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