TEL: 22. Jan. 93 16: 31 No. 011 P. 01/ 02
I
PRIME MINISTER
STATEMENT BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P. J. KEATING MP
DEFAMATION ACTION AGAINST SENATOR BAUME
My solicitors yesterday commenced proceedings for defamation against Senator Michael
Baume. A statement of claim lodged with the NSW Supreme Court registry sets out the basis for
this action.
For more than eight months, Senator Baume has in an organiscd way raised untrue
allegations against me in the Senate under Parliamentary privilege.
Denied such privilege over the New Year period, in a radio interview in Melbourne
Senator Baumc falsely accused me of putting my personal financial interests ahead of the
interests of the nation when I delivered the One Nation statement in February last year.
Senator Baume accused me of introducing a development allowance scheme In the One
Nation package after I had made a private investment so as to obtain substantial tax
benefits for a company in which I have an interest. Senator Baume stated as a matter of
fact that a company in which I have a purely financial interest applied for such benefits.
This is untrue and totally without foundation. No such application was ever proposed or
made. No more serious allegation can be made of a Prime Minister than that he broke the
obligations of his office and introduced a policy so as to obtain for himself a private
financial bcnefit.
In a weak public defence of his actions today, Senator Baume is reported to have said: " I
think it's in the Australian public's best interests to know what the facts are."
Senator Baunic has made defamatory allegations about me without any basis in fact.
TEL: 22. Jan. 93 16: 31 No. 011 P. 02/ 02
The making of defamatory allegations by any person against another in public life does
not of itself render such allegationls to be matters of public interest.
Statements which are untrue, without basis, or which are defamatory are not removcd
from the reach of the law simply because they are said of and about a person in public life.
CANBERRA
January 22, 1993