Third day of Community Ten defamation case sees Lehrmann again in witness field
Amanda Meade
Bruce Lehrmann returns to the witness field this morning on day three of his defamation trial towards Community Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson within the federal courtroom.
The courtroom heard Lehrmann was fired by Senator Linda Reynolds for severe misconduct after a safety breach involving confidential paperwork, in addition to the safety breach involving an after-hours go to with former colleague Brittany Higgins. Higgins alleges she was raped by Lehrmann on Reynolds’ sofa, an accusation Lehrmann denies.
Lehrmann’s barrister stated in his opening handle his consumer had been publicly maligned as a rapist and he was looking for vindication and compensation.
Ten’s barrister Matt Collins KC requested Lehrmann why he described a severe safety incident as a “very temporary minor incident about safety”.
“Do you keep in mind giving that proof?’’ Collins stated on Thursday.
“This wasn’t a minor incident about safety, was it?”
Lehrmann replied: “Effectively, no.”
Collins requested: “Effectively, why did you select solely yesterday to say it was a really temporary, minor incident about safety when the true place is it was one of many grounds in your termination for severe misconduct?’’
Lehrmann replied: “Effectively, I nonetheless don’t think about it a serious safety breach”.
Lehrmann is but to face Wilkinson’s silk Sue Chrysanthou.
Up to date at 19.48 EST
Key occasions
Lady accused of affection triangle homicide plot to be extradited
A former tutorial accused of being on the centre of an alleged homicide plot that left her ex-partner a tetraplegic and her lover with a gunshot wound will probably be extradited to South Australia.
Lisa Margaret Traces didn’t seem in a Brisbane courtroom on Friday when a Justice of the Peace agreed to an unopposed extradition software.
The 43-year-old was represented by an obligation lawyer who agreed the extradition was by consent, with Traces accepting she is the particular person on an arrest warrant.
The courtroom heard Traces has no legal historical past in Queensland.
The appliance was to switch her to South Australia for a courtroom look on Monday.
Traces was taken into custody at Brisbane Airport by Queensland murder detectives on Thursday on her arrival in Australia.
The historian – a revered professional on the Spanish Civil Struggle – was arrested on the island nation of Palau earlier this month.
Paperwork earlier than Brisbane Magistrates Court docket listing her handle as Xinidian District, New Taipei Metropolis, Taiwan, occupation as editor and fatherland as Woodville, South Australia.
The arrest pertains to a convoluted sequence of occasions that started with a violent incident within the Adelaide Hills in October 2017.
She is charged with two counts of tried homicide and two counts of conspiracy to homicide.
– Australian Related Press reviews
Up to date at 21.39 EST
ABC Home Committee involved belief between journalists and sources ‘jeopardised’ after WA activists charged
The ABC Home Committee is anxious belief between ABC journalists and their sources could also be “jeopardised”, after reviews that footage handed to the police by the nationwide broadcaster “could have helped lay costs” towards activists who featured in a 4 Corners story.
The assertion comes after Disrupt Burrup activists had been charged yesterday in relation to a deliberate protest outdoors the Perth dwelling of Woodside chief govt Meg O’Neill.
The ABC MEAA Home Committee is anxious about reviews that ABC footage handed to the police could have helped lay costs towards three activists who featured in a 4 Corners story. That is the danger media organisations face when handing over uncooked footage to police. We’re involved this will jeopardise future relationships and belief between ABC journalists and their sources. The ABC MEAA Home Committee can be very involved in regards to the far-reaching legal guidelines in WA that undermine journalists’ skill to make obligatory guarantees to individuals with whom they work.
Up to date at 21.19 EST
Equality advocates divided about delay of NSW ban of ‘homosexual conversion practices’
A call to delay the introduction of a NSW ban on so-called homosexual conversion practices has acquired blended responses from equality advocates, AAP reviews.
The NSW authorities had promised to introduce legal guidelines to outlaw conversion practices by the tip of the 12 months.
However following requests to conduct additional session with survivors, the federal government will delay the introduction of a proposed invoice till early 2024.
Impartial MP Alex Greenwich wrote to the premier, Chris Minns, looking for extra time for session earlier than the legal guidelines had been launched.
“Reform is pressing however must be executed rigorously,” he says.
Any laws will want the evaluate and assist of survivors of those dangerous practices. I’m working nicely with the Minns authorities on this laws and different lengthy overdue LGBTQI reforms in my equality invoice and it’s my hope and intention we’ll obtain vital progress early in 2024.
However Equality Australia says it’s upset by the federal government’s delay.
“The NSW authorities should ship laws that forestalls the psychological harm and trauma that conversion practices trigger, in whichever settings they happen,” authorized director Ghassan Kassisieh stated on Friday.
Minns says his authorities intends to fulfil the dedication to ban LGBTQ+ conversion practices.
It’s clear although that we’d like extra time and extra session and I wish to get this proper.
Up to date at 21.17 EST
Rafqa Touma
Thanks to Mostafa Rachwani for rolling at the moment’s stay weblog.
I’ll be with you for the subsequent few hours. If there’s something you don’t need us to overlook, shoot it my method @At_Raf_
Amanda Meade
ABC makes assertion about discontinuation of defamation case introduced by Lehrmann
The ABC has printed a press release in regards to the discontinuation of the defamation case introduced by Bruce Lehrmann towards the general public broadcaster, saying the ABC notes {that a} legal cost of sexual assault towards him was dropped.
“On 9 February 2022, the ABC printed a Nationwide Press Membership of Australia handle by Brittany Higgins and Grace Tame,” a press release on its web site printed on Friday stated.
“Bruce Lehrmann commenced defamation proceedings towards the ABC, claiming that the published of the Nationwide Press Membership of Australia handle accused him of sexually assaulting Brittany Higgins. These proceedings had been settled on phrases passable to Mr Lehrmann and the ABC together with discontinuance of the proceedings. The ABC notes {that a} legal cost of sexual assault introduced towards Mr Lehrmann within the ACT was later dropped. The ABC doesn’t counsel that he was responsible of that cost.”
The ABC’s case was discontinued out of courtroom on Wednesday earlier than the trial started.
Up to date at 21.00 EST
Andrew Messenger
Queensland offers Star Leisure a licence suspension reprieve
The Queensland authorities has given Star Leisure a reprieve for a licence ban after the agency was discovered unfit to carry the licences for its casinos in Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
The corporate was discovered to have intentionally misled the regulator and failed to stick to anti-money laundering guidelines final 12 months.
It was was fined $100m and given till 1 December, 2023 to develop a remediation technique, or else have each licences suspended for 90 days.
On Friday, legal professional basic Yvette D’Ath prolonged the deadline till 31 Could, 2024. She says a $200m plan developed by Star had been authorized.
“Evaluation of progress will inform future choices about making use of the suspensions,” a Queensland authorities assertion says.
A 12-month extension has additionally been given to particular supervisor Nicholas Weeks, who was put in to supervise the operations overhaul on the Gold Coast and Brisbane casinos.
Mr Weeks, supervisor aiding Terri Hamilton and their workforce will monitor the plan’s implementation whereas Star “proves its dedication and skill to remediate and return to suitability”.
D’Ath stated she might have utterly rescinded the suspended licence, however selected to defer it as a substitute “as a result of there’s way more work to do”.
If Star fails to adjust to the plan it could face additional fines of as much as $5m.
“As we speak’s announcement strikes the precise steadiness between ensuring The Star operates lawfully, ethically and in a method that enhances integrity, whereas additionally prioritising public confidence and native jobs,” the legal professional basic says.
“The federal government stays dedicated to on line casino reform to handle the numerous failings recognized within the Gotterson evaluate and the findings of the numerous inquiries into on line casino operations throughout the nation.”
Star’s new $3.6bn Queens Wharf on line casino in Brisbane is anticipated to open within the first half of 2024.
Up to date at 21.04 EST
Large purple pumpkin sculpture by Japan’s Kusama unveiled on Mornington Peninsula
Australia’s first massive polka dot pumpkin by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama has been unveiled at Pt. Leo Property on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, AAP reviews.
The three-metre-wide purple and black gourd has been put in with a view of the ocean, its design a famed instance of the globally famend artist’s work.
“I’m very happy to showcase my work in such a beautiful place,” the artist says in a press release.
“The magical fusion of nature and my work is one thing particular that may solely be seen in every location.”
The Pt. Leo Property options greater than 50 sculptures from around the globe, with the pumpkin becoming a member of a set of artworks by the likes of KAWS, Jaume Plensa and Australians Inge King and Clement Meadmore.
Born in 1929, Kusama has turn into one of many world’s most profitable artists, influencing her contemporaries Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg in the course of the Nineteen Sixties.
The dots reference her childhood, when she lived on a small farm and have become misplaced in a subject of flowers, which started to talk to her, the flower heads resembling dots that turned her globally-recognised motif.
“A polka dot has the type of the solar … an emblem of the vitality of the entire world and our residing life, and in addition the type of the moon, which is calm,” she stated.
Japan’s meals provides had been disrupted throughout World Struggle II, and the Kusama household’s storehouse was filled with pumpkins, which she ate till she was sick of them.
The artist has painted their natural and irregular shapes for years.
A much-loved yellow and black pumpkin sculpture, put in on the finish of a pier on Japan’s Naoshima artwork island, made world headlines when it was washed out to sea throughout a hurricane in 2021.
The Mornington Peninsula paintings is open to guests from Saturday.
Up to date at 20.38 EST
Amanda Meade
Lehrmann tells courtroom he’d had issues about ACT legal trial
Bruce Lehrmann has informed the federal courtroom he has “severe issues” about his legal trial, which was aborted final 12 months.
Lehrmann stated he didn’t pay a lot consideration to the summing up of the legal case held within the ACT due to these issues.
In December prosecutors dropped costs towards Lehrmann for the alleged rape of his former colleague Brittany Higgins, saying a retrial would pose an “unacceptable danger” to her well being.
Lehrmann maintains his innocence and pleaded not responsible to at least one cost of sexual activity with out consent, denying that any sexual exercise had occurred.
Community Ten’s barrister Matthew Collins KC is constant his cross-examination of Lehrmann over the occasions of the day the alleged offence occurred in 2019 when he and Higgins labored for Senator Linda Reynolds.
Justice Michael Lee gave Lehrmann a brief break from the witness field after he stated his thoughts went clean and he couldn’t reply questions.
The previous Liberal staffer had admitted telling three totally different tales – together with two false accounts – in regards to the motive for his after-hours go to to Parliament Home.
“Do you recollect the chief justice [Lucy McCallum] regarding the jury questions that had been put to you by the Australian Federal Police on the query of whether or not there was alcohol in your workplace?” Collins requested.
Lehrmann replied: “Not particularly, no.”
It’s day three of his defamation trial towards Community Ten and Lisa Wilkinson within the federal courtroom.
Up to date at 20.12 EST
Benita Kolovos
Victoria not getting a four-day work week any time quickly, Premier Allan says
Victoria’s premier, Jacinta Allan, says she has no plan to introduce a four-day work week to the general public sector.
The Group and Public Sector Union has made a proper pilot program for a reduced-hours, four-day work week throughout numerous worksites a key a part of its enterprise bargaining negotiations with the federal government.
However talking in Bendigo on Friday, Allan shut down the concept:
There aren’t any plans from the federal government to introduce throughout the general public sector a 4 day working week and we’ll proceed to barter with the general public sector union.
Up to date at 19.52 EST
Taylor Swift tickets stay elusive for some as wait instances develop, costs soar
It seems Taylor Swift followers have as soon as once more confronted hurdles attending to see her enormously standard Eras Tour.
Followers have taken to X to precise their frustrations at wait instances and skyrocketing costs, one thing that has been an ongoing subject for a lot of making an attempt to supply the coveted tickets.
Up to date at 19.41 EST
