The third man and the Australasian defamation defences

[Truncated] A cause of action in defamation presupposes the existence of at least three people: a plaintiff; a defendant; and a person to whom the defamatory material is published. It is the publishee who is "the third man" referred to in the title of this thesis. (This appellation was inspired by Carol Reed's 1949 film of the same name, a stylish thriller set in post-war Vienna which starred Joseph Cotton, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard and Orson Welles.) The major premise underlying this thesis is that the legitimate interests of the recipients of defamatory matter must be adequately taken into account if one is to arrive at a rational and coherent regime of defamation defences for the twenty first century. An approach that focused solely on the interests of potential plaintiffs and defendants in determining whether a particular publication could be justified or excused would be fundamentally flawed. In chapters one and two, the arguments in support of this "third man principle" are set out.