Adjudication No. 76 (January 1980) [1980] APC 2

ADJUDICATION No. 76 (January 1980)

The Australian Press Council has received complaints from the Italian Committee of Coordination, the Coburg City Council and the Brunswick City Council about articles published in The Age, Melbourne, dealing with the background of migrants from Calabria and in particular with the activities of a secret society known as the Honoured Society operating among those migrants.

The articles were based mainly upon a report made by Mr Cusack in 1964 for the Victorian Government, and the mere recent report of a Royal Commission in New South Wales concerning the drug traffic.

The complainants regard the articles as biased and untrue, as an attempt to belittle the Italian community in Australia and particularly migrants from Calabria, and as harmful to good relations between the Italians in the Australian society and their fellow Australians.

The Press Council accepts without hesitation that the vast majority of Italians in Australia are excellent citizens of exemplary behaviour and it would deplore any attempt to suggest otherwise.

The Council, however, is unable to read the articles complained of as impugning the good name of Italians generally or of Calabrians in particular, and the Council is convinced that The Age did not intend otherwise. The allegations of criminal activities are directed specifically to the Honoured Society and for the most part they repeat matter that appeared in the two reports.

It should be mentioned that The Age gave considerable space to an account of a meeting of protest at which The Age's articles were freely canvassed, and to a letter on the subject written to the editor by the Presidents of the Italian Committee of Coordination and the Calabrian Club.

The complaints cannot be sustained.