DEFAMATION NATION
We’ll learn whether former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann won his defamation suit against journalist Lisa Wilkinson and her employer Network Ten today at 10.15am AEST. Guardian Australia notes the saga has spawned more than a dozen other legal cases: R v Wonnocott (David Wonnocott allegedly made death threats to Brittany Higgins and her partner David Sharaz), Reynolds v Higgins and Reynolds v Sharaz (former Defence minister Linda Reynolds suing over social posts), Auerbach v Seven (former Spotlight producer Taylor Auerbach seeking advice on a contractual dispute with Seven), and Auerbach v Lehrmann (the former sent a concerns notice, the first step in a defo suit, last week), to name a few. There’s also Lehrmann’s upcoming committal hearing in Toowoomba for two separate counts of rape, both of which he denies — the alleged victim said she found information about Higgins’ case online and claimed she recognised Lehrmann, as The New Daily reports.
Speaking of Seven — reportedly its board only found out about allegations the company had reimbursed Lehrmann for the cost of prostitutes and illegal drugs by reading the news, The Australian ($) reports, and they were pissed off about it (Lehrmann denied it). The paper lists the board members as chairman Kerry Stokes, his son Ryan Stokes, CEO James Warburton, lawyer Michael Ziegelaar, iiNET founder Michael Malone, business executive Colette Garnsey, and company director Teresa Dyson. Meanwhile, Seven has apologised for falsely reporting the man who stabbed six people to death at Bondi Junction’s Westfield was Ben Cohen, a 20-year-old studying at the University of Technology Sydney. The SMH reports he was wrongly named on social media, and that misinformation was then broadcast by Seven on its YouTube channel in a promo for Sunrise. A spokesperson said it was “human error”.
VALE
A police source has reportedly told The Daily Telegraph that Joel Cauchi was “definitely targeting women” during his stabbing rampage at Bondi Junction Westfield because he walked past other people. Yesterday police commissioner Karen Webb confirmed it as an “obvious line of inquiry”. The slain: Ash Good, 38, the mother of the injured baby; Dawn Singleton, 25, daughter of entrepreneur John Singleton; Jade Young, 47, a Sydney architect and mum-of-two; Faraz Tahir, 30, a Pakistani security guard; Pikria Darchia, 55, originally from Georgia; and a woman who is yet to be named. Twelve others are in hospital, Sky News Australia reports. French construction workers Damien Guerot and Silas Despreaux have been praised after footage showed them trying to stop the attack with bollards, the SMH reports. But they described police Inspector Amy Scott, who halted the rampage when she shot Cauchi dead, as the hero.
To a crisis overseas now — and Iran has fired over 300 drones and missiles at Israel in an unprecedented attack, though 99% were intercepted and no Israelis were killed. It came after Iran vowed to retaliate after a deadly attack on its consulate in the Syrian capital of Damascus earlier this month, BBC explains. US President Joe Biden encouraged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to see the thwarted drones and missiles as a win, sources via CNN said, and added the Americans would not help in any offensive action against Iran. Iran is also claiming victory — which could actually be a good thing, an expert who spoke to AP suggested, because now both countries can “step down off the precipice”. It looks unlikely — Israel says its military has approved “offensive and defensive action” plans, the ABC reports this morning.
THE PUB TEST
Treasurer Jim Chalmers is reportedly considering a business investment allowance that may allow businesses to deduct 20% off any new eligible asset worth more than $20,000, the AFR reports. Labor took the policy, which Phillip Coorey describes as “essentially a turbocharged asset write-off scheme” to the 2019 election after then shadow treasurer Chris Bowen suggested it. However, Chalmers has ruled out lowering the company tax rate in the May budget. It comes as NSW Premier Chris Minns is being urged to scrap golden parachutes for sacked senior executives, The Daily Telegraph reports, after the redundancy payout figure associated with the plan to slash highly paid public sector bureaucrats by 15% came in at a whopping $150 million.
To more public vs private news and Victorian public schools earned $35 million less (net) from voluntary parent contributions in 2022 than in 2020, data The Age FOI’d showed, after the state government tightened mandatory fee rules. Parent payments were a third of the $367 million that public schools got from fees, charges and contributions in 2022 — compare that to the $3.4 billion non-government schools earned that year. Speaking of jostling competition — Nestle, Coca-Cola, Mars and PepsiCo should face a Senate inquiry into supermarket prices, the Australian Retailers Association’s Paul Zahra said via SMH, because they set prices on household items that local retailers have to pass onto us. Indeed Woolworths’ submission to Craig Emerson’s review of the food and grocery code of conduct said big suppliers withhold well-known brands as part of their cost-price negotiation.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
“A little hoax, a trifling matter” sniffed a museum spokesperson when asked about a scandal where a blue-collar worker at Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne managed to slip his own painting in among a collection of Andy Warhols and Joseph Beuys. The painting honestly wasn’t half bad, as Guardian Australia’s photo showed — it depicted a family of four’s clothing, with their bodies implied but not filled in. Far from an attempt to launch his own creative career, as initial reporting claimed, the 51-year-old culprit said hanging his artwork was itself an artwork: namely a commentary on the way faceless and often poorly paid labourers and staff make art exhibitions happen with little acknowledgement amid the elitism of the art world.
It was intentionally hung in a room of works entitled “Glitch: On the Art of Interference” which promised art lovers to “uncover normative orders and sociopolitical disparities” and “make visible what is invisible”. In that way, a friend of the artist said, it was a challenge to the museum directors — will you practice what you preach? Evidently, no — the technician was swiftly barred from all Bavarian State Painting Collections galleries for three years and had to sign a “dissolution agreement”. His identity remains a mystery, in a rather meagre bid to discourage copycats (imagine if it was Banksy!). As for his artistic statement, the museum’s spokesperson basically called it gauche — it’s not art, they said, just a breach of trust.
Hoping your point is proven by those who seek to dispute it too.
SAY WHAT?
Another day. Another terror attack by another Islamist terrorist. Six dead, others seriously injured, including a baby.
Julia Hartley-Brewer
Police have repeatedly said there is “nothing” to suggest any “motivation, ideology” in Saturday’s fatal attack in Bondi Junction. That didn’t stop the British TalkTV presenter from declaring there was, however.
CRIKEY RECAP
“There are many contenders for the most bizarre and unedifying moment in Simpson’s life in the nearly 30 years since he was acquitted of the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman. These include Juiced, the execrable prank show he made and the softcore rap video he released to promote it, as well as his eventual imprisonment for an attempted 2007 robbery in Las Vegas.
“But possibly the most breathtaking — and certainly the most high profile — was his decision to put his name to a memoir called If I Did It, in which he speculated how he would have murdered Brown and Goldman, if indeed he had been guilty.”
“A recommitment to what everyone already says they want — undertaken, most likely, as a distraction from Labor’s other failures in its policy towards the horror in Gaza — would be a strange target for such ire at the best of times.
“But Dutton’s contention that it’s the worst he’s heard in all his days is particularly bizarre given he was elected in 2001, at a time when Australia was hurtling towards some of the most catastrophic acts of foreign policy since Federation: the forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As Crikey has exhaustively reported, the right to declare war is ludicrously concentrated in Australia …”
“The housing system is similar. In the post-WWII years, there was no question that a peripheral place such as Tasmania would have to have substantial public housing, with substantial federal involvement. In the neoliberalisation of what was once a Commonwealth, that imperative falls away, and so there is a permanent housing gap.
“Much of this could have been brought to a pitch by Lambie and her offsider at the federal level, with two vital Senate crossbench votes. In a way, it’s not fair to blame Lambie for it. Tasmania’s major party senators don’t make much of a ruckus as state’s representatives, and that probably includes the Greens to a degree.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
What we know about Iran’s attack on Israel (The New York Times)
Cyprus suspends asylum applications for Syrians as arrivals rise (Al Jazeera)
‘Their tactics have changed’: Russia’s bid to blow apart Ukraine’s power grid (CNN)
Somali pirates say hijacked ship MV Abdullah released after $5 million ransom was paid
(Reuters)
Germany passes law making it easier to legally change gender (euronews)
Biden closes gap on Trump but third-party candidates pose danger, polls show (The Guardian)
THE COMMENTARIAT
‘Books will be written’: Judgment day in Lehrmann defamation case — Michaela Whitbourn (the SMH): “Under the truth defence, Ten and Wilkinson are seeking to prove to the civil standard — on the balance of probabilities, meaning it is more likely than not — that Lehrmann raped Higgins. While this is less onerous than the criminal standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt, the so-called Briginshaw principle applies in civil cases involving serious allegations and requires courts to proceed cautiously in making grave findings. In the event the truth defence fails, Ten and Wilkinson are seeking to rely on a defence of qualified privilege, which protects publications of public interest where a media outlet has acted reasonably.
“This puts the actions of the broadcaster and Wilkinson in sharp focus. Ten and Wilkinson have separate legal representation, and it is possible that Lee will make different findings against the network and its former star presenter. Wilkinson remains employed by Ten but has not appeared on air since 2022. The trial is estimated to have cost at least $10 million. Lee has previously said that it appeared that parts of the evidence of both Higgins and Lehrmann ‘simply can’t be accepted’. There is a possibility Lee will say that he cannot conclude on the balance of probabilities that Lehrmann raped Higgins, while also making a finding that Lehrmann did not give truthful evidence about what happened on the night in question in March 2019.”
Stormy Daniels and the comeuppance of Donald Trump — Jessica Bennett (The New York Times): “Women. I suspect he never thought they would be the ones to corner him, making the case about his craven and possibly criminal behaviour. Trump has long treated women as objects, targets, supplicants; everyone knows the ‘Access Hollywood’ recording, but he has demeaned and degraded them for years, as Megan Twohey and Michael Barbaro documented in The Times in 2016. He seems to mostly associate women with sex — they are ‘driving me crazy,’ he said of all the ‘beautiful women’ at a recent event at Mar-a-Lago — or with spite (see how he treated Nikki Haley, Megyn Kelly, Hillary Clinton and others).
“He will woo them, he will grab them, he will scorn them, he will mix them up, he will call them names. But he never took them as much of a threat, until now. I’ve never gotten the sense that Joe Biden or Adam Schiff or Jeb Bush or another man ever got in Trump’s head the way Daniels, Carroll, James and the other women do. It’s not that men aren’t on his hit list: Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, is up there, as are the two male judges in Trump’s criminal and civil cases in Manhattan, one of which he recently sued, in yet another (failed) effort to delay his trial. But it’s the women whose behaviour — call it bravery and moxie, as I do, or impertinence and temerity, as Trump might — gets him spinning like a top …”
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WHAT’S ON TODAY
Kaurna Country (also known as Adelaide)
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Residents of South Australia can head along to a workshop where they’ll learn about the government services available, held at Ngutungka West Lakes.
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