People taking defamation actions will now have to do so within a year of publication, instead of six years, under legislation passed by the ACT Legislative Assembly.
The legislation was proposed by Independent MLA, Paul Osborne, and passed on Thursday.
Other states retain their six-year limitation.
Mr Osborne said, “”Among effects I hope this change will have is to stop at least some people from using our courts for lengthy and expensive interstate actions. It will also prevent people who suffer no discernible harm to their reputation from launching opportunistic legal actions based on Australia-wide electronic searches of newspaper databases.
Labor and the Greens opposed the Bill, though agreeing that the six-year period was too long. Labor thought change should be considered with other defamation changes. The Greens argued that the process of the change was wrong.
The Liberals voted for it, arguing the one-year limit was sound in principle when dealing with reputation.
Mr Osborne said politicians generally put defamation reform in the too-hard basket. Defamation should be about reputation. It should be done quickly if it was to be effective. People would could satisfy a court that they could not have known about the defamation could get an extension for a further year.
Attorney-General Gary Humphries has put forward a paper on reforming the law in the ACT to widen protection for publishers dealing with matters of public interest.