Victorian Consolidated Legislation

Defamation Act 2005 - SECT 46

Savings, transitional and other provisions

46. Savings, transitional and other provisions



(1) This Act applies to the publication of defamatory matter after the
commencement of this Act, unless subsection (2) provides otherwise.

(2) The provisions of this Act (other than this section) do not apply to a
cause of action for the publication of defamatory matter that accrues after
the commencement of this Act (the post-commencement action) if-

   (a)  the post-commencement action is one of 2 or more causes of action in
        proceedings commenced by a plaintiff; and

   (b)  each cause of action in the proceedings accrues because of the
        publication of the same, or substantially the same, matter on separate
        occasions (whether by the same defendant or another defendant); and

   (c)  one or more of the other causes of action in the proceedings accrued
        before the commencement of this Act

(a pre-commencement action); and





   (d)  the post-commencement action accrued no later than 12 months after the
        date on which the earliest pre-commencement action in the proceedings
        accrued.

(3) The existing law of defamation continues to apply to the following causes
of action in the same way as it would have applied to those causes of action
had this Act not been enacted-

   (a)  any cause of action that accrued before the commencement of this Act;

   (b)  any post-commencement action to which the other provisions of this Act
        do not apply because of subsection (2).

(4) In this section-

existing law of defamation means the law (including all relevant statutory
provisions and principles and rules of the general law) that applied in this
jurisdiction to the determination of civil liability for the publication of
defamatory matter immediately before the commencement of this Act.