My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bunjelung Calcottin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Good morning and welcome to the Daily os It's Tuesday, the thirty first of October.
I'm Zara, I'm Sam.
Over the last few months, you've likely seen headlines that referred to a high profile man who had been charged with rape in the Queensland city of Towoomba. We are limited with what we can tell you now. Well, we can tell you what he is accused of. I can't tell you who he is.
Our high profile man accused of two counts of rape will keep his identity hidden. Late last week, that man was publicly named for the first time, former political staffer Bruce Lherman, who had previously been accused of rape by fellow political staff are Britney Higgins in January of twenty twenty one. Lehman has always denied those allegations and hasn't entered plea in the Tomber case.
As you can tell from that little snippet. This deep dive will be discussing the themes of sexual assault and rape. So if you're not in the headspace to listen to today's podcast, we will be back with you again tomorrow. Before we jump into it, though, Sam, let's get into the headlines.
Rental vacancy in Australia has hit a historic low. That's the percentage of rental properties that are available on the market but untenanted. The prop track coarterly rental report shows that the vacancy rate is down to one point one percent. The lowest rates were found in Adelaide, Regional South Australia and Perth.
Parts of the Western Downs in Queensland are still under emergency bushfire warnings. Lucky Road in Tara is still under a leave immediately warning. That's at the time of recording. Over forty homes across the Western Downs have been destroyed in the bushfires.
In Brazil, twelve people have died in a plane crash. This is the second plane crash in the country in less than two months. The small plane crash just after take off in Rkri, a state in Brazil's west.
And the good news this one feels like you need to watch it for it to make sense, but a kitten was saved after being caught in a car's dashboard. I watched a video as they undid the dashboard in what will be a very expensive endeavor for the car.
There's nothing better than the podcast that tells you to go watch a video.
Well, Fire and Rescue New South Wales posted the video if you want to go watch it. They did say that the cat was unharmed after it was trapped there for two hours.
That's good. We need some good news, Zara. It's good to be back on the podcast after quickly popping over to Washington, DC last week to hang out at the White House and see who would talk to the Daily Os.
It was our best month of podcast ever and in terms of how many listeners only month that we haven't been on the podcast.
That's fine. We'll just move on from the two years we've been doing it every day, and.
So thank you to our amazing team who have filled in for both of us as we both took some time away and have created an excellent.
Product totally and whiles away there were a couple of really big stories across the Australian newspapers. I'm still catching up and I want to talk about why Bruce Lehman, the man accused of raping Britney Higgins in Canberra and twenty twenty one, is back in the news for a different case. Can you talk me through the big headline here?
So at about five pm on Thursday afternoon, we found out that Bruce Lehman could now be named as the quote high profile man that was charged with rape into Woomba earlier this year.
Finally the veil of secrecy is shatty.
We have some breaking news now.
A high profile man accused of rape, who has fought to keep his identity a secret, can finally be exposed tonight.
For the first time, we can tell you Bruce Lahman is the high profile to Wombaman facing more allegations of rape.
But I think in the first place, we need to reintroduce who Bruce Loman is and why you might be familiar with his name. So in February twenty twenty one, a political staffer who worked for the Liberal Party at that time, her name was Britney Higgins. She publicly alleged that she had been raped two years earlier by another staffer who was at that point unnamed, and she alleged that this happened in the office of Linda Reynolds, who was then the Defense Minister. The fallout from that allegation
was huge. We cannot overstate the ripple effect that it had across the country.
An alleged rape inside the People's House has sparked a political scandal.
An explosive allegation that throws the spotlight once again on the culture inside Parliament House.
Prime Minister's response is also in question after miss Higgins accused him of victim blaming.
Britney Higgins' story has prompted an outpouring of anger about the treatment of women and demands the chain.
It's a message heard loud and clear from the women on Parliament lawns to the men in the building.
Enough is enough.
Then, in August of twenty twenty one, Bruce Lehmon was named as the person who Higgins alleged had raped her and the case went to trial. It's very important to note here that Lehman pleaded not guilty at that time and to this day, he maintains his innocence. So then we fast forward to last year twenty twenty two, when a trial in the Act failed that was due to
dura misconduct. I remember we spoke about that at length on this podcast, and then a retrial was abandoned, and you know, there have been a number of investigations as to how and what happened there, And so that was where the story of Bruce Lehman left us until this year.
Okay, So that brings us up to speed in terms of the contexts in which we came to know Bruce Lemon's name in the news. Then how does that connect to this other story that was bubbling along over the last six months or so of a high profile man in Womba.
Yeah, so in January of this year you would have started to see headlines referring to someone charged with rape who couldn't be named. The alleged rape was said to have taken place in October twenty twenty one.
Typically, when someone is accused of rape, we're pretty quick in the media to know about it an allegation is made public. Why weren't we given the identity of the man in this case.
Well, I will just clarify there was a time where we did know who it was. So on the day that Bruce Lehman first appeared in court into Woomba, that court actually published its courtless right and his name was on it. That was very quickly taken offline. And then from that point on, I think it's safe to say a lot of people in media knew who it was, right, but no one was allowed to print the name of Bruce Lehman.
Why weren't we allowed to print them?
Yeah? So that well, I mean there are two reasons. So the first reason we weren't allowed to go to a Queensland law, and that was a law that was in place that prevented people accused with rape and other certain sexual offenses from being named until they were officially committed to stand trial. So like in the process of the kind of judicial system, it was that charges had been laid, but he hadn't been committed to stand trial, and therefore under Queensland law, the media was not allowed
to report his name. These laws were partly based, at least according to Queensland's Attorney General, Yvette dath On quote, the false assumption that women maliciously make up complaints to damage reputations. I mean, I think it's pretty clear from that quote that the Queensland government did end up changing those laws.
So take me through the process the Queensland government went through to actually make the change.
Yes, So Queensland's government started the process to change the law in May of this year so that people accused of rape could be named, and that was based on a recommendation from the States Women's Safety and Justice Task Force. The change was supported by both the government and the opposition, so it's bipartisan, it was, But that doesn't entirely because in Queensland they can pass laws through the singular house
with a majority. But still significant to add there. And the change in the law that was implemented meant that people officially alleged to have committed a sexual offense could be publicly named when they were charged in the same way as any other.
Alleged robbed a bank in the same would apply.
Yeah, So once the law passed Queensland Parliament a date was set on the third of October anyone previously charged with sexual assault in the state who had not yet gone to trial could be identified.
But then it was only a couple of weeks after the third of October that Bruce Lherman's name was revealed. Why was there a delay and why didn't we find out on the third of October.
Yeah, So then this is the other element of why the media hasn't been able to report. So again, just to reiterate, the first was that Queensland's law restricted the media's ability to report on it, and if we had
there would have been consequences once that was overturned. There was a second reason, and that was because in the law or that changed, it allowed the accused to apply if they did not want their name to be published, and it would follow that after the lord did change, Bruce Lehman launched an application to do just that.
According to Bruce Lehman, what was the reason that he gave in terms of why he didn't want his name out there?
So his lawyers tried to get his name suppressed for two main reasons. The first was mental health.
Grounds his mental health correct.
And the second was based on his public profile and
so on. The first, they argued that publishing his name would harm his already fragile mental health and that it would pose a suicide risk due to a likely media frenzy that would ensue while they were making this case, a psychologist who had seen Leerman professionally in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two testified to his quote depressed mood and suicidal ideation, and that psychologist agreed that allowing his name to be published would worsen his mental health state.
And then the other reason was that he was already so well known from the case that involves Britney Higgins, the prosecution as well as several major media outlets, so it was actually really interesting. There was basically every single major media outlet in the country bar one, that was arguing that Lherman's name should be able to be published.
The point that was being argued on the other side was that Lehman had stopped formally seeking psychological help and that he wasn't seeking help at this current time, and therefore this argument around mental health perhaps didn't stack up. They also argued that his decision in twenty twenty three to conduct what can only be called a major media interview.
With Channel seven right erect Spotlight.
And his decision to commence several defamation proceedings relating to Higgins's allegations. They argued that those actions were incompatible with the suggestion that publicity could be harmful to his mental health.
Because those things were keeping his name in the headline.
Well, yeah, they were suggesting that he was contry tributing to perhaps his own personal profile growing by doing those things.
And so those arguments were all presented in court. Then what happened after.
That, Yeah, So the magistrate agreed with the media routlets and the prosecution that it was in the public interest at this point to name Lherman and that his decision not to seek continued professional help and to actively pursue media publicity contradicted his lawyer's arguments. The magistrate blocked Lherman's lawyer's bid to keep his name private. But then his lawyer's appealed to the Supreme Court of Queensland and that brings us up to last week.
And so that's how these appeals work, is that the kind of status quos stays until the appeal is heard. What happened when the appeal was heard in the Supreme Court.
So that was when this news broke. So in a judgment handed down last week, Justice Peter Applegarth noted his task was just basically to decide whether the magistrate had made a reasonable decision, not necessarily whether he agreed with the decision itself. Essentially, he determined it was a reasonable decision to allow the publication of Bruce Lehman's name and that he could be identified as this high profile man
accused of rape into Woomba. So essentially, the second that judgment was handed down, those news outlets who had fought to name Lehman hit published, and all at once, we were just bombarded by these push notifications of outlet after outlet after outlet naming him.
It's always really interesting when these kind of legal processes and principles interact with the way that the news is reported. But now the name is out there, but the case is still yet to be heard. What happens from here.
So the legal proceedings will continue. There's still quite a bit that needs to be settled before the magistrate decides if the case will proceed to trial, because remember that we're not even at that stage, and it may not. That's up to the magistrate to decide, as we explained.
Earlier, So we're not even at the stage where we can figure out whether Bruce Lehmon denied the claims on that right.
So he hasn't in court had to enter a plea yet, right. Okay, there's also other legal action that might bring Bruce Lehman back into the new cycles separate to this. That's again relating to Britney Higgins's allegations, so we are likely to
hear quite a bit about him. And I think i'd finished just on a note of if anyone has been seeing our coverage of Bruce Lehman and the allegations against him on Instagram and have noticed that we turned off comments and the explanation given was due to an ongoing defamation risk, you know, like we saw with the Britney Higgins case. There is going to be huge media attention on this case and comments, sections and comments that are
made online can serve to prejudice a jury. So I think you'll notice a lot of outlets turning off their comments in order to allow justice to kind of work as it does without social media getting in the way of it.
And this decision in the Supreme Court does change things for us as well. It means that we can cover the story orbit without comments on and so we will definitely keep everyone updated on this and to note that if this has brought up anything for you, you can call one eight hundred respect twenty four to seven. That's one eight hundred seven three to seven three seven.
Thanks for listening to today's episode of The Daily Os. We've loved reading your beautiful reviews on Apple Podcasts. My mum told me that she now understands how to leave me a five star reviews, so that's good news. It only took a couple of years. If you'd like to join my mum and several others who have left lovely comments, please do so. It means that you know other people can hear about this podcast and learn about it, and that means the world to us. Have a great date.
Bye,