His droll remark apparently was not intended to suggest he was lacking friendship in his broader personal or political life. After all, the Liberal member for North Sydney had come to the Federal Court armed with character references from impressive quarters, including his occasional golfing and dining companion Bob Hawke, the former Labor prime minister.

Hawke supplied an affidavit describing Hockey as a "genuine and honest man" and he was "appalled" by a headline – "Treasurer for sale" – that appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age and on Fairfax Media posters, websites and tweets, although he hadn't read the story.

Hockey is suing for defamation and seeking aggravated damages, claiming that story – published on May 5 last year, while he was preparing for a "matter of state" eight days later, the budget – was a spiteful attempt to smear him as a corrupt minister who could be bought with political donations, in return for which he would allow the rich and powerful to influence his decisions.

It suggested nothing of the sort, a succession of Fairfax political reporters and editors countered under cross-examination. They maintained it accurately reflected an investigation published in the public interest about political donors who warranted scrutiny: members of the North Sydney Forum, a Liberal Party fundraiser that offers them, in return for annual fees of up to $22,000, meetings with the Treasurer including private boardroom functions "focused on key policy areas".

Hockey's barrister, Bruce McClintock, SC, devoted much of his time grilling the editors and reporters about a Fairfax report on March 21 last year that said Hockey had repaid "tainted" money donated by Australian Water Holdings, a company which had been under the scrutiny of the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Hockey is not suing over that story, but it is where his grievance begins – and the resulting private communications between journalists, sometimes profane, are critical to McClintock's attempt to prove they acted with malice to arrive at the "Treasurer for sale" report.

A post-midnight complaint from Hockey on March 21 woke Herald and Age editors-in-chief Darren Goodsir and Andrew Holden. "They have a f---ing hide," Goodsir messaged Holden in the morning. He was "pissed off" at being woken. Holden suggested they dig deep into the North Sydney Forum and run "Hockey's claim he knew nothing" in that story, but "beyond that, f--- him".

NSW political editor Sean Nicholls, one of the report's authors, thought Hockey was being glass-jawed, while the story's other writer, chief political correspondent Mark Kenny, thought the Treasurer was "splitting hairs". By day's end, however, Fairfax Media had decided to publish an apology, acknowledging it was Hockey's "fundraising and campaigning arm" that received and refunded the AWH money, not the Treasurer personally.

McClintock claimed Goodsir resented being forced into this apology and, as an act of revenge, ordered Nicholls to go on the "attack". Goodsir and Nicholls rejected this. Matthew Collins, QC, for Fairfax, called it a conspiracy theory.

In court, Goodsir maintained his view that Hockey had overreacted. Kenny, likewise, told McClintock: "I believed Mr Hockey and his political operation in North Sydney were indivisible."

Nicholls told McClintock there had been no suggestion Hockey had "trousered" the money, and Holden said there was no mention of "brown paper bags". They were clearly reporting on political donations, not bribes, they argued.

Fairfax argues, firstly, that its May 5 report carried none of the imputations alleged. However, if Justice Richard White finds that some or all of those meanings were conveyed, the publisher says it is protected by the defence of qualified privilege – because it was reporting on government and political matters and that was in the public interest.

That defence requires a publisher to have acted reasonably. It will also be defeated if the plaintiff proves the publisher acted maliciously; hence the Hockey team's focus on malice.

"The problem is that media conduct is rarely found to have been reasonable," says Associate Professor David Rolph, a media law expert at the University of Sydney. Decisions made under pressure in a newsroom may look "quite different when picked over in a courtroom".

Rolph notes that Hockey joins "a long line of politicians of all political stripes who have sued for defamation", including Tom Uren, Tony Abbott, Peter Costello and Hawke, the Treasurer's character referee.