We’re returning to a story that was first raised in this website a couple of months ago, partly to tell you how it panned out but mainly because it raises an issue about naming and shaming those of our neighbours who don’t behave the way we think they should.

First, the story. We were alerted by a post to the Forum about an odd situation in an apartment block of about 60 apartments in Sydney’s eastern suburbs where owners had agreed to a collective sale of their building to a developer.

The building itself – mostly one-bedroom units or studios – was old, run-down and ugly and had few if any redeeming features except for its location.  In other words, it was ripe for a collective sale cash-in and by all accounts the apartment owners received almost double the individual sale value of their units.

This story was nothing out of the ordinary … until owners received notice of an extraordinary general meeting (EGM), which was extraordinary in every sense.

For a start, it was to be online-only and the sole item on the agenda was payment to two committee members of just under $100k each for their work in organising the collective sale.

The building had slightly less than $250k its funds which would otherwise have been distributed among all the owners, according to their unit entitlements.

Whiff of gaslight

To be clear, there is nothing illegal about paying committee members retrospectively of their work done for the strata scheme in the past year.  You might even think that the payments were reasonable rewards for work that benefitted all the owners.

However, it had a whiff of gaslight about it, given that the block’s treasurer claimed they didn’t even know about the proposed EGM.

Our “no-names” Forum post was picked up by a journalist who approached our original source for more detail.

When the journo contacted one of the committee members for comment, they responded with threats that the reporter could go to jail for “doxxing” if they published their name and the address of the building.

Doxxing – telling the world where someone with whom you have a beef lives – is a tactic often used by internet trolls to ramp up harassment of their targets. The doxxer could be anonymous while it potentially exposes the victim to personal abuse and even physical harm.

Stalking and intimidation

Now, as far as we know, there are no current laws in Australia that specifically target doxxing, but there may be soon.  Meanwhile there are state laws about stalking and intimidation which don’t quite cover doxxing, but come close. 

There are also federal laws that make it an offence to use the internet to “menace, harass or cause offence”. Anyway, ignoring the threat, the journo filed the report.  The editors sent it to the newspaper’s lawyers (as they normally would) and it was never seen again.

This story has a happy ending … for some. The EGM went ahead and the payments were rejected, partly because the agenda item specified the requested payment was for the previous three years when the Act only allows payments for the period since the last AGM.

But there’s an interesting side note here. We all should know by now that insulting people in strata rarely if ever leads to a successful defamation case, as this incident proved.

Causing offence

But what if you repeatedly write in the minutes that Joe or Jo Blow in apartment X is causing a problem in your building?  You have identified them and where they live and claimed they are miscreants.

Are you harassing them and causing offence?  Is that doxxing or would it be if there was such an offence? What if people abuse them in the lifts or leave nasty messages in their mailbox or on their door?

The Criminal Defence Lawyers Associations’ website says that following the leak of the personal information of over 600 participants of a pro-Israel WhatsApp group in February 2024, the Australian government announced that it would be reforming laws to better tackle doxxing.

“Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has announced that doxxing will be tackled as part of broader reforms of Australia’s privacy legislation, including the introduction of a statutory tort to provide redress for doxxing victims,” says the CDLA.

“The Federal government has also hinted at introducing fresh criminal laws to address doxxing behaviours, however it is yet to provide detail.

“Based on current reports, it appears the new laws will deal with ‘malicious disclosure of personal information’ as part of a new offence within the Federal Criminal Code.

“This will likely encompass the disclosure of private information for the purposes of harming a person’s reputation or with intent to cause distress or embarrassment. It appears likely that any new offence will include defences for individuals who disclose information as part of professional journalism or in other circumstances where it is in the public interest to allow disclosure.”

So defamation may not fly and “public interest” could be the get-out-of-jail-free card in strata communications.

But perhaps the threat of arrest for doxxing will stay the hand of those who use their strata minutes and correspondence to maliciously name and shame other owners.

Defamation may not even drag you to court any more but, at a stretch, doxxing could put you in jail.