## Facts

- Lenah Game Meats Pty Ltd operated a brushtail possum meat processing plant in Tasmania.
- Unknown trespassers secretly installed cameras at the plant, filmed possum processing, and provided the footage to Animal Liberation Ltd.
- Animal Liberation supplied the footage to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), which intended to broadcast it.
- ABC was not involved in the trespass but knew the footage had been obtained unlawfully.
- Lenah sought to restrain broadcast by obtaining an interlocutory injunction in the Supreme Court of Tasmania.
- The trial judge refused relief for lack of a pleaded cause of action; the Full Court reversed and granted an injunction; ABC appealed to the High Court.

## Issues

1. Whether an interlocutory injunction may be granted merely because it appears “just and convenient,” without an underlying cause of action or equitable right.
2. Whether Australian law recognises a tort of invasion of privacy, and if so, whether a corporation can invoke it.
3. Whether a landowner can restrain a broadcaster (not involved in the trespass) from publishing footage clandestinely obtained by trespassers.
4. Whether the implied constitutional freedom of political communication required refusal of injunctive relief or otherwise controlled the outcome.

## Decision

- The High Court allowed ABC’s appeal, set aside the Full Court’s orders, and dismissed Lenah’s appeal.
- An interlocutory injunction ordinarily requires a serious question to be tried based on an identified legal or equitable right; the statutory “just and convenient” language did not create a free-standing power.
- The Court declined to recognise a general tort of invasion of privacy on these facts and held that a corporation cannot claim a privacy right analogous to that of natural persons.
- The unlawful manner in which the footage was obtained did not, without a cognisable right such as confidentiality, give Lenah a basis to restrain ABC’s broadcast where ABC did not participate in the trespass.
- The implied freedom of political communication did not invalidate the law governing interlocutory injunctions and did not provide an independent constitutional immunity from injunctive relief.

## Legal Principles

- Interlocutory injunctive relief is ancillary and generally depends on a serious question to be tried grounded in a recognised cause of action or equitable right.
- Statutory formulations permitting injunctions where “just and convenient” do not dispense with the need to identify the rights the injunction would protect.
- Equity may restrain misuse of improperly obtained information where the information is confidential in the relevant legal sense; improper acquisition alone is insufficient.
- A corporation cannot assert personal privacy interests of the kind associated with individual autonomy or dignity; any privacy-based cause of action, if developed, is directed to natural persons.
- The implied freedom of political communication operates as a constraint on governmental power rather than a direct personal cause of action; it is not determinative in ordinary applications for interlocutory restraint.

## Conclusion

The High Court set aside the injunction because Lenah failed to show an underlying cause of action supporting interlocutory restraint against ABC, and the mere fact of trespass-based acquisition did not convert the footage into protected confidential or private material; the Court also rejected any corporate privacy claim and treated the implied freedom of political communication as relevant background rather than a controlling defence.


Austl. Broad. Corp. v. Lenah Game Meats Pty Ltd, [2001] HCA 63, 185 A.L.R. 1 (Austl. 2001)