Adjudication No. 1052 (September 1999) [1999] APC 46

ADJUDICATION No. 1052 (September 1999)

The Australian Press Council has dismissed complaints from Rose Porteous about articles in the 23 May 1999 Sunday Times, Perth, concerning an appeal for an inquest on the death of her then husband, mining magnate Lang Hancock.

Mrs Porteous complains that the Sunday Times failed to report fairly that a submission for an inquest to the Western Australian Attorney-General by Perth QC Wayne Martin was made on behalf of Mr Hancock's daughter, Gina Rinehart, whose disputes with Mrs Porteous over Mr Hancock's death and estate have been very public.

The newspaper, responding to the complaint, said the front-page article mentioned that Mr Martin was acting for Mrs Rinehart. This appeared in the seventh paragraph which was in the continuation of the article on page four.

Mrs Porteous claims that the preceding paragraphs and the headline of the front-page article strongly suggested to the average reader that Mr Martin was acting independently, and that the newspaper had buried the fact that he was Mrs Rinehart's lawyer.

In the Press Council's view, the front-page article's headline "Top QC backs call for new inquest" could convey the impression that Mr Martin was acting in support of, rather than on behalf of, Mrs Rinehart. However, Mr Martin's representing Mrs Rinehart was well-known to readers in Western Australia and that, taken together with the seventh paragraph mention, suggests that most readers would not have been misled.

Mrs Porteous also complains that the newspaper failed to contact her for comment before publication. The article did include a comment she made in 1997 in response to a previous call for an inquest. However, the Sunday Times said it did not approach Mrs Porteous in relation to Mr Martin's submission because it feared, from past dealings with her, that she would seek an injunction to stop publication.

The paper did, in fact, contact Mrs Porteous in the week after the article appeared, but she said she did not wish to comment, preferring to leave the matter to her lawyers.