Adjudication No. 221 (March 1985) [1985] APC 13

ADJUDICATION No. 221 (March 1985)

Dr N. Crofts of the Collingwood Community Health Centre has complained to the Press Council about a statement in a "Comment" column in The Age in which Kenneth Davidson was discussing reform of the law relating to compensation. In the course of advocating the abolition of lump sum workers' compensation payments Mr Davidson said:

Genuinely incapacitated workers will get more under a weekly entitlement while premiums will fall for two reasons: most of the 12 per cent of premiums now spent on legal costs will be saved and at least 10 per cent of claims will not be made.

'Mediterranean back' type claims will be less prevalent when there is no lump sum that can be used for an overseas holiday and if compensation is only in the form of a payment equal to 80 per cent of the weekly wage.

The criticism of the article is based essentially on the use of the term "Mediterranean back" to exemplify claims that were lacking in genuineness and were made not as the result of a real injury but with the conscious or unconscious motive of obtaining a sum of money. This was seen as an unjustified slur on migrants from a particular part of the world.

Mr Davidson's article was a serious and constructive contribution to debate on the operation of compensation schemes in relation to workers generally. It was no part of his argument to cast a slur on any particular group and we accept his statement that he would not have used the term if it had occurred to him that it would evoke such a complaint. He did not invent the term, which is, rightly or wrongly, in common use, and which he placed in inverted commas. We entirely exonerate Mr Davidson and The Age of any intent to stir up racial or other group prejudice.

However the Press Council wishes to stress the importance of newspapers being sensitive to the growing community concern about

matters that contribute to the development or perpetuation of group prejudices. These include stereotypes which unfairly label all members of a group as possessing some unfavourable characteristic. The term "Mediterranean back" embodies such a stereotype.