Plimer’s last hope dashed

Professor Ian Plimer has lost his last chance for victory in Trade Practices lawsuit against Dr Allan Roberts and Ark Search. The Australian High court has rejected Plimer’s leave to appeal against the verdicts by Justice Sackville in the main case and the 3-0 rejection of his appeal by the Federal Court of Appeal. So, as the tiny Sydney Morning Herald article said (20 June 1998, p. 2), ‘Ark case sunk’. Judging by its partisan coverage of the trial (see Media Mendacity for an example), we suspect that if Plimer had won, there would have been front page coverage.

So he has exhausted all avenues, and now faces a pending defamation action by Roberts. Many people suspect that Plimer’s Trade Practices Act case against Roberts was really a countersuit to the defamation action, to try to bully Roberts into dropping it. Otherwise, why wouldn’t he take on the leading creationist organisation in Australia, namely CMI, instead of a man who is not connected with us. Allan Roberts was simply interested in more detailed evaluation of a claimed ‘Ark’ site in Turkey—a site CMI dealt with in Creation magazine in 1992—see Amazing Ark Exposé.