Ladies Lounge creator Kirsha Kaechele exiting a hearing in the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal on 19 March. Photograph: Jesse Hunniford Mona/Charlotte Vignau
Ladies Lounge creator Kirsha Kaechele exiting a hearing in the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal on 19 March. Photograph: Jesse Hunniford Mona/Charlotte Vignau
A flurry of late-breaking news to end your Tuesday, folks. We’re going to wrap up the blog now and we’ll be back, as always, tomorrow.
Here’s what happened today:
A decision will be handed down in the defamation case against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson brought by Bruce Lehrmann on Monday.
In a submission to the federal court in that defamation case, Brittany Higgins has questioned whether she was drugged on night of alleged rape. Higgins has told the federal court the suggestion by an AFP officer that she might have been drugged should have been raised in the defamation trial.
The Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Hobart has been ordered “to cease refusing entry to the exhibit known as Ladies Lounge … by persons who do not identify as ladies” after a legal battle. The decision was handed down after Jason Lau, brought an action against the museum, claiming he was denied entry into Ladies Lounge because of his gender.
The Northern Territory government has extended the Alice Springs youth curfew until the territory’s school holidays end next Tuesday. The move was praised by NT Labor MP Marion Scrymgour, who said “the status quo cannot continue”.
A landmark case has kicked off today, with Roxanne Tickle, a transgender woman, suing the women-only social media platform Giggle for Girls for discrimination after being blocked from using the app. It is the first time a case alleging gender discrimination has been heard by the federal court and may have global implications.
The environment and water minister, Tanya Plibersek,has announced she will reject Walker Corporation’s Toondah harbour project – an apartment and retail development on an internationally important wetland – at Queensland’s Moreton Bay, due to the potential environmental impact.
Australia and its Aukus partners, the US and the UK, confirmed they are considering working with Japan on Aukus pillar 2, which refers to advanced capability development. Anthony Albanesesaid Japan was a “natural candidate for that to occur”.
Vice Admiral David Johnston has been recommended to serve as new chief of the defence force from July, when General Angus Campbell steps down.
Brittany Higgins questions whether she was drugged on night of alleged rape in new court submission
Brittany Higgins has told the federal court the suggestion by an AFP officer that she might have been drugged on the night she was allegedly raped should have been raised in the defamation trial.
Higgins filed a seven-page submission to the court on Tuesday after being invited by Justice Michael Lee last week to make final submissions concerning her credit before the judgment in Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation case against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson is handed down on Monday.
Higgins said any question about her evidence should take into account the possibility she may have been drugged on top of her trauma, the submission said.
The suggestion she was drugged was raised by the AFP in a document tendered by former Seven producer Taylor Auerbach last week. Auerbach said he got the document from Lehrmann.
An AFP note in the document - which was a master chronology prepared by Lehrmann’s lawyers - said: “I also have concerns from info I heard that this may have happened before or could happen again. (I was referring to info that alleged victim may have been drugged). Paul [Sherring] – we need to speak to a range of people. Security staff cleaners may have info.”
Mona ordered to stop refusing men entry to Ladies Lounge
The Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Hobart has been ordered “to cease refusing entry to the exhibit known as Ladies Lounge … by persons who do not identify as ladies” after a legal battle.
The decision was handed down in the Tasmanian civil and administrative tribunal after Jason Lau, who visited Mona last April, brought an action against the museum, claiming he was denied entry into Ladies Lounge because of his gender in a contravention of Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Act.
Kirsha Kaechele’s installation Ladies Lounge opened at Mona in 2020. Women who enter the space are pampered by male butlers and served champagne while being surrounded by some of the museum’s finest pieces of art. Those who do not identify as women are not permitted entry.
Lau had argued that denying men access to some of the museum’s most important works (there is a Sidney Nolan, a Pablo Picasso and a trove of antiquities from Mesopotamia, Central America and Africa in the women-only space) is discriminatory. Kaechele said that was the point.
The artist Kirsha Kaechele leaves a hearing at the Tasmanian civil and administrative tribunal on 19 March. Photograph: Jesse Hunniford Mona/Charlotte Vignau
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Egyptian refugee Sayed Abdellatif freed after 12 years in Australian detention
A bit of joy for your afternoon. Egyptian refugee Sayed Abdellatif, whose case Guardian Australia has been following and reporting on for more than a decade, has been freed after almost 12 years in Australia’s immigration detention facilities.
He was granted a temporary protection visa and released on Tuesday afternoon from Villawood detention centre.
Abdellatif was emotional as he was reunited with his wife and children, whose faces he had seen only during supervised approved visits to the high security facility during the past decade.
“My family and I are so happy and grateful. Our family is finally back together after so many years of being separated unnecessarily,” he said. “We’ve waited for this for a very very long time.”
Marion Scrymgour welcomes Alice Springs youth curfew extension, saying ‘the status quo cannot continue’
The Labor MP Marion Scrymgour has applauded the decision by Northern Territory chief minister Eva Lawler to extend the Alice Springs youth curfew until the NT school holidays end next Tuesday.
Scrymgour told the ABC the curfew has been a “circuit breaker” that has given the community “respite and breathing room”.
I think that people have wanted the government to lead and take some responsibility for this. All credit to Eva Lawler, she has been very strong about these decisions and I know that they have not been popular decisions.
She has done this in the interest of the community, of the town, for businesses but also, more importantly, for the young ones that are on the street.
Scrymgour says action needs to be taken to reduce the number of liquor licenses in the community, as well as introducing more temporary housing for young people, where they can be connected to services.
The Labor MP said that the curfew and the incidents that prompted it have made people realise that “the status quo cannot continue”.
“People want to do something about this and I think it has taken last week’s riots, the tragic death of the young person, to finally resonate with people that we cannot continue,” she said.
FederalLabor MP Marion Scrymgour. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian
Mayfair 101’s James Mawhinney charged after Asic investigation
Ben Smee
The high-profile fund manager behind failed plans to redevelop Queensland’s Dunk Island has been arrested and charged with four counts of engaging in dishonest conduct, the corporate regulator says.
James Mawhinney faced the Melbourne magistrates court on Tuesday and was granted conditional bail including that he remain in Australia. He did not enter a plea.
It is understood the businessman behind the collapsed private investment fund Mayfair 101 had recently returned to Melbourne for a retrial of civil proceedings brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) in the federal court.
The federal court initially hit Mawhinney with a $30m fine and a 20-year ban on offering financial products for misleading and deceptive conduct.
The court has heard that investors – including retirees who were sold the products as alternatives to term deposits, a former Nationals MP and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation political party – stood to lose a combined $211m raised by companies run by Mawhinney since 2016.
Mawhinney successfully appealed his sanctions in 2022 on the grounds he was not granted procedural fairness, and a retrial was ordered. Those proceedings began on Monday.
The Australian reported the fresh charges relate to an unregistered investment scheme, IPO Wealth.
According to ASIC:
It is alleged that on four occasions between 9 August 2019 and 21 April 2020, Mr Mawhinney dishonestly misrepresented to the trustee of the IPO Wealth Fund, that the IPO Wealth Group owned two Italian companies, Poveglia S.R.L. and Retta S.R.L, when it did not.
In case you need a refresher on the Lehrmann defamation case ahead of the judgment being handed down next week, Amanda Meade, our media correspondent, spoke with deputy editor Gabrielle Jackson for an episode of Full Story. It’s well worth a listen.
Judge to hand down verdict in Bruce Lehrmann defamation case on Monday
Justice Lee will deliver his judgment in the defamation case against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson brought by Bruce Lehrmann at 10.15am next Monday 15 April.
The judgment was initially due to be handed down last week, but was reopened after Channel Ten argued that fresh evidence should be considered, after bombshell allegations from a former Channel Seven producer about the network’s dealings with Lehrmann in order to secure an exclusive interview with him in 2023.
Ten was successful and former Spotlight producer Taylor Auerbach spent two days in the witness box last week giving dramatic evidence, in which he alleged that Seven paid thousands of dollars for massages, drugs, sex workers, accommodation and meals for Lehrmann while they tried to get him over the line for an exclusive interview. Channel Seven has denied the allegations.
Tickle v Giggle: transgender woman sues female-only app for alleged discrimination in landmark case
We have an update from the landmark Tickle v Giggle case, which is being heard this week at the federal court, from Daisy Dumas, who was in court for the proceedings. She writes:
Roxanne Tickle, a transgender woman from regional New South Wales, is suing the women-only social media platform Giggle for Girls after being blocked from using the app.
In a lawsuit filed in December 2022, Tickle claimed she was unlawfully barred from using Giggle in September 2021 after the firm and its CEO, Sall Grover, said she was a man. Tickle is seeking damages.
The former Liberal party candidate Katherine Deves, representing Giggle, failed to have the case thrown out of court.
The case is the first time alleged gender identity discrimination has been heard by the federal court and goes to the heart of how gender identity is interpreted.
In her opening remarks, Tickle’s barrister Georgina Costello KC said that “Ms Tickle is a woman” but that “the respondents flatly deny that fact.”
Giggle and Grover’s barrister, Bridie Nolan, said the focus must be on biological sex.
