Sky News Australia and Andrew Bolt will defend a defamation claim filed in the federal court by Adam Houda by arguing the imputation that the Sydney lawyer is a “Jew hater” is true.
Houda’s statement of claim, released by the court on Wednesday, said two broadcasts of the Sky News program The Bolt Report and a skynews.com.au article published in January 2024 carried the defamatory imputations that Houda is “a Jew hater” and that he “hates Jews to a shocking extent”.
“By reason of the publication of each of the matters complained of, the applicant has been greatly injured in his business, personal and professional reputation and has been and will be brought into public disrepute, odium, ridicule and contempt,” the statement of claim said.
In a defence document released by the court, Sky’s parent company, Australian News Channel (ANC), said Houda’s conduct, including his historical social media activity, will show “he is a Jew hater”.
“By reason of so much of Houda’s conduct as particularised above as is proved true, he hates Jews to a shocking extent,” the defence said.
The legal dispute arose last year when Bolt, the Herald Sun columnist who hosts a nightly opinion show on Sky, referred to a post on X by Houda in which the lawyer questioned a $27.5m government grant to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
According to a transcript filed by the respondents, Bolt said: “This is a lawyer who’s posted that anyone supporting the supposedly terrorist, genocidal, criminal state of Israel is a sack of s-h-i-t devoid of humanity … Now if you want to see the depths of Jew hatred in the left you just look at the comments under this guy’s posts.”
Bolt’s guest, Sky News presenter Danica De Giorgio, is the third respondent to the defamation claim, after the ANC and Bolt. According to the transcript, De Giorgio said Houda’s post was “disgraceful”.
“So, this is extraordinary that this bloke posted to his thousands of followers on social media incorrect information and the posts were just as horrific as what the responses to this are,” she said.
“This is a prime example, Andrew, of why Jewish people in this country right now are so scared.”
The following evening Bolt returned to the topic to say he had received a legal threat from Houda.
“Hotshot lawyer Adam Houda has said he’s now going to sue me and Sky News for mentioning him during a discussion last night on hatred against Jews,” Bolt said, according to a second transcript.
“Now actually what I said was that Houda had posted this complaint that’s gone viral.”
“On deeper reflection since, I wonder what hatred is driving Houda because he says he’s not a Jew hater. Well, let’s now look at some of his other tweets.”
Bolt went on to accuse Houda of posting “classic Jewish conspiracy” theories and invited him on the program to tell him why he is writing “this stream of hatred”.
As part of its truth defence, the respondents said that between January 2014 and 30 August 2024, Houda published “in excess of 2000 posts on X that invoked one or more antisemitic tropes”.
The imputation that Houda is unfit to be a lawyer and is a person who “does not check his facts to the extent that he is unfit to be a lawyer” is denied by the respondents.
In March 2024 Sky News published an apology to Houda and removed the video from all its platforms.
“It has since been suggested that these publications implied Mr Houda was not fit to practice as a lawyer and that he both threatens and engages in litigation against the police without proper cause,” the apology said.
“In fact, Mr Houda runs a successful legal practice. Any implication that he is unfit to practice as a lawyer is incorrect and was not intended. Sky News Australia, Andrew Bolt and Danica De Giorgio apologise to Mr Houda for any harm and hurt caused.”
