Adjudication No. 463 (November 1990) [1990] APC 36

ADJUDICATION No. 463 (November 1990)

The Press Council upheld a complaint by the Radiata Pine Association of Australia Inc. against the Hills Shire Times over a report that a new house adjacent to the bushfire prone Ku-ring-gai National Park had used a steel frame after Ku-ring-gai Council had "rejected" an earlier plan for a timber framed house and "specified" steel framing for the house.

In letters to the complainant and to the Timber Development Association Ltd. relating to the newspaper report, the Kuring-gai Council said the earlier dwelling referred to "was not rejected because it was of timber frame construction and Council had no objection to such construction in bush fire prone areas. Unfortunately this point was not included in the article and as a consequence an erroneous and misleading impression results."

The municipal council also wrote, "It was not a question of rejecting a timber framed house in favour of a steel framed house. The criteria specified was non-combustible construction, together with other active and passive fire protection requirements."

Commendably the newspaper offered, during the Press Council hearing, to publish a "follow-up" article and photograph acceptable to the complainant.

What the paper had been prepared to publish was a statement which clearly pointed out the fact that "timber is as popular as ever" in home construction.

But the core of the complaint to the Press Council was not addressed by the newspaper -- that it was wrong in stating that steel house framing was specified in these circumstances by the relevant municipal council. It was not and the newspaper should have published a correction.