Adjudication No. 29 (May 1978) [1978] APC 6

ADJUDICATION No. 29 (May 1978)

The Australian Press Council has, to a limited extent, upheld a complaint about a report in The Sun (Sydney) concerning the price of lamb.

The Council's adjudication stated:

Mr. C. W. Blunt, secretary (Meat and Livestock) of the Livestock and Grain producers' Association of NSW, and Mr. Noel Knight, a grazier, of Warkton, NSW, complained of a report in The Sun of February 1, 1978.

The report, headed "Don't be fleeced on meat", advised housewives to boycott lamb until the price came down. It said that drought was being blamed for the present rip-off in lamb, but a major cause was the massive export of live sheep to the Middle East. "Any shorn sheep that can stagger is worth $20 in the paddock and $50 to the exporter", it said.

John Fairfax and Sons Ltd., replied to the complainants conceding the inaccuracy of the last quoted statement but sought to excuse it as jocular and exaggerated. It was not, however, either jocular or exaggerated. It was wrong, and a good deal of ill feeling would have been avoided if it had been frankly corrected.

To this extent the complaint is upheld.