What happened on Wednesday 23 October 2024
With that, we’ll end our live coverage of the day’s news.
Here’s a summary of the main developments:
The Australian Catholic University will reimburse attenders of a graduation ceremony where Joe de Bruyn sparked a walkout with a speech denouncing abortion and same-sex marriage.
The media union has called Peter Dutton’s behaviour towards two ABC reporters “unnecessarily aggressive” as the public broadcaster vowed to continue to ask the opposition leader and others tough questions.
A woman accused of displaying the Hezbollah flag at a pro-Palestine protest in Sydney will contest the allegations in court.
The lawyer for Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto has rejected claims the Liberal leader created a “false narrative” in order to expel Moira Deeming, telling a court he acted to “cauterise the damage” after neo-Nazis gatecrashed a rally the MP helped organised.
The federal court has granted Bruce Lehrmann a stay of the $2m costs order made by Justice Michael Lee, allowing an appeal against the dismissal of his defamation suit against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson to go ahead.
At least seven people were killed and more than a dozen remain missing after gunmen ambushed a public bus and shot passengers in Papua New Guinea’s Enga province.
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Updated
Moira Deeming created ‘extreme’ political problem akin to ‘lobster with a mobster’ incident, defamation trial told
John Pesutto’s lawyer has rejected claims the Victorian Liberal leader created a “false narrative” in order to expel Moira Deeming, telling a court he acted to “cauterise the damage” after neo-Nazis gatecrashed a rally the MP helped organised.
Deeming, who now sits on the crossbench after her expulsion from the state parliamentary Liberal party, is suing Pesutto for allegedly falsely portraying her as a Nazi sympathiser after she spoke at the Let Women Speak rally held on 18 March 2023, which was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis. Pesutto has denied the claim.
In her closing arguments, Deeming’s barrister, Sue Chrysanthou SC, asserted that Pesutto’s push to expel her from the party had “nothing to do” with the rally.
“The decision to expel was so irrational and clearly not based on the reasons he put forward to the press,” Chrysanthou told the federal court in Melbourne.
“Mrs Deeming was expelled because Mr Pesutto found it annoying to have to answer press questions about her whenever she made a statement about sex-based rights.”
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Updated
