Adjudication No. 1067 (January 2000) [2000] APC 2

ADJUDICATION No.1067 (January 2000)

The Australian Press Council has dismissed a complaint arising from an article in the Courier-Mail, Brisbane, describing upmarket changes to a previously unstylish seaside suburban area.

The article, published in June last year, conveyed that not everybody welcomed the gentrifying of Sandgate and Shorncliffe and the accompanying higher real estate values and an influx of tourists.

The complaint to the Press Council was made by Allison and Paul Edwards, who are proprietors of the Seamount Bed and Breakfast premises in Shorncliffe.

They were angered particularly that the article quoted a 65-year-old service pensioner who was said to have been "booted out" of the flat he had rented in the "historic 1884 Queenslander home, Seamount".

He had subsequently been fortunate enough to get ideal low-cost tenancy of a unit in a Housing Commission block in Sandgate, with outstanding views of Moreton Bay. For all that, he was still bitter about his notice to quit Seamount earlier; he described its renovation to a B and B in harsh terms - it had been "gutted and titivated".

Not surprisingly this greatly offended the complainants, who spent time and money ensuring an authentic restoration of the historic home and who had not, in any case, evicted the pensioner; they had bought Seamount in 1992, with vacant possession, after it had been on the market for more than one year.

There is no evidence before the Press Council suggesting that the article distorted the pensioner's account to the writer.

The Edwardses also complain that the reported comments of the pensioner that houses in the area were being painted in "that green and that sort of blood colour" refers to their home among others, since Seamount has green and red heritage colour trims and they consider the comparison to blood is a breach of Press Council principles relating to taste.

The Press Council does not find that complaint to be of substance.