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Batchelor losing party
By Steven | March 25, 2026
Julian Batchelor has lost his defamation lawsuit against TVNZ and former Disinformation Project director of research Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa. They’d accused him in an online article of racist rhetoric, inciting hate and real-world harm.
Batchelor says this struck at his character and integrity, and that he didn’t believe or claim that Maaori are racially inferior.
He had quite a bit to say about character, in fact. When asked about it in cross examination, he said:
Batchelor: Character is a cluster of deep internal characteristics that people hold which helps them to succeed in or fail in life if they don’t have them and I’ll name a few of them, things like integrity, perseverance, ability to handle failure, ability to be self-disciplined, honesty, the ability to work hard when things are very hard, the ability to discipline oneself and study or work, generosity, altruism, showing kindness and love to people who can’t give you anything in return. Those are some of the characteristics of a person with great character and the more you have of those the more likely you are to succeed in life and the less you have of them the less you are going to be predicted as being a success and it doesn’t apply just to Māori, it applies to every cultural group on the earth. If you are a human being and if you have character you will succeed, if you don’t you won’t.
QUESTION: And you’re saying on your definition of that that this particular race lacks character?
Batchelor: Correct.
QUESTION: All right, but you say that’s not racist on your definition of the word racism?
Batchelor: Correct.
Um.
The judge held that it was true to say that Mr Batchelor uses racist rhetoric. He also held that TVNZ and Dr Hattotuwa were protected by defences of honest opinion and responsible communication in the public interest.
Mr Batchelor’s lawyer warned that treating Mr Batchelor’s views as “racist” “sets a precedent that criminalises political opposition”.
Now, no doubt much of what Mr Batchelor says about Treaty principles and co-governance can be regarded as political speech. But let’s get a grip here. This case was an attempt to punish and thereby deter someone’s speech. But it wasn’t Mr Batchelor’s. Mr Batchelor (and, one has to assume, the man who bankrolled his case, Jim Grenon) was trying to use the law to attack the free speech of Mr Batchelor’s critics. He wasn’t being punished for being a racist, and in fact there’s no law specifically against that. All the court held was that it wasn’t unlawful to call him out.
Of note for defamation trainspotters:
— here’s a case where the judge found the article was both factually true and conveyed as an opinion. This has always been at least theoretically possible – the evidence for some opinions can be so clear that they are defensible as true. But it’s pretty rare.
— Despite TVNZ’s inclusion of Mr Batchelor’s denial, the judge still held that the story accused him of harmful and racist rhetoric. TVNZ argued that, taken as a whole, the article really only meant that there were reasonable grounds to believe his rhetoric was racist. This is a different meaning and not so defamatory. (It’s also easier to prove as true). The judge didn’t buy it, perhaps because of TVNZ’s perfunctory summary of Mr Batchelor’s denial. This is the opposite approach to that taken by Jagose J in the Talley’s case, where (I thought) the judge focused on a whiff of balance included in the story and used it to conclude that the allegations weren’t there at all.
— This is another case where an expert in journalism was used to try to show that the programme was unethical and irresponsible. Here, Peter Williams described it as a “hit piece”. The judge put little weight on his evidence, which also happened to Bill Ralston in the Cato case. (Here, the judge said Mr Williams’ evidence was premised on some claims by Mr Batchelor that the judge found were wrong).
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