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Speaker 1: You can listen to the fronts on your smart sneaker

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Speaker 1: every morning to hear the latest episode, just say play

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Speaker 1: the news from The Australian.

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Speaker 2: From the Australian, here's what's on the front. I'm Christian Amiot.

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Speaker 2: It's Thursday, September nineteenth. Childcare should be free for families

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Speaker 2: earning under eighty thousand dollars, according to the Productivity Commission.

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Speaker 2: Its new report to the Government says all families with

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Speaker 2: kids under five should have access to at least thirty

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Speaker 2: hours of high quality early childhood education for forty eight

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Speaker 2: weeks per year. Court action is on foot over allegations

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Speaker 2: of inappropriate language at the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils.

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Speaker 2: The case, which is heading for the Federal Court, includes

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Speaker 2: a woman's allegation she was made to feel awkward and

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Speaker 2: uneasy at work, something the accused man strongly denies. Wellness,

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Speaker 2: me too, and the place of women in journalism. Those

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Speaker 2: are the topics some of The Australian's journalists covered in

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Speaker 2: a special panel discussion celebrating the paper's sixtieth anniversary on

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Speaker 2: Wednesday night. Claire Harvey, the Australian's editorial director and the

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Speaker 2: regular host of the Front, was joined by columnist jet Albritton,

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Speaker 2: literary editor Caroline Overington, and legal affairs correspondent Ellie Dudley.

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Speaker 2: Subscribers get access to live events like this one all

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Speaker 2: year round. Join us at the Australian dot com dot au.

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Speaker 2: In today's episode of The Front, we're bringing you some

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Speaker 2: of that fascinating discussion.

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Speaker 1: As you may know, Moy Redeeming, who is a Victorian

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Speaker 1: member of the Upper House, is suing the Victorian Liberal

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Speaker 1: leader John Pursuito for defamation because she's very vocally pro

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Speaker 1: women's rights, pro women's spaces. She appeared at a rally

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Speaker 1: where some neo Nazis showed up. The Liberal leader sacked

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Speaker 1: her from the party, saying that she was associating with

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Speaker 1: the wrong kind of people. She's now suing him for defamation.

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Speaker 1: But it has really made me think that it's not

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Speaker 1: that long ago that this issue, women's rights, women's spaces,

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Speaker 1: trans rights, gender diversity was all we were talking about

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Speaker 1: before we got obsessed with Israel and Gaza. So I

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Speaker 1: thought I might ask you, Janet a very twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: two question, what is a woman?

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Speaker 3: Well, yes, isn't it sad that we asked that question

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Speaker 3: at all and that people fumble the answer. I'm not

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Speaker 3: going to answer it because we know what a woman is.

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Speaker 3: It's just become so silly. But constantly we see the

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Speaker 3: word woman expunged, we see chest feeders, and the language

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Speaker 3: around that's being used to get rid of women is

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Speaker 3: I think so detrimental to women, And there's absolutely nothing

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Speaker 3: wrong with someone like Mara Deming supporting that. That's the problem, though,

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Speaker 3: isn't it when you turn up to those events that

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Speaker 3: rat bags turn up. They try to destroy what's going on,

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Speaker 3: and the neo Nazis will do that all the time.

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Speaker 3: It happens everywhere. You can't pick and choose who you

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Speaker 3: appear with. You just have to stay true to what

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Speaker 3: you believe in, and I think that she was absolutely

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Speaker 3: entitled to do that at the Liberal Party in Melbourne.

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Speaker 3: Is a curious creature that it feels uncomfortable with those issues.

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Speaker 3: But as you say, it was one of those issues

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Speaker 3: that we were talking about so much a couple of

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Speaker 3: years ago, but it hasn't gone away. I look at

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Speaker 3: what JK. Rowling has done in many ways. I think

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Speaker 3: that her most important work has been how she has

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Speaker 3: responded and confronted and challenged the more radical parts of

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Speaker 3: the trans movement. As much as we love for Harry

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Speaker 3: Potter books, she really has been at the forefront of

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Speaker 3: doing that and giving cover to a lot of people

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Speaker 3: who wanted to raise their hands and say, well, we're

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Speaker 3: what a woman is, and we won't have any of

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Speaker 3: this expunging the word woman from our language.

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Speaker 1: Carolin, you covered the literary world in the world of books.

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Speaker 1: How did JK. Rowling avoid being canceled?

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Speaker 4: Well, I'm not sure that she hasn't been entirely canceled.

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Speaker 4: I know that some of the actors who appeared in

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Speaker 4: her films no longer have anything to do with her,

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Speaker 4: and many people say that they no longer read the books.

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Speaker 4: So I'm not quite sure that she hasn't been canceled,

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Speaker 4: at least at the margins. I mean, I think what's

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Speaker 4: really interesting about JK. Rowling is that she was herself

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Speaker 4: the victim of domestic violence or male violence. She was

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Speaker 4: in a relationship with somebody who was violent towards her.

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Speaker 4: There's no doubt about that. That was a matter of

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Speaker 4: police attention, and so she has always in her private

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Speaker 4: life funded refuges for women who are escaping domestic violence,

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Speaker 4: and she wanted to keep those spaces free of men.

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Speaker 4: But it's become difficult to do because, as we've seen

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Speaker 4: in various court cases, if men decide that they want

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Speaker 4: to enter women's spaces and vice versa, those barriers are

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Speaker 4: now falling. And we've we've seen it both ways. We've

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Speaker 4: seen men wanting to women female only pools, and we've

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Speaker 4: seen women wanting to enter men's only clubs. What she

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Speaker 4: was saying is I want to fund spaces that where

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Speaker 4: women who are escaping violence can feel safe, and she

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Speaker 4: was told it through various avenues that that was not

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Speaker 4: possible that men would be welcome in these spaces, and

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Speaker 4: that was how she became involved in the whole drama.

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Speaker 4: But it has I think it's heartening in a way

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Speaker 4: that women are now such full citizens of democracy that

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Speaker 4: they are often at the forefront now of these freedom movements,

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Speaker 4: if you will. It was also Lionel Shreiver, the writer

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Speaker 4: who was at the front of the campaign to say

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Speaker 4: that people should be able to write whatever books they like,

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Speaker 4: regardless of whether they're staying in their lane. You might

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Speaker 4: remember that she turned up in Brisbane controversially wearing a

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Speaker 4: sombrero on her head, and she said, if I want

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Speaker 4: to write a Mexican character, I will. If I want

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Speaker 4: to write a disabled character, I will. If I want

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Speaker 4: to pretender that I'm gay or trans or whatever, I will.

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Speaker 4: Because I'm a writer and I'm a creator, and I'm

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Speaker 4: entitled to tell the stories that I want to tell,

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Speaker 4: and you, as the audience, will judge me. You will

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Speaker 4: decide whether or not I'm any good. You very rarely

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Speaker 4: see men entering this space. They seem to be a

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Speaker 4: little shy when it comes to standing up for some

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Speaker 4: of these issues, which are basically about censorship.

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Speaker 1: What's been your perspective on that, Ellie. You're part of

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Speaker 1: a generation who are putting their pronouns on their email signatures.

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Speaker 1: They are very open to the notion that trans people

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Speaker 1: are vulnerable and that they have been excluded from society,

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Speaker 1: and that this is an opportunity to give them some

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Speaker 1: rights and some recognition. And yet every day you are

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Speaker 1: covering the law where things tend to be a little

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Speaker 1: bit more black and white. What's your take on all

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Speaker 1: of that, especially coming from the generation that you do well.

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Speaker 5: I think it's just become normal Now that's just the expectation,

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Speaker 5: the expectations that you've got your pronouns and your email signature,

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Speaker 5: and that you would be of course welcoming and accepting

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Speaker 5: to anybody from any walks of life, as you should

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Speaker 5: be anyway. I cover the law and I've spent a

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Speaker 5: lot of time in family court watching cases fathers and

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Speaker 5: mothers fighting over whether or not their young children should

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Speaker 5: be prescribed puberty blockers. You know, instances where parents may

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Speaker 5: have transitioned and the impact that they may have had

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Speaker 5: on their child. It's incredibly complex. The law, as you mentioned,

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Speaker 5: is black and white, but it seems like these cases

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Speaker 5: are so gray. And yet when they're entering these spaces,

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Speaker 5: you can see these judges sitting behind the bench thinking,

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Speaker 5: oh my gosh, how am I going to possibly deal

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Speaker 5: with this and how can we bring justice? And how

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Speaker 5: in family court cases, how are we going to find

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Speaker 5: what's best for this child? It's incredibly difficult.

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Speaker 2: Coming up after the break more from our sixtieth anniversary

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Speaker 2: Women in Journalism panel, we'd love it if you could

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Speaker 2: join one of our live events. They're available exclusively for

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Speaker 2: subscribers to The Australian Plus. There's access to breaking news,

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Speaker 2: lively commentary and expert analysis around the clock. Check us

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Speaker 2: out at the Australian dot com dot au and we'll

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Speaker 2: be back after this break.

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Speaker 5: Well.

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Speaker 1: Consent legislation around consent is one of the biggest changes

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Speaker 1: that we have seen in the past decade. I suppose

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Speaker 1: in law all jurisdictions in Australia now have affirmative consent

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Speaker 1: laws which require enthusiastic, ongoing participation to sex. Janet, what's

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Speaker 1: your take on that? Perhaps consequence lit corollary to the

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Speaker 1: me too movement and the way it is shaking out

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Speaker 1: through the law.

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Speaker 3: It was probably an inevitable part of the me too

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Speaker 3: movement in the sense that we believe all women necessarily

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Speaker 3: meant that the moment that a woman had raised an

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Speaker 3: allegation of sexual assault, we had to believe that woman.

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Speaker 3: So therefore you had to have this thing called affirmative consent,

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Speaker 3: which means basically, at every stage of sex you are

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Speaker 3: giving consent. I've never really worked out how in practice

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Speaker 3: it operates. I genuinely believe it's one of these theoretical

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Speaker 3: things that in practice, how do you decide that there

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Speaker 3: is enthusiastic consent? The whole way through, and I think

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Speaker 3: we will see more and more cases which expose that

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Speaker 3: something that sounds okay to the me too movement, maybe

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Speaker 3: when it's applied in a court of law, when you

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Speaker 3: have to actually produce evidence is much harder.

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Speaker 1: What do you think about that, Ellie, You've grown up

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Speaker 1: in a generation who are much more comfortable talking about

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Speaker 1: this kind of issue than my generation. What's your take

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Speaker 1: on the kind of agitation that some in society have

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Speaker 1: felt about those laws.

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Speaker 5: I think the consent is incredibly important, and I think

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Speaker 5: that seeking consent is an incredibly important thing that needs

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Speaker 5: to be done. I had an argument with somebody recently.

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Speaker 5: He was about, oh gosh sixty five or so about

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Speaker 5: whether or not saying I need to take a break

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Speaker 5: is a withdrawal of consent or not. Those are the

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Speaker 5: sort of questions that the court's coming up against. Is

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Speaker 5: what does that affirmative consent look like? And what does

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Speaker 5: a withd rowle of consent look like? If you're consenting

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Speaker 5: at the beginning, but then you stop midway through, what

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Speaker 5: does that look like? And honestly, it is one of

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Speaker 5: the greyest areas of law that we've got, and I

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Speaker 5: don't think anyone really knows what the solution is to

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Speaker 5: ensure that women are safe in that predominantly women are

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Speaker 5: safe in their sexual encounters, but also to ensure that

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Speaker 5: men aren't being put in prison for a crime that

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Speaker 5: they either didn't realize that they were committing or.

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Speaker 3: Or didn't commit at all. One thing that doesn't change

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Speaker 3: in many of these cases is that it comes down

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Speaker 3: to ahesage. She said, yeah, situation. So unless you have

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Speaker 3: it in writing, you can claim that you got consent

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Speaker 3: or you can claim that you gave consent, and that

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Speaker 3: part of the sexual assault equation doesn't change, and that's

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Speaker 3: what has always made sexual assault so fraught.

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Speaker 1: Well, one of the most detailed examinations of consent that

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Speaker 1: I've seen, and I'm sure many of you watched it too,

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Speaker 1: was just as Michael Lee's granular examination of what happened

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Speaker 1: between Brittney Higgins and Bruce Lahman on that night in

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Speaker 1: twenty nineteen when she says she went back to Parliament

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Speaker 1: House with him thinking that they were going to be

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Speaker 1: collecting some documents or maybe collecting his keys, he said,

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Speaker 1: they went back to work on some French submarine documents.

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Speaker 1: Justice Michael Lee found that in fact, whatever they went

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Speaker 1: there for that she did not consent to what ultimately happened.

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Speaker 1: That was Justice michael Lee's finding. Janet, that was in

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Speaker 1: the middle of an epic judgment that we all were

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Speaker 1: digesting very quickly. What was your take on the way

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Speaker 1: Justice michael Lee worked his way through that reasoning in

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Speaker 1: the defamation matter.

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Speaker 3: I thought mostly it was a very good judgment and

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Speaker 3: he put a great deal of work into it, and

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Speaker 3: it was the first time really that a judge had

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Speaker 3: gone through and looked at this because, of course Bruce

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Speaker 3: Lheman's criminal trial was aborted, so we never had a

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Speaker 3: resolution to this. But remember this is not a criminal resolution.

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Speaker 3: It's in a defamation case. It's on the balance of probabilities.

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Speaker 3: And Michael Lee went through the facts forensically, and that

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Speaker 3: was always a risk for Bruce Lehman that that would

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Speaker 3: be the finding. From the moment that this case started,

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Speaker 3: I was never and I don't want this to sound callous,

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Speaker 3: but I was never terribly interested in what happened that night.

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Speaker 3: I was interested in whether there could be a fair trial.

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Speaker 3: And I think the moment that it became trial by media,

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Speaker 3: trial by parliament, trial by just about every institution, in

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Speaker 3: this country that coalesced against the presumption of innocence, including

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Speaker 3: a Prime minister at the time. He got up in

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Speaker 3: Parliament and said that he was apologizing for things that

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Speaker 3: had happened that night and subsequent to that night. It

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Speaker 3: was impossible to have a fair trial. It wasn't just

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Speaker 3: unfair to a defendant who had been charged and not

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Speaker 3: yet heard in a court of law, but it was

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Speaker 3: terribly unfair to two women who were at the center

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Speaker 3: of that. And that was of course, on the other

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Speaker 3: allegation which became, as Michael Lee said, the major motif,

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Speaker 3: which was the political cover up allegation. There were two

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Speaker 3: women at the center of that who had been accused

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Speaker 3: of a horrendous act of cring up. And I think

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Speaker 3: at the Australian we have done such a tremendous job

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Speaker 3: of making sure that we have covered this case from

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Speaker 3: just about every angle that we could, because it seemed

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Speaker 3: to us that much of the media were not interested

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Speaker 3: in hearing from other women in this case. That believe

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Speaker 3: all women only applied to Britney Higgins. That when Linda

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Speaker 3: Reynolds claimed that she in fact did everything that she

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Speaker 3: thought she could to support Brittany Higgins in the days after,

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Speaker 3: and when Fiona Brown said the same thing, they weren't

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Speaker 3: given as much credibility, and I think that was really

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Speaker 3: sad to watch. And certainly the other part of Michael

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Speaker 3: Lee's judgment that I found particularly riveting because there was

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Speaker 3: literally no evidence to support an allegation of a political

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Speaker 3: cover up, and he finally put that to bed, and

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Speaker 3: we had been waiting a long time for that to happen, Ellie.

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Speaker 1: Now we're seeing another defamation matter spinning out of this

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Speaker 1: story which has grown so many heads it's quite remindable

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Speaker 1: and as it ended, quite a few careers along the way,

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Speaker 1: by the way, the defamation of cases, of course, Senator

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Speaker 1: Linda Reynolds suing Brittaney Higgins and in a separate preceding

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Speaker 1: her husband David Scheraz, over tweets that they made, which

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Speaker 1: she says implied imputed that she did not care for

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Speaker 1: Britney Higgins' welfare and that the conspiracy was true. What's

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Speaker 1: been your sense of the point of defamation action? Is

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Speaker 1: it worth it? Is it worth suing for defamation?

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Speaker 5: It's life ruining. It's absolutely life ruining, As Justice Michael

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Speaker 5: Lee said, Bruce Leman went back for his hat, went

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Speaker 5: back into the Lions, done for his hat, and that

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Speaker 5: was a terrible result for him. We know that Linda

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Speaker 5: Reynolds has put up her house as part of all

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Speaker 5: of this. It's a terrible situation that bankrupts people all

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Speaker 5: in in search of a vindication of a reputation. So look,

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Speaker 5: if you're certain that you're gonna win by all means.

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Speaker 5: But I think that we had an explosion of defamation

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Speaker 5: cases over the past few years. But I think that

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Speaker 5: this is just the latest of them that is probably

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Speaker 5: going to be incredibly damaging the many parties involved.

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Speaker 4: The first thing I would disagree about is whether or

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Speaker 4: not there could have been a fair trial, because I

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Speaker 4: did cover criminal cases for a very long time, and

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Speaker 4: I understand that some of these cases are civil. But

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Speaker 4: I believe very much in the juris system, and I

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Speaker 4: have seen juries go into courtrooms where the accused is

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Speaker 4: very well known. An example of that would be Ivan Malatt.

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Speaker 4: And also I covered a case in Queensland where the

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Speaker 4: murdered child was David Daniel Molcombe and that was a

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Speaker 4: case that everybody in Queensland knew everything about. And yet

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Speaker 4: when you sit twelve members of the Australian public down.

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Speaker 4: They are such good people by and large, and you,

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Speaker 4: as a judge can say to them, I want you

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Speaker 4: to forget everything you have heard up until now. The

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Speaker 4: responsibility on your shoulders is solemn and serious, and I

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Speaker 4: want you to listen only to me and only to

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Speaker 4: the evidence that you hear in this courtroom, and you

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Speaker 4: come to your decision honestly. And if people say to

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Speaker 4: you afterwards, well you got it wrong. Obviously he did

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Speaker 4: it or she did, or he didn't rape her or

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Speaker 4: she did or whatever, then you can honestly say, from

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Speaker 4: the good position in which you sit, I sat in

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Speaker 4: the room, I listened to the evidence, I heard both sides,

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Speaker 4: and I made my decision, and I think we can

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Speaker 4: trust them. I think we can trust Australians in that way.

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Speaker 2: As listeners to the Front.

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Speaker 3: No.

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Speaker 2: Bruce Lamon is appealing that finding in the Federal Court

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Speaker 2: and has always vehemently denied any wrongdoing. Claire Harvey is

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Speaker 2: The Australian's editorial director and the regular host of the Front.

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Speaker 2: She was joined by colonist Janet Albretson, literary editor Caroline Overington,

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Speaker 2: and legal affairs correspondent Elie Dudley. To register for special

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Speaker 2: events like this one, go to the Australianplus dot com

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Speaker 2: dot au