Suspended University of Sydney professor Barry Spurr has dropped his bid to force the website New Matilda to reveal the source of emails containing racist and derogatory comments, which were published by the site last week.
Spurr is instead focusing on having the emails returned to him, preventing any further publication of the emails and having the emails currently posted on New Matilda taken down.
Spurr’s counsel, Arthur Moses SC, argued in the federal court on Thursday that the professor was “collateral damage” in a “political attack on the federal government”.
He said Spurr was concerned about confidential information contained in the emails, including details of student medical conditions and argued for New Matilda to hand its cache of the emails back to Spurr, who has been locked out of his University of Sydney email account. He also wants New Matilda to destroy its copies.
Justice Michael Wigney dismissed the statement that publication of the emails was part of a political attack and said the Privacy Act, which Spurr’s lawyers are using as part of their case, was a difficult area of law.
New Matilda could seek exemptions from the privacy act as a media organisation or small business with a turnover of less than $3m a year.
Moses argued the publication of the emails was also a breach of confidence. Wigney said it was difficult to see what was confidential in the emails New Matilda have published and if Spurr was concerned about additional information he would potentially have to specify what the information was in a statement of claim.
New Matilda has already agreed not to publish any further material and its barrister, Sandy Dawson, said if Spurr was genuinely concerned about confidential material he should say exactly what that information is in a statement of claim.
He said it was easily argued the publication of the emails was in the public interest.
Spurr, the chair in poetry at the University of Sydney, was suspended from his post after emails he had sent over the past two years revealed him referring to the prime minister as an “Abo lover”, describing other people as “mussies” and “chinky poos” and mocking the Australian of the year, Adam Goodes.
In his submission to court, Spurr repeated his argument that the emails were a “whimsical” word game with colleagues and friends. He argues New Matilda is in possession of “stolen” information as he does not believe the emails were forwarded on to the news site, but rather hacked.
He was a “special consultant” on the government’s curriculum review, in which he recommended that the English curriculum place more emphasis on Western literature and said Indigenous culture had little impact on Australia’s literature.
New Matilda originally posted extracts from the emails, and then also published transcripts of some of the emails, under the headline “THE TRANSCRIPTS: The Partial Works Of Professor Barry Spurr. Poet, Racist, Misogynist.”
Spurr won a temporary injunction against New Matilda publishing any further emails or stories related to them on Tuesday and New Matilda has agreed to extend the injunction while the hearings progress.
The next hearing has been set down for 8 December.
