Scott Balson - Enemy of the Smart State?

Charged with publishing on the Internet, arrested with no evidence, Scott Balson fought a politicised Queensland judiciary system and Murdoch’s ‘Courier Mail’ to prove his innocence.

SYNOPSIS

“Scott Balson - Enemy of the Smart State?” exposes the influence of a major Queensland newspaper on the judiciary system in Queensland.

In July 1999 Scott Balson was charged with naming Labor MP, Bill D'Arcy, “as a man facing child-sex charges” on the Internet. At the time D'Arcy faced fifty child-sex charges including rape and was sitting in Parliament as the Deputy Speaker supporting Peter Beattie's minority Labor State government. Balson was arrested on the direct instructions of Labor MP Matt Foley (Attorney-General) just two days after The Courier-Mail laid an official complaint with the DPP and obviously with this paper's blessing.

Balson is the only person to have ever been charged under this obscure 27-year old Act, unique to Queensland, preventing the naming of a person facing child sex charges before they are committed to trial. An Ipswich Magistrate acquitted him, 9 months after being charged and arrested.

Director, Nick Calpakdjian delves into the history of the case and asks the question, “What’s in the water of Queensland?” The so-called ‘Smart-State’ has been making headlines in Australia and internationally over the last decade with controversial political party, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, and the shocking shredding of documents by the Government relating to child sexual abuse while in state care known as the Heiner Affair.

“Scott Balson - Enemy of the Smart State?” gives a personal account of how events relating to the arrest unfolded. With access to archival video and photos, court transcripts, and countless newspaper articles, Nick Calpakdjian weaves interviews with Balson, current Queensland politicians, ‘whistle-blowers’, ex-One Nation parliamentarians and dramatisations of key moments from the final trial to expose the true nature of the Queensland media and their influence on Australian politics and the Queensland judiciary system.