By: Mike Hosking | Wednesday, April 04, 2012

Memo to Judith Collins: Don’t do it. Don’t sue them for defamation. As aggrieved as you may feel right now, as justified as you may feel your case is, as home free as your lawyer may paint your case, in the long run it simply won’t be worth it.

Litigation, and I speak from some experience, is expensive and perhaps worse, it’s time consuming. If it were a quick fix, if it was like a game of sport, a start, a stop, a result, then I’d say go for it. But litigation over defamation can take years.

I admired Chris Cairns the other day because it was about reputation and his ability to work. In Collins’ case it isn’t.

Certainly it’s about reputation, but her role as a Cabinet Minister is hardly in trouble. Her electability is hardly a problem. So it’s her name she’s looking to defend and that is very much an individual thing.

She may prize it so highly. All costs and timeframe in court action go out the window in looking to defend it. But if it’s to be able to stand in a couple of years time on the steps of Parliament and say “see, I told you”, that Mallard and Little were wrong and that Radio New Zealand were wrong to broadcast it, then I am just not sure there will be that many people queuing up to say ‘bravo, well done.”

The counter argument, and it’s one I actually have a lot of sympathy for despite what I’ve just said, is that if people don’t take a stand, if they don’t hold others to account then things get sloppy, things get loose, people felt that if they got away with that then they’ll give it another go. That in itself sets a precedent. You start to work in an environment where you can pretty much say anything you like. Knowing the odds of someone calling you on it are slim.

The value in Collins taking action and potentially winning is that not only does she get the victory, she sets the precedent. In law it’s often the precedent that has the vastly wider value. She gets the win, but we all get the rules and understanding as to what’s right and what’s not on.

Further, she is to be commended if she does go ahead on footing the bill herself. As right as may have been as a minister to seek the Crown’s assistance, she would’ve been on a hiding to nowhere with the public.

So the potential is she foots the bill, she takes the plunge, she wins. If all of that comes to pass, it would be the most noble of victories. There must always be merit in such a course, but it’s a brave soul who charts that course.