Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 1: Bungelung Cargoton woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Speaker 2: Good morning, and welcome to the Daily os. It's Thursday,
Speaker 2: the twenty third of November. I'm Sam, I'm Zara. Former
Speaker 2: Liberal staffer Bruce Lhermon has been in the news over
Speaker 2: the last two years for a variety of reasons. This week,
Speaker 2: he's back in the news because he's suing some media
Speaker 2: alllets for defamation, including the ABC Channel ten and its
Speaker 2: journalist Lisa Wilkinson.
Speaker 3: Now, before we go any further in explaining this story,
Speaker 3: I do want to note, as we have in previous episodes,
Speaker 3: that tda's editor is Billy FitzSimons, who is the daughter
Speaker 3: of Lisa Wilkinson. Billy has had no editorial side or
Speaker 3: involvement with this story or any posts that we've made
Speaker 3: about this story's developments.
Speaker 2: Lehmann settled his case with the ABC yesterday morning, but
Speaker 2: the case against Channel ten continues.
Speaker 3: We'll explain how we got here and explain what happens
Speaker 3: next in today's Peak Dive. But Sam, what's making headlines.
Speaker 2: Israel and Hamas have agreed to a four day cease
Speaker 2: fire in exchange for fifty hostages. The deal was broken
Speaker 2: by the US and Qatar and announced by Israeli Prime
Speaker 2: Minister Benjamin Netna, who after a meeting of Israel's war
Speaker 2: cabinet yesterday, this would be the longest pause in violence
Speaker 2: in the region since the seventh of October. All of
Speaker 2: the hostages will be women and children. It's also been
Speaker 2: widely reported, though not announced, by Benjamin Nanna, who in
Speaker 2: his initial statement, that one hundred and fifty Palaestinian prisoners
Speaker 2: will be released from Israeli prisons.
Speaker 3: The government's new online Safety plan will make social media
Speaker 3: platforms more accountable when it comes to protecting children from
Speaker 3: harmful content. The plan also includes stronger agcatulations around the
Speaker 3: use of AI and deep fakes. In an address to
Speaker 3: the Press Club yesterday, Communications Minister Michelle Roland so the
Speaker 3: government will invest further in developing age verification Technologies.
Speaker 2: The CEO of Binance, which is the largest cryptocurrency exchange
Speaker 2: in the world, has stepped down after pleading guilty to
Speaker 2: failing to implement anti money laundering measures on the trading site.
Speaker 2: Shanpeng Zhao acknowledged the company did not implement monitoring for
Speaker 2: suspicious activity on the site. He's agreed to pay a
Speaker 2: settlement of over four billion US dollars that's around six
Speaker 2: point one billion Australian And.
Speaker 3: The good news. Ozzie gymnast Georgia Godwin has had a
Speaker 3: gymnastics move named after her.
Speaker 2: What's it called Zara?
Speaker 3: The Godwin has been officially recognized by the International Gymnastics Federation.
Speaker 3: The move involves a three hundred and sixty degree turn
Speaker 3: in a handstand on the uneven bars. The Olympic gymnasts
Speaker 3: performed the Godwin at the federation's World Cup Challenge in June.
Speaker 2: If there was the what would it be sitting down?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 3: So, in order to understand the case brought by Bruce Lehman,
Speaker 3: which came to trial yesterday, I do think that we
Speaker 3: need to rewind quite a bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So let's take it all the way back to
Speaker 2: the fifteenth of February twenty twenty one, and that was
Speaker 2: the day that an article was published on news dot
Speaker 2: com Today U and aired on Channel tens The Project
Speaker 2: by Lisa Wilkinson about these allegations made by a Liberal staffer,
Speaker 2: Brittany Higgins, that she'd been raped at Parliament House by
Speaker 2: somebody who at that time was described in the piece
Speaker 2: as a senior male colleague. Now, we later found out
Speaker 2: that that person's name was Bruce Lherman, and he was
Speaker 2: named in August of twenty twenty one, and he was
Speaker 2: charged with rape and has maintained his innocence in that case.
Speaker 2: There was a rape trial in the Act last year
Speaker 2: that failed due to Duram misconduct and a retrial was abandoned.
Speaker 3: Okay, so that trial came to an end. Yeah, we
Speaker 3: actually have spoken about Bruce Lehmon since that time, but
Speaker 3: that's to do with a separate criminal case that's being
Speaker 3: brought in Queensland. So putting that aside for a moment,
Speaker 3: what is this case that we're speaking about, the specific
Speaker 3: defamation case. What's that about?
Speaker 2: Well, I find the best way to kind of split
Speaker 2: this up is thinking of it as criminal and civil.
Speaker 2: And so today we're talking about this civil case. And
Speaker 2: so this year, in February, two years after the initial
Speaker 2: allegations were made in the media, Brice Lehman announced he
Speaker 2: was suing News dot com TODAYU, the ABC and Channel
Speaker 2: ten for defamation.
Speaker 3: And we know that there was the News dot com
Speaker 3: dot Au article, the Samantha made an article, and that
Speaker 3: there was the Channel ten Project interview. How did the
Speaker 3: ABC get brought into this defamation proceeding?
Speaker 2: So the ABC's involvement comes due to a speech that
Speaker 2: Higgins did with the twenty twenty one Australian of the
Speaker 2: Year and survivor of sexual assault, Grace Tame. That speech
Speaker 2: was aired in February of twenty twenty two on the
Speaker 2: National Broadcaster, and Lehman's claim was that this address quote
Speaker 2: gave gravitas and credence to the assertion that he had
Speaker 2: raped her, and that the ABC, in broadcasting that address
Speaker 2: caused him reputational damage by broadcasting it during a time
Speaker 2: where the court case was still going to happen. Now,
Speaker 2: just as things got kicked off yesterday morning in court
Speaker 2: in Sydney, the ABC and Bruce Lehman announced that they'd
Speaker 2: reached a settlement and News dot Com Dot U have
Speaker 2: previously announced they've reached a settlement with Lemon. They announced
Speaker 2: that in May of this year.
Speaker 3: Well, sorry, before you go on, what does a settlement mean.
Speaker 2: It basically means when the two parties get together outside
Speaker 2: of a courtroom in front of a judge and reach
Speaker 2: an agreement to stop proceedings, normally in exchange for money,
Speaker 2: but it can also be in exchange for, you know,
Speaker 2: an apology or some sort of other offer.
Speaker 3: Do we know in this case what it's been.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen any figures or details specified, and normally
Speaker 2: it's pretty standard that they're not specified.
Speaker 3: Okay, So there were settlements with the ABC yesterday and
Speaker 3: with news dot com dot Au. But that leaves one
Speaker 3: news outlet, Channel ten, that Bruce Lehman was still bringing
Speaker 3: a deafa MA case against and that brings us, I
Speaker 3: presume to yesterday exactly.
Speaker 2: And the core of Bruce Lehmon's argument is that he
Speaker 2: was recognizable in that initial project story, despite the fact
Speaker 2: that he wasn't actually named in that story, but because
Speaker 2: he says he was recognizable, it was defamatory to air
Speaker 2: those allegations against him, which had not and have not
Speaker 2: ever been proven in court.
Speaker 3: Defamatory is one of those words that we use certainly
Speaker 3: in media and are aware of quite a lot. But
Speaker 3: can you just walk us through what are Bruce Lehmon's
Speaker 3: lawyers actually alleging here?
Speaker 2: Well, I think to kind of answer that, you need
Speaker 2: to take a deeper dive into what defamation is itself.
Speaker 2: And defamation is basically balancing our right to freedom of speech,
Speaker 2: so our right to say whatever we want in whatever
Speaker 2: public forum and whatever blog or TV show we want,
Speaker 2: with the idea of protecting somebody's reputation. And the general
Speaker 2: principle that lies behind defamation is that you shouldn't really
Speaker 2: be able to say things that harm someone's career, someone's
Speaker 2: personal standing, or their relationships, or any other aspects of
Speaker 2: their life if that thing that you're saying is naturally true.
Speaker 2: And so what Bruce Lehman's arguing here is that the
Speaker 2: allegations aired against him had an impact on his life
Speaker 2: that he's now seeking reparations for that he is now
Speaker 2: seeking to repair. And those allegations aired have never been
Speaker 2: proven in court.
Speaker 3: And so then what happens if you are found guilty
Speaker 3: of defamation?
Speaker 2: So remember I said at the top that it's a
Speaker 2: civil case, not a criminal case. There's different implications if
Speaker 2: you're found guilty in a civil case or a criminal case.
Speaker 2: If you're found guilty in a criminal case, you're then
Speaker 2: punished by the law in terms of a criminal code
Speaker 2: and the various criminal acts that exist in legislation. So
Speaker 2: they can be everything there from a good behavior bonds
Speaker 2: to a probation period all the way through to a
Speaker 2: prison sentence.
Speaker 3: Okay, don't get too legally on us.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I do feel like I'm lecturing a legal studies class.
Speaker 2: I try and keep it grounded in this case. So
Speaker 2: for this case, we're talking about a civil.
Speaker 3: Matter, which is distinct from a criminal matter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and in a civil case it can often lead
Speaker 2: to monetary punishment enforced by a court, and it also can,
Speaker 2: as I mentioned before, in the settlement context, it can
Speaker 2: lead to, you know, an apology or some sort of
Speaker 2: other act. The burden of proof is also different in
Speaker 2: both a criminal and civil context, and that's really important explain.
Speaker 2: So if you're in a criminal context, let's say you've
Speaker 2: been charged with robbery of a corner shop and you're
Speaker 2: standing in front of a judge, it's the prosecutor's job
Speaker 2: to prove to the jury that you did that robbery
Speaker 2: beyond a reasonable doubt. And beyond a reasonable doubt means
Speaker 2: that if you look at all the evidence presented, the
Speaker 2: jury should be absolutely sure that you did that robbery. Now,
Speaker 2: if you're being sued in a civil case like the
Speaker 2: one that we have playing out in this story, the
Speaker 2: burden of proof is called the balance of probabilities, and
Speaker 2: what that means is that in the eye of any
Speaker 2: random person walking along the street, you more likely than
Speaker 2: not defames that person, and so there's kind of a
Speaker 2: little bit of room for doubt allowed. And so we
Speaker 2: say that the balance of probabilities in a civil case
Speaker 2: is lower. And then the next part of my legal
Speaker 2: lecture is how do you work out how much to
Speaker 2: pay somebody if you indeed have found that they have
Speaker 2: been defamed. And there's a couple of ways to calculate that.
Speaker 2: One is, let's say that they've got a job and
Speaker 2: they lose that job because of your defamatory claim. Then
Speaker 2: you might be awarded the salary that you no longer
Speaker 2: are getting because you lost that job because of this
Speaker 2: claim that was defamatory. So that's one way to calculate
Speaker 2: damages the kind of loss of income and the loss
Speaker 2: of money you would have had otherwise. But the other
Speaker 2: way to measure damages is non economic loss, and that's
Speaker 2: a term that we give to payments that are just
Speaker 2: kind of given because we recognize that the wrong has
Speaker 2: been imparted on you. And so the cap to that
Speaker 2: payment is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in Australia
Speaker 2: and most of the circumstances.
Speaker 3: Okay, So putting aside what it is that Lerman would
Speaker 3: be seeking, Yeah, what is it that Channel ten and
Speaker 3: indeed Lisa Wilkinson's defense is likely to be to this
Speaker 3: defamation allegation.
Speaker 2: So there's kind of five, broadly speaking, five key ways
Speaker 2: that you can defend a defamation claim. And in the
Speaker 2: case that we're talking about today and the defense that
Speaker 2: Channel ten and Lisa Wilkinson have reportedly taken, is this
Speaker 2: idea of the truth defense, and what that basically means,
Speaker 2: they're going to say that they cannot make a defamatory
Speaker 2: claim if the claim they're making is true. So if
Speaker 2: I say, Zara, you're really mean, and you assume me
Speaker 2: for defamation, and I can prove truthfully that you are
Speaker 2: really mean, then my claim is not defamatory. And this
Speaker 2: was a defense used in another high profile case earlier
Speaker 2: this year. Because it was the defense used in the
Speaker 2: Ben Robert Smith and My Newspapers.
Speaker 3: Case, I was going to say, we have covered this
Speaker 3: quite a.
Speaker 2: Bit exactly, and we'll put a link to that episode
Speaker 2: as well in today's show notes and so in practice
Speaker 2: in this case, if Wilkinson and Channel ten do rely
Speaker 2: on the truth defense, they're going to need to prove
Speaker 2: to the judge that the Higgins allegations that they aired
Speaker 2: were true. Now, Higgins herself said earlier this year she
Speaker 2: would be prepared to appear as a witness for the defense,
Speaker 2: so four Channel ten and Lisa Wilkinson if it was required.
Speaker 3: Whether or not Higgins will appear as a witness, we
Speaker 3: don't know, but it's certainly a trial we'll be watching
Speaker 3: and keeping a close eye on. Will be sure to
Speaker 3: keep you updated on that as well. If this episode
Speaker 3: has brought up anything for you, remember you can call
Speaker 3: one eight hundred respect or lifeline. On thirteen eleven fourteen.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to today's episode of The Daily OS.
Speaker 3: We will be back again in your ears tomorrow morning.
Speaker 3: Have a great date,