at the heart of racial prejudice and intolerance.”

Cheers, AA

Readers would be advised to look up Elizabeth Warren, current candidate for the US Senate and Keynote speaker at President Obama's upcoming convention.
She represented herself as having native American roots and plenty has been written of her using this to gain an advantage in employment.
The difference is that in the US you are allowed to have an opinion on this.
In Australia you are not.
It is that simple.

Andrew Bolt may have, at the very least, been careless with the facts, but the plaintiffs had a remedy in the laws against defamation. There seems to be no reason why the laws against defamation could not be extended to malicious lies about groups as well as individuals. The politicians chose not to do so. The real purpose of these provisions in the Racial Discrimination Act, as in Victoria's Religious Vilification Act, is to silence politically incorrect speech that is true or at least arguable.

Note that there is a defence of reasonableness and good faith in both the Racial Discrimation Act and the Victorian act, which is subjective and may not be applied so moderately in the future, but not a defence of truth. As Nettle JA, one of the appeal judges in the Catch the Fire Ministries case in Victoria, wrote

"Whether [Pastor Scot’s] statements about the religious beliefs of Muslims were accurate or inaccurate or balanced or unbalanced was incapable of yielding an answer to the question of whether the statements incited hatred or other relevant emotion. Statements about thereligious beliefs of a group of persons could be completely false and utterly unbalanced and yet do nothing to incite hatred of those who adhere to those beliefs. At the same time, statements about the religious beliefs of a group of persons could be wholly true and completely balanced and yet be almost certain to incite hatred of the group because of those beliefs."

See Joshua Klose's article in the Queensland Student Law Review on this case, where he concludes that the Victorian Act effectively subjugates freedom of expression "to an almost 'untrammelled' right to freedom from religious vilification. ... These observations give further weight to other compelling criticisms of religious anti-vilification provisions."

http://www.law.uq.edu.au/documents/qlsr/recent-issues/vol3/issue1/Klose_2010_vol3_i1.pdf

Hello Belfast,

Where did you get that false impression? Are you another avid reader of the Murdoch media?

Australians are most certainly free to express openly any opinion they want on virtually any topic.

They are not free, however, to concoct malicious lies about other people and spread them around claiming they are true.

That was the finding in the Eatock v Bolt.

It is as simple as that.

Yes, the liars Murdoch pays to defend the indefensible want to you to think otherwise.

Don’t let them suck you in, Belfast.

Hello Divergence,

Re: “Andrew Bolt may have, at the very least, been careless with the facts.”

No, Divergence. Bolt fabricated at least 20 blatant lies about the people in the racial minority he wanted to vilify. This was the central, clear, unambigious findings of the judgment.

Nothing ‘may have been’ about it.

Re: “The real purpose of these provisions in the Racial Discrimination Act, as in Victoria's Religious Vilification Act, is to silence politically incorrect speech that is true or at least arguable.”

And you know this how, Divergence? Have you had even a basic read of the background to the RDA and the international treaties on which it is based?

Victoria’s laws are off-topic. But if you are so clearly misguided about the RDA and Bolt matter, then you will understand why we are disinclined to believe you on that.

Cheers, AA

I am a lawyer by profession.
I read the decision.
I followed the Warren matter in detail.
I stand by what I wrote.

Alan Austin's apparent intense hate of the Murdoch press prompts the question: is he a disciple of ex-Greens leader, Bob Brown?