COURTING TROUBLE
Bruce Lehrmann hasn’t ruled out suing Brittany Higgins for defamation after she alleged he raped her when the pair were Liberal staffers, the ABC reports. He told 7NEWS Spotlight he realises suing Higgins is “not a good look — you kick someone when they’re down”, adding: “I have some sympathy for her.” Lehrmann spoke of friends blocking him from Facebook and removing him from group chats after the Higgins’ interview on The Project (it didn’t name him). Lehrmann also said ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold “ruined my life” for telling the country there were grounds for a conviction after aborting the retrial. Lehrmann wasn’t paid for the interview, but Seven covered some of his accommodation. It comes as The Australian ($) reports on a five-hour recording between Higgins, journalist Lisa Wilkinson and others — Higgins reportedly said she thought she could win in a civil case, but wasn’t sure she would “if the onus of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt”.
To another legal stoush now and Ten Network is suing its former political editor Peter van Onselen over an alleged breach of contract after he wrote a column that criticised it and its owner, Paramount, for The Australian ($). Van Onselen describes “a missed opportunity to be an early adopter [of streaming] by management” and Ten Network’s possible future prospect as “limping along with little attention paid to it by its big overseas owner”. Sources told the SMH ($) that Ten Network is trying to get an injunction or ban on certain conduct in the NSW Supreme Court today. The paper notes the column isn’t that different from similar yarns “in The Wall Street Journal and publications around the world“. It comes as Ten Network and van Onselen will head back to court together in October after former political reporter Tegan George alleged “hurt, humiliation and distress” in the workplace.
ON THE WARPATH
Defence Minister Richard Marles says the government is working on compensating the families of victims of alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, Guardian Australia reports. He wrote to the Australian Centre for International Justice that it was a priority to act on the recommendations in the Brereton report, including to “address past failures and wrongdoing” and “develop the systems, culture and accountability” that will prevent, detect and respond to “departures from required standards”. But compensation is complex, he wrote, and Defence was working on “a way forward” with other agencies. Critics note it’s been two and a half years since the report was handed down.
Meanwhile we can expect the judge’s full reasoning for dismissing former solider Ben Roberts-Smith’s defamation case today. The government hasn’t addressed Judge Anthony Besanko’s finding that it was “substantially true” the Victoria Cross recipient is a murderer and a war criminal. “Soldier Y” told the SMH ($) that Australians should accept Besanko’s “grim conclusion”, saying Roberts-Smith felt the rules of engagement “didn’t apply to him”. The anonymous veteran also said it was really tough for fellow soldiers to be questioned about mental trauma, or accused of jealousy and cowardice, on the stand. “Roberts-Smith’s barristers acted on his instructions,” the paper notes. Indeed news.com.au ($) reports an irate Roberts-Smith phoned “Soldier M” and told him to “stick to the f**king code”. Blergh.
POLL POSITION
Just 46% of people support the Voice to Parliament, according to The Australian’s ($) latest Newpoll. It’s higher than the 43% who said they’d vote No. The rest didn’t know. The Yes voters were “women voters, young voters and the city-based, university-educated”, while No voters were “men … regional, non-university- educated, and the over 50s”. The paper says 63% of Coalition voters and almost a quarter of Labor voters were opposed. It comes as our misery index is at its highest level since the start of the global financial crisis in 2008, the SMH ($) reports, as our interest rates, inflation and unemployment climb. During 2022, the misery index jumped by almost 220%, the paper says.
To another poll now and police say threats to kill, maim, injure and rape high-profile politicians and public figures have tripled to 2000, The Advertiser ($) reports. It’s the highest number ever recorded and comes as the threat letter database is launched. The paper says Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s wife received photoshopped pictures of him being killed and threats naming their children. In another instance, a Sydney woman was charged with launching a cyber attack after allegedly sending more than 32,000 emails in one day to an unnamed federal MP’s office. Yikes.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Azam Sanaei messed around on rollerblades like most kids, but when she picked up a hockey stick at aged 14 she got that feeling — that meant-to-be feeling, something we might define later in life as the genesis of our passion. But hockey was practically unheard of as a young kid in Iran, let alone ice hockey — indeed the capital city, Tehran, didn’t even have an ice hockey rink. Until 2019, that is, when Sanaei, then 30, and her team stepped on to an icy surface for the first time, as Al Jazeera tells it. Iran’s first women’s ice hockey team was born, and it practised day and night on that freezing rink. Lockdowns stopped the team from playing internationally until this year, and almost no-one was prepared for what happened in May’s Asia and Oceania championships. First, the Iranian women’s team smashed India 17-1. Then it beat Kuwait 20-0, Kyrgyzstan 26-0, and the UAE 14-0. Into the semi-finals, and Iran beat Singapore 3-0.
The team was into the grand final opposite Thailand, and back home, the country was buzzing. Iran’s national broadcaster announced it would be screening the game live — it was the first time women’s sports had been live on TV, a “huge step”, Sanaei said. The government had no budget for ice skating, so the women paid for their tickets and visas to Thailand. Iran put up a heroic performance, but the home crowd willed Thailand to a 3-1 win. Still, silver ain’t half bad for a team that didn’t exist three years ago. “It was the sweetest feeling and proudest moment,” Sanaei said. She hopes the government will take women’s sports more seriously, but also that Iranian women will realise, “There is nothing that can stop them and, even with all the barriers in front of them, if they try, they will make it to wherever they want.”
Hoping you have faith in yourself today.
SAY WHAT?
I’m a mummy’s boy, and I’m proud of it.
Bruce Lehrmann
The former Liberal staffer did a sit-down interview with 7NEWS last night, where he said probably more than half the country thinks he’s a rapist, but it only matters to him that his mum believes him.
CRIKEY RECAP
“Given it was also named in the claim, it has to be said that The Canberra Times is remarkably chill about all this — a bit of commentary and a cartoon aside, the case barely registers on its homepage, where, at time of writing, this is the top story [“Welcome to Louis, Ben Willis’ new restaurant”].
“The Australian reported the decision relatively straight, with a strange focus on one of the imputations the judge found hadn’t been sufficiently supported by the evidence Nine presented: that Roberts–Smith had been violent towards a girlfriend.”
“Beyond this, such statements by such powerful individuals, freighted as they are with the notion that soldiers should operate with impunity, problematically lend such misconduct the faint whiff of youthful indiscretion. By inviting Australians to turn a blind eye to senseless slaughter, they dishonour not only the country but the vast majority of servicemen and women who serve our nation with dignity, loyal to the values and ethics instilled in our institutions.
“They also shrug off the importance of accountability in any civilised society and foster a bipartisan mentality that treats war criminals as heroes, and whistle-blowers, such as David McBride, not as patriots but traitors.”
“Finally, there are the accusations, aired without specifics, in the Nine piece that non-white people are getting their programs and ideas sidelined. Again, not good if happening. But once again ABC management can talk back to this somewhat. Media is a field of disappointment, not dreams. Most people don’t get what they want, most ideas die on the table, most program proposals don’t get made, no matter how far they get.
“It is also not unknown for people to seek reasons other than simple bad luck for why they didn’t get preferred. We’re not required to take every such accusation at face value. ABC management certainly isn’t. This is all the more ridiculous when you look at the projects and programs that the ABC and SBS do make, compared to the commercial output.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Pakistan ex-PM accuses military of trying to destroy his party (Al Jazeera)
Senegal government cuts mobile internet access amid deadly rioting (Reuters)
Signalling error blamed for India train crash that killed 288 (Al Jazeera)
Huge anti-government protest in Polish capital Warsaw (BBC)
What happened when a Brooklyn neighbourhood policed itself for five days (The New York Times)
Universal basic income of £1600 a month to be trialled in two places in England (The Guardian)
Here are all the positive environmental stories from 2022 (euronews)
THE COMMENTARIAT
PwC a victim of woke capitalism scam — Nick Cater (The Australian) ($): “The embarrassment sweeping PwC’s local division is a manifestation of the global crisis in woke capitalism. The claim of higher ethical standards has been exposed as a sham. No amount of rainbow-washing will remove the stain from PwC’s reputation. The business case for LGBTQIA+ inclusion was set out in a recent report by PwC. It estimated the global spending power of LGBTQIA+ consumers to be more than $5 trillion. The ‘ally marketplace’ of consumers who identify as fellow travellers with the LGBTQIA+ community was eight to 10 times bigger. It claimed 78% of LGBTQIA+ people and their friends, family and relatives would switch to brands known to be LGBTQIA+-friendly.
“More than 80% of LGBTQIA+ and non-LGBTQIA+ millennials say an employer’s diversity and inclusion policies are an important factor when deciding whether to work for them. PwC Australia has followed its own advice to the letter as a sponsor of last November’s Australian LGBTQIA+ Inclusion conference in Melbourne. Former CEO Tom Seymour used his platform in the conference’s brochure to boast of PwC’s ‘inclusive culture which embraces differences — one that allows us to live our values every day, be ourselves and to feel empowered to realise and discover our potential’.
Labor and the Greens don’t get along. Here’s why — Mark Kenny (The Conversation): “Such bitterness might seem curious given both Albanese and Wong hail from Labor’s left, the faction closest in values to the Greens party. But perhaps that closeness on the political spectrum is actually the problem. Just as it is drily observed that the arguments in academia are so bitter because the stakes are so low, there is a sense that the deepest vitriol in parliamentary politics is actually reserved for parties of a similar philosophical hue: that is, parties competing for the same voters’ affections.
“This tendency is not confined to the left. Even within the Coalition, subterranean antipathies between Liberal MPs holding rural-regional seats and Nationals occasionally bubble to the surface. Liberals have also gone to extreme lengths to see off smaller right-wing parties. One notable case involved Tony Abbott in the late 1990s, when he urged One Nation members to take legal action against their fledgling party’s founder, Pauline Hanson. Abbott said in 2003: ‘I met with numerous One Nation dissidents back in 1998 because I was very keen to bring about an end to what I thought was the counterproductive and destabilising influence of One Nation.’ ”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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The Lowy Institute’s Jenny Gordon, Hilman Palaon and Alexandre Dayant will launch the South-East Asia Aid Map at the National Press Club.
Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)
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Author Mikki Brammer will chat about her new book, The Collected Regrets of Clover, at Avid Reader bookshop.
Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)
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Podcaster Sean Szeps will launch his new book, Not Like Other Dads, at Better Read Than Dead bookshop.
