/qresearch/ -  Q Research

PREVIOUSLY COLLECTED NOTABLES

Q Research AUSTRALIA #33 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/0c36692f

Q Research AUSTRALIA #32 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/f825347f

Q Research AUSTRALIA #31 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/5007322d

Q Research AUSTRALIA #30 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/d4ab48e9

Q Research AUSTRALIA #29 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/7345bbf2

Q Research AUSTRALIA #28 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/f55ec192

Q Research AUSTRALIA #27 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/0b34604e

Q Research AUSTRALIA #26 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/9061e982

Q Research AUSTRALIA #25 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/767a7ba2

Q Research AUSTRALIA #24 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/8aa647c3

Q Research AUSTRALIA #23 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/d8746531

Q Research AUSTRALIA #22 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/0c91380d

Q Research AUSTRALIA #21 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/d1699b6f

Q Research AUSTRALIA #20 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/dd402760

Q Research AUSTRALIA #19 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/c2a98b43

Q Research AUSTRALIA #18 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/2ea866f7

Q Research AUSTRALIA #17 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/1df91700

Q Research AUSTRALIA #16 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/805b4829

Q Research AUSTRALIA #15 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/f975dc35

Q Research AUSTRALIA #14 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/62cdd4fd

Q Research AUSTRALIA #13 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/d2399cda

Q Research AUSTRALIA #12 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/558b72b8

Q Research AUSTRALIA #11 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/c17ab97f

Q Research AUSTRALIA #10 ————————————–——– https://controlc.com/bb780c9d

Q Research AUSTRALIA #9 ————————————––——– https://controlc.com/6a61bec5

Q Research AUSTRALIA #8 ————————————––——– https://controlc.com/7ee89fce

Q Research AUSTRALIA #7 ————————————––——– https://controlc.com/239e467c

Q Research AUSTRALIA #6 ————————————––——– https://controlc.com/c4932ea1

Q Research AUSTRALIA #5 ————————————––——– https://controlc.com/5941506b

Q Research AUSTRALIA #4 ————————————––——– https://controlc.com/acf74c16

Q Research AUSTRALIA #3 ————————————––——– https://controlc.com/2021ac89

Q Research AUSTRALIA #2 ————————————––——– https://controlc.com/b8855384

Q Research AUSTRALIA #1 ————————————––——– https://controlc.com/1e0dcd6e

THREAD ARCHIVES

Q Research AUSTRALIA #33 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/VGqwW

Q Research AUSTRALIA #32 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/vxhFN

Q Research AUSTRALIA #31 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/OnkU1

Q Research AUSTRALIA #30 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/qhbEg

Q Research AUSTRALIA #29 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/d8OqC

Q Research AUSTRALIA #28 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/cXDww

Q Research AUSTRALIA #27 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/KZ6Y0

Q Research AUSTRALIA #26 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/dJnda

Q Research AUSTRALIA #25 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/mWRzL

Q Research AUSTRALIA #24 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/uytYA

Q Research AUSTRALIA #23 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/R5AIe

Q Research AUSTRALIA #22 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/vwtO9

Q Research AUSTRALIA #21 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/Si585

Q Research AUSTRALIA #20 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/Q7NNa

Q Research AUSTRALIA #19 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/elcTK

Q Research AUSTRALIA #18 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/oV4MT

Q Research AUSTRALIA #17 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/NtfuF

Q Research AUSTRALIA #16 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/PFwgE

Q Research AUSTRALIA #15 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/5hP7I

Q Research AUSTRALIA #14 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/A85E8

Q Research AUSTRALIA #13 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/rdbq6

Q Research AUSTRALIA #12 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/PahoV

Q Research AUSTRALIA #11 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/VoY1C

Q Research AUSTRALIA #10 ————————————–——– https://archive.vn/lmbJh

Q Research AUSTRALIA #9 ————————————––——– https://archive.vn/gOsSc

Q Research AUSTRALIA #8 ————————————––——– https://archive.vn/xYtqT

Q Research AUSTRALIA #7 ————————————––——– https://archive.vn/YT76p

Q Research AUSTRALIA #6 ————————————––——– https://archive.vn/DGknZ

Q Research AUSTRALIA #5 ————————————––——– https://archive.vn/vlHWs

Q Research AUSTRALIA #4 ————————————––——– https://archive.vn/B0Z4l

Q Research AUSTRALIA #3 ————————————––——– https://archive.vn/xznbY

Q Research AUSTRALIA #2 ————————————––——– https://archive.vn/hlJ0W

Q Research AUSTRALIA #1 ————————————––——– https://archive.vn/vJ8oH

CURRENT DOUGH

https://controlc.com/b8130cec

Brittany Higgins's former chief of staff Fiona Brown allowed to give evidence in closed court session

Patrick Bell - 18 December 2023

1/2

The former political staffer to whom Brittany Higgins says she first disclosed her rape allegation has been allowed to give evidence in a closed session this afternoon, as part of Bruce Lehrmann's defamation case against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson.

The court heard Ms Brown was the first person to whom Ms Higgins disclosed her alleged rape as she was the senior political staffer in the office of Senator Linda Reynolds – for whom both Ms Higgins and Mr Lehrmann worked – at the time of the alleged rape at Parliament House in March 2019.

Mr Lehrmann is suing over an interview Ms Wilkinson did with Ms Higgins on The Project, in which he was not named as the alleged rapist, but claims he was identifiable.

He launched the action after the collapse of his criminal trial due to juror misconduct, with no findings against him.

The court was today presented with two medical reports which outlined the potential adverse effects on Ms Brown's mental health, if she were to give evidence in open court, and while the live stream on the Federal Court's YouTube channel was active.

At points in the case, the live stream has had more than 20,000 viewers.

Justice Michael Lee ruled that the live stream could be deferred during Ms Brown's testimony.

He ruled that members of the media would be allowed to observe her evidence, but otherwise the court would be closed to the public.

Doctor challenged over Brittany Higgins's level of intoxication

Earlier today, a forensic toxicologist was challenged on his estimate of how intoxicated Ms Higgins was on the night in question.

Dr Michael Robertson prepared a report which estimated her blood alcohol content (BAC) to be about 0.23 at 1:50am when she entered Parliament House, based on the number of drinks she is believed to have consumed, how much she had eaten, and factors such as her height and weight.

The court was shown CCTV footage from The Dock – the Canberra pub Ms Higgins and Mr Lehrmann attended on the night – in which she is seen swaying and stumbling at 10:08pm.

At this time, Dr Robertson estimated her BAC to be 0.11.

The court was later shown CCTV of the pair entering Parliament House, in which Mr Lehrmann's barrister Steven Whybrow suggested she showed similar signs of intoxication to the clip from four hours earlier.

When Ms Higgins can be seen standing on one foot as she removed her shoes for the metal detector, Mr Whybrow suggested "for somebody who had drunk a lot of alcohol, [that] would be a fairly complex exercise".

Dr Robertson agreed with Mr Whybrow that the vision showed "no overt signs of gross intoxication".

But he told the court Ms Higgins's "drinking history" that he was asked to assume in his report suggested a much higher level of intoxication than earlier in the night.

(continued)

>>20092945

2/2

Brittany Higgins's demeanour changed after alleged rape

The Federal Court has also heard Ms Higgins went from being a "go-getter" to becoming much "testier" in the aftermath of her alleged rape at Parliament House in 2019.

The Queensland state MP she first worked for, Bonney MP Sam O'Connor, today also gave evidence to Mr Lehrmann's defamation trial.

Mr O'Connor said Ms Higgins disclosed her alleged rape to him while she was working in Perth during the 2019 federal election campaign, about three weeks after the night in question.

"I absolutely remember the word rape, that's not something that you forget," Mr O'Connor said.

He told the court prior to moving to Canberra, he would describe Ms Higgins as "a real go-getter".

"Her dream job was to be a press secretary, a media adviser in Canberra," he said.

"She really aspired to do that job, and work at Parliament House."

But he said her demeanour changed after the alleged rape.

"She absolutely was different," Mr O'Connor said.

"She was a bit testier, we would sometimes have arguments over small things."

More questions around Network Ten's checking of inconsistencies

The hearing has also heard from Peter Meakin, who has led the major newsrooms at all three Australian commercial networks, and was a news and current affairs executive at Network Ten at the time the program went to air.

He was today challenged on the preparation of the program, and whether further enquiries should have been made to Ms Higgins after the program team received other evidence which was inconsistent with her account, or responses from other people mentioned in the story.

"I suppose in retrospect we could have done a lot of things, but I think [producer Angus Llewellyn] did a good job," Mr Meakin said.

Mr Lehrmann's barrister Matthew Richardson asked specifically about the government's response to Network Ten's enquiry, in which a spokesman denied Ms Higgins was given a choice between pursuing a police complaint and keeping her job.

Mr Meakin said he knew the government was "contending" that there would be no impact on her career, but he was troubled by some of the information being provided on background, which he said was "not the most reliable source of information".

He also defended the introduction of the program which referred to "a young woman forced to choose between her career and the pursuit of justice".

"What it implied … was that we were believing her story more than the government's," Mr Meakin said.

Earlier today, Justice Michael Lee also threatened legal action against the YouTube channel 'Feminism Debunked' for failing to take down nine videos of the proceedings it has republished.

The court has ordered Google to provide the details of the account holder to the court registrar.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-18/bruce-lehrmann-defamation-trial-evidence-brittany-higgins-boss/103241022

https://www.youtube.com/@FeminismDebunked/videos

Over 700 American AUKUS personnel to be based in Western Australia, with radioactive storage facility also planned

Andrew Greene - 18 December 2023

Defence expects more than 700 American personnel could live in Western Australia to support up to four US nuclear submarines being stationed at HMAS Stirling, where a "low-level radioactive waste management" facility is also being planned.

The projections are contained in comprehensive briefing notes prepared by the newly created Australian Submarine Agency (ASA) which also detail how a one-off Australian government payment of $US3 billion ($4.45 billion) will be spent by the United States.

Under the optimal pathway announced by AUKUS leaders earlier this year, the Submarine Rotational Force – West (SRF-West) would first begin hosting Royal Navy Astute-class and US Navy Virginia-class submarines at HMAS Stirling from 2027.

A Virginia-class submarine carries a crew of 132 according to the US Navy, while an Astute-class boat deploys with almost 100 Royal Navy submariners on board.

SRF-West is the first phase of AUKUS and is projected to "grow an Australian workforce of approximately 500-700 maintenance and support personnel" before the 'Sovereign Ready' milestone when Australia can own and operate its own US-made nuclear-powered boats.

"This workforce will then move to support our enduring nuclear-powered submarine program and will be a key enabler for SRF-West," the ASA states in documents obtained under Freedom of Information by former Senator and submariner Rex Patrick.

"In addition to these 500-700 Australians at its height, we estimate that over 700 United States Personnel could be living and working in Western Australia to support SRF-West, with some also bringing families," the ASA predicts.

According to the ASA, SRF-West will be established as early as 2027 and expand in subsequent years to support up to four US and one UK nuclear-powered submarine, with the Australian government investing $8 billion to expand HMAS Stirling outside Perth.

The ASA notes there will also be "a small United Kingdom contingent living in Perth" but most British personnel supporting SRF-West "will be in Australia for shorter rotations, meaning they will not be bringing families with them".

Planning begins for low-level radioactive waste management

Decisions on where Australia will eventually dispose of its nuclear submarine reactors are not expected for many years, but planning has begun for "low-level radioactive waste management" at HMAS Stirling to support SRF-West.

"Expertise to manage low-level operational waste arising from nuclear-powered submarine operations and sustainment will be an important part of Australia building the necessary stewardship capability to operate and maintain its own submarines."

The ASA insists the rotational presence of US and UK nuclear submarines in Western Australia "will provide an opportunity to learn how these vessels operate, including the management of low-level radioactive waste from routine sustainment".

"All low and intermediate level radioactive waste will be safely stored at Defence sites in Australia," the ASA briefing documents confirm.

"An operational waste storage facility for low-level radioactive waste management is being planned as part of the infrastructure works proposed for HMAS Stirling to support SRF-West."

More details emerge on Australia's multi-billion dollar payment

Inside the almost 200 pages of ASA briefing notes are further details of how a $US3 billion ($4.45 billion) Australian contribution to the US submarine industrial base will be spent, including on enhancing facilities and pre-purchasing components and materials.

"Australia's commitment to invest in the US submarine industrial base recognises the lift the United States is making to supporting Australia's acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines."

"Pre-purchasing submarine components and materials, so they are on hand at the start of the maintenance period – saving time" and "outsourcing less complex sustainment and expanding planning efforts for private sector overhauls, to reduce backlog".

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-18/aukus-americans-western-australia-radioactive-storage-facility/103239924

>>20087555 (pb)

Cardinal Becciu found guilty on auspicious day – for George Pell

TESS LIVINGSTONE - DECEMBER 17, 2023

The guilty verdicts of Cardinal Angelo Becciu, nine other individuals and four companies in a Vatican City courtroom came on an auspicious day.

Saturday, December 16, was the 57th anniversary of the ordination of George Pell to the priesthood in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. It was also the second anniversary of the death of his sister and best friend, Margaret Pell.

A group of about 100 friends gathered at Pell’s grave in the crypt of St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, where Archbishop Anthony Fisher offered mass for both, and blessed the cardinal’s grave.

Its headstone reflects his life – prayerful, colourful and packed with achievements. “Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy 2014-2019’’, the second last line reads.

It was in that role that he and Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who openly fancied becoming pope, clashed long and hard.

In January, Becciu was among 50 cardinals to attend Pell’s funeral in St Peter’s to “pray the Lord to forgive’’ Pell for “feeding the slanderous suspicion that I was the one who conspired against him’’.

Pell had no need to feed such suspicion. Becciu was open about cancelling Pell’s decision to have the Vatican’s arcane financial records audited and, later, to sack internal auditor Libero Milone, whose lawsuit against the Vatican will be decided soon.

From Pell’s perspective, his battles with Becciu were never personal. As late as a year ago, Pell argued that Becciu deserved due process and a fair trial. He chuckled, though, that “Saints has no clout” when the Pope moved Becciu out of the Secretariat of State, where he had been second in charge, to run the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in 2018.

Pell’s drive, said Sydney accountant Danny Casey, who worked beside him for years in Sydney and Rome, was to see Vatican funds managed properly to help the church’s mission to the poor and vulnerable. That demanded modern, transparent accounting practices.

As Casey noted on Sunday, Saturday’s verdict will be a powerful warning to others inclined to work against the reform process.

Early on, to the horror of the Vatican “old guard’’ and corrupt financiers, that process began with Pell’s ordering the closure of about 4000 Vatican Bank accounts held by individuals not entitled to them. Pell realised he could be signing his ticket out of Rome, one way or another, when he reported 200 of the account holders to authorities.

The Vatican Bank, he knew, had been a handy shelter for money laundering and ill gotten gains. “We all remember what happened to Calvi and that other one, Sindona,’’ he said while promoting his Prison Diaries in late 2020. “Today, more often than not, they attack by destroying reputations.’’

Financial corruption had dogged the Vatican for centuries, and it intensified in the 1960s when Pope Paul VI called in US archbishop Paul Marcinkus from Chicago for help. Far from improving efficiency, Marcinkus engaged freemason mafia bankers Roberto Calvi (known as “God’s banker”, who was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982) and Michele Sindona (who died from cyanide in his coffee in an Italian jail in 1986). Both were involved in scandals that cost the Vatican hundreds of millions of dollars.

In Italy, Calvi had been part of the P2 lodge whose members had referred to themselves as “black friars’’.

Blessing Pell’s grave on Saturday, Archbishop Fisher quoted Francis’s words last week that Pell had “the zeal, conviction, determination and vision of a man who, more than many others, understood the road that should be followed” regarding the Vatican financial reforms.

The Pope offered “our much-mourned brother” and his motto “be not afraid” as a model to Vatican reformers, Archbishop Fisher said. For the sake of the church and those it serves, however, it was unfortunate that Francis often sided with Becciu and others who opposed Pell’s reforms - a pattern that puzzled, worried and upset Pell.

What is indisputable, as Archbishop Fisher said, is that “No Australian has done more for the church international’’ than Pell. When Vatican history is written decades from now, Pell will stand tall.

Events in Rome on the day of his anniversary of ordination and the blessing of his grave in Sydney will be acknowledged as a turning point.

Tess Livingstone’s updated biography, George Cardinal Pell, Pax Invictis, will be published in the new year.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/cardinal-becciu-found-guilty-on-auspicious-day-for-george-pell/news-story/6e85b9e0716ec60587eac5f7139cb790

https://qanon.pub/?q=Pell

https://qanon.pub/?q=cardinal-george-pell

https://qanon.pub/?q=pecking

>>20098412

2/2

It comes as it was revealed in November that Ms Fyles had lobbied for the development of the Middle Arm industrial precinct while holding shares in gas company Woodside. She at first denied there was any conflict but later agreed to divest the shares.

When asked about the alleged conflict on November 15, she said: “What I can say to Territorians is that I have always declared everything. When you are elected to parliament you declare any interests you have, from our family home, to our cars, to our membership at our local sporting club.”

One Labor source told The Australian Fyles “could be a little bit stuffed”.

“A month ago she should have dealt with this issue, now this has come out, it’s a real conflict.”

On Monday afternoon Sky News reported she was facing internal Labor Party pressure to resign amid the allegations.

Senior Labor sources told the outlet “high-level discussions” had occurred and the revelations had dealt a permanent blow to Ms Fyles’ credibility.

“I’m not sure how she survives this,” one source told Sky News.

Independent MLA Robyn Lambley told The Australian Ms Fyles’ behaviour was “unethical” and called for Ms Fyles to step down.

“It truly beggars belief that she has not fully declared her interests. She has continued to conceal, and you can only conclude it is deliberate,” Ms Lambley said.

“Forgetting to declare something important once is excusable, twice, perhaps excusable, but this is the third or fourth time that it’s been revealed she hasn’t fully declared her interests.

“And not declaring an interest in a company that is so profoundly connected to the Northern Territory is inexcusable. She really has completely lit herself down, and let Territorians down.

“This is a woman that does have integrity, to some very strange, inexplicable reason, has decided that she does not need to fully declare her interest, it truly beggars belief why she has done this.

“She has voluntarily thrown herself under the bus, no one has pushed her, it’s quite unbelievable.

Ms Fyles is the second Labor leader to step down in two weeks, following the resignation of Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

When Ms Fyles replaced Michael Gunner in May last year, she was boosted by the left faction in the NT Labor caucus.

The right faction is now expected to push for deputy chief minister Nicole Manison to take over from Ms Fyles.

The left faction has two frontrunners. The first is Chanston Paech, the first openly gay Indigenous MP in Australia and the NT’s attorney general, justice minister and minister for Aboriginal affairs and treaty. The second is Joel Bowden, the infrastructure minister who played in the AFL for Richmond from 1996 to 2009.

Ms Fyles had previously failed to declare other shares in Woodside.

She holds shares in South32 worth less than $2500. However, she did not declare them as required.

Amid concerns over potential manganese dust leaks at South32’s mine this year, Ms Fyles - who is also the NT’s health minister, declined to authorise a government investigation.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/nt-chief-minister-natasha-fyles-to-resign-over-conflict-of-interest-claims/news-story/31d77334bef6f40163197b890bac51b4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C8HdkMEddU

>>20092945

Lip-reader spent three days analysing CCTV footage of Lehrmann and Higgins, court told

Michaela Whitbourn, Perry Duffin and Clare Sibthorpe - December 19, 2023

1/2

A UK-based lip-reader flown to Sydney by Network Ten to give evidence as part of its defence to Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation case says he spent three days analysing CCTV footage of the former Liberal staffer and Brittany Higgins in a Canberra bar in the hours before she alleges she was raped.

Tim Reedy, who became profoundly deaf at the age of four, told the Federal Court in Sydney on Tuesday that the CCTV footage of the pair drinking with colleagues at The Dock hotel in Canberra on March 22, 2019, was “one of the better CCTV cameras” he had seen.

He told the court he was able to use Apple technology to “fine-tune the pixelation until the image was very sharp” and place a magnifier “over the person who is speaking in the bar”.

Reedy said he had “spent a good three days” looking at the footage and had the luxury of playing it repeatedly.

He told the court he had been engaged as a lip-reader for a range of media outlets and had analysed the coronation of King Charles for The Sunday Times, as well as assisting police investigations.

Justice Michael Lee asked if lip-reading the coronation involved trying to discern “what one minor royal said to another … or something like that”, and Reedy agreed, saying the newspaper liked “a bit of gossip”.

Australian accents

At one stage on Tuesday, Lee and three senior barristers gathered around Reedy to observe excerpts of the CCTV footage on a laptop.

Under cross-examination by Lehrmann’s barrister, Steven Whybrow, SC, Reedy said there was a “big difference” between analysing CCTV and lip-reading in daily life. He was able to watch a video at different speeds and play it repeatedly, he said.

Whybrow asked Reedy whether a note he wrote saying “man is lining up drinks; plying the woman with alcohol” was something he had been instructed had happened or had assessed himself.

Reedy told the court he observed drinks being “pushed” in Higgins’ direction, which suggested she was being plied with alcohol.

Whybrow asked Reedy if Higgins’ evidence during the trial that if someone had given her a drink “there was never a way I wasn’t going to finish it” would affect his opinion that Higgins had said at one point “I don’t want to” in response to Lehrmann allegedly encouraging her to skol a drink.

Reedy said: “That’s what I believe she said.”

“You have not had any experience with Australian accents?” Whybrow asked.

“Yes I have. I’ve met Australian people throughout my life,” he said.

“Would you accept that in the circumstances where you have never been assessed as to the accuracy of your lip-reading some of your opinions might not be correct?” Whybrow said.

“I would say they’re more correct than not,” Reedy said.

Lehrmann disagreed during his evidence that he gestured towards a drink at The Dock at about 11.50pm and told Higgins: “Drink that all now.”

The court has previously been shown CCTV footage in which Lehrmann placed three drinks in front of Higgins at The Dock and gestured towards them. Lehrmann denied during his evidence that he had said the words “all hers, all hers”, and denied he encouraged Higgins to get drunk.

The expert report

Lee ruled this month that Ten could tender a report in which Reedy expresses an opinion on words spoken by Lehrmann and Higgins at The Dock, based on an analysis of the CCTV footage, and confirmed that ruling on Tuesday.

The judge made clear that his ruling allowing the report to be admitted in evidence was not an indication of the weight he would ultimately place on the opinions expressed in it.

The lawsuit

Lehrmann is suing Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson over an interview with Higgins, broadcast on The Project on February 15, 2021, that he alleges defames him by suggesting he is guilty of raping Higgins in then defence industry minister Linda Reynolds’ Parliament House office in the early hours of March 23, 2019.

Both Higgins and Lehrmann worked as advisers to Reynolds. Lehrmann has denied raping Higgins and has told the Federal Court there was no sexual contact between the pair at all.

The court will not sit on Wednesday, but the trial will resume on Thursday and Friday for closing submissions. Lee said he was prepared to sit extended hours on those days.

(continued)

>>20098432

2/2

Ex-chief of staff returns to court

Earlier on Tuesday, Reynolds’ former chief of staff, Fiona Brown, told the court she felt the Liberal senator and a second minister were covering for themselves when they urged her to report an alleged incident Lehrmann and Higgins to police.

Brown said that Reynolds and then special minister of state Alex Hawke had wanted her to make a police report after she had recounted a conversation she had with Higgins on March 28, 2019.

She told the court Higgins had “blindsided” her when she told her on March 28: “I remember him being on top of me.”

“I didn’t take it as an allegation,” Brown said.

Brown said the ministers “felt it was best if it went to police” but “there was no consideration for Ms Higgins”.

“I didn’t have the right; Ms Higgins had the right,” she said.

“So they were covering for themselves, you felt?” Wilkinson’s barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, SC, asked. “Yes,” Brown replied.

“You got to the point by the afternoon you thought you might be fired because you were refusing to follow two ministers’ directions,” Chrysanthou said.

“Well, yes,” Brown replied.

During her evidence on Monday, Brown agreed that it had entered her mind after speaking to Lehrmann on March 26, 2019, that Higgins may have been sexually assaulted in the early hours of Saturday, March 23, but she couldn’t rule it in or out.

She said her “antenna went up” when Lehrmann told her that he had come back to Parliament House to drink whisky.

Brown gave evidence that she had been told that Higgins had been found naked on the couch in Reynolds’ office and that both Lehrmann and Higgins, then working as advisers in Reynolds’ office, had returned to Parliament House after hours.

But Brown said that Higgins had not told her in their first meeting on March 26, after her conversation with Lehrmann, that she had woken up early on March 23 in Reynolds’ office and Lehrmann had been “on top of me”.

She agreed that she had given Higgins the number for the national domestic family and sexual violence counselling service, 1800 RESPECT, at the first meeting on the advice of the department of finance.

“It was part of the advice they provided because of the state of undress, I presume,” Brown said. This advice had been given to her before she had spoken to Higgins, she told the court.

Brown said Higgins had told her two days later that she remembered him “being on top of me”. However, Brown said that Higgins had not said it was something she didn’t want.

The court has heard Brown took Higgins to meet internal Australian Federal Police agents in Parliament House on April 1, 2019, but did not attend the meeting. Ultimately, Higgins opted not to proceed with a complaint that month.

On April 5, 2019, Lehrmann’s employment was terminated for accessing the office out of hours, but not for the alleged assault.

‘There was no cover-up’

Asked about allegations there was an attempt to suppress Higgins from making a complaint, Brown said Higgins and Lehrmann were in their early 20s and “there was no cover-up”.

The police and department of finance were consulted, the department of parliamentary services knew, and “there was no cover-up”, she said.

Livestreaming paused

The trial has been livestreamed on YouTube but Brown’s evidence was not broadcast live owing to mental health considerations. Her recorded evidence, which is expected to be released on YouTube at 10.15am on Wednesday morning, started on Monday and continued into the evening. It concluded on Tuesday.

Lee said that he had determined it was in the interests of justice for Brown’s evidence to be recorded and streamed, but not livestreamed, “based on available medical evidence adduced before me”.

He said that everything upon which he made his decision would be in the public domain, but streaming the evidence after Brown had left court was an appropriate safeguard.

Lehrmann not named

Lehrmann was not named in Ten’s interview. A preliminary issue in the case is whether he was identified because of the details provided in the broadcast, including the fact that the alleged perpetrator had worked in Reynolds’ office.

If the court finds Lehrmann was identified in the interview, Ten and Wilkinson are seeking to rely on defences of truth and qualified privilege. Qualified privilege is a defence relating to publications of public interest, which requires a media outlet to show it has acted reasonably.

Sexual assault charge dropped

Lehrmann’s ACT Supreme Court trial for sexual assault was aborted last year due to juror misconduct. The charge against Lehrmann was later dropped altogether owing to concerns about Higgins’ mental health.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/nsw/former-chief-of-staff-returns-to-court-in-lehrmann-defamation-case-20231219-p5esdb.html

>>20092945

Who said conspiracy? Lisa Wilkinson’s lawyer abandons cover-up claim

STEPHEN RICE - DECEMBER 19, 2023

1/2

Lisa Wilkinson’s barrister, Sue Chrysanthou SC, had just finished her cross-examination of Fiona Brown when Justice Michael Lee moved in with a trademark killer question.

“Can I proceed on the basis that no submission will be made Ms Brown was a knowing participant in a systemic cover-up of a rape?” he asked.

There was a pause as Ms Chrysanthou took stock of this question.

It was only last week that her client had sat in the same witness box and told the Federal Court she believed Brown, former chief of staff to then-Minister Linda Reynolds was “getting instructions from the prime minister’s office” and it followed she and Reynolds were “knowing participants in a systemic cover-up”.

“You’d agree that it would be wicked conduct … being involved in the systemic cover up of a rape allegation?” Lee had asked.

“Yeah, it was about keeping the details away from the media,” Wilkinson replied.

Those words may have flashed through Chrysanthou’s mind as she considered her response.

Yes, she agreed after a long moment, there would be no submission that Brown was engaged in a systematic cover up the rape.

That stunning concession may not win Bruce Lehrmann his defamation case against Wilkinson and the Ten Network, but it puts a torpedo through the bows of a central claim in their case: that Brittany Higgins was a victim of powerful forces inside the Morrison government who pressured her to stay silent or risk her career.

If Brown wasn’t part of the giant conspiracy, who was?

On the evidence Chrysanthou extracted from Brown on Tuesday, Reynolds had been determined to get the police involved even before Higgins had verbalised her rape claim, let alone decided to make a complaint.

Brown told the court she feared losing her job after defying orders from both Reynolds and another minister, Alex Hawke – a close confidant of Scott Morrison – to make a police report without Higgins’ consent, before the young staffer had said she was raped.

Higgins had said she did not want to make a police report, and wanted to speak to her father before making a decision, Brown said.

Brown said she was doing what she’d been told to do by Department of Finance executive Lauren Barons: “Ms Higgins needed to have her agency and it was her right to make a police report.”

(continued)

>>20098441

2/2

The most startling evidence that Chrysanthou extracted from Brown on Tuesday was that she believed Reynolds and Hawke were trying to protect themselves when they demanded she go to the police.

Brown: “There was no consideration of Ms Higgins – consideration for themselves but not Ms Higgins.”

Chrysanthou: “You felt they were covering themselves – that’s all they were worrying about?”

Brown: “Yes.”

It’s not a pretty allegation to make about Reynolds and Hawke – that they simply wanted to be able to say they did something – but it shoots down the proposition that the government was intent on silencing the young woman and covering up the rape.

Wilkinson had been convinced the story involved “an extraordinary cover up”, as she texted a colleague, after reading a timeline of the case prepared by Higgins fiance David Sharaz.

The Project had claimed its story was about “a young woman forced to choose between her career and the pursuit of justice” – and put Brown squarely at the centre of that allegation.

From allegedly ignoring Higgins’s first disclosure of a rape to claims she’d offered Higgins a “payout” to get her out of the way in the lead up to the election, the implication was clear: Brown was part of the rot.

Wilkinson doubled down on those claims in the witness box, saying Reynolds and Brown had been “very, very careful in the lead up to a tightly contested election”.

She said she believed they were taking advice and later, that they were “loyal servants”, to the Prime Minister’s office.

“That’s the way politics works”, Ms Wilkinson said.

The Project’s brutal portrayal of Brown ended her career and left her so traumatised that Justice Lee delayed the livestream of the defamation proceedings to allow her time to seek medical help should she need it.

In her final moments giving evidence on Tuesday, Brown, who had been confident but restrained in the witness box, gave an impassioned reply to the allegations of cover-up.

“There was none,” she told Steven Whybrow SC, for Lehrmann, “absolutely none.

“The story wasn’t about the politicians. These were two 23-year-olds and there was no cover up. The police were consulted, the Department of Finance was consulted, the Department of Parliamentary Services knew. There was no cover up.”

Whybrow has always said Brown was the most important witness in the case because in those first days after the alleged assault she was the only one who took contemporaneous notes.

But this very decent, caring public servant may have rendered an even greater public service by finally laying to rest the nonsense of a vast political conspiracy – a sentiment that infected parliament, the courts and the media and which has made the task of untangling what happened that night immeasurably more difficult and painful than it should ever have been.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/who-said-conspiracy-lisa-wilkinsons-lawyer-abandons-coverup-claim/news-story/b094d885027637f9f4703dcbb8a89109

>>19924993 (pb)

>>19931559 (pb)

Chinese-Australian businessman Sunny Duong found guilty of seeking to influence former minister Alan Tudge

Kristian Silva - 19 December 2023

A Melbourne man faces jail time after a jury found him guilty of trying to secretly influence former federal minister Alan Tudge to advance the aims of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Di Sanh "Sunny" Duong is believed to be the first person to be found guilty of the offence of planning to commit an act of foreign interference, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

On Tuesday afternoon, a County Court of Victoria found him guilty after several days of deliberations and hearing more than two weeks of evidence.

Duong made a $37,450 donation to the Royal Melbourne Hospital in June 2020, at a time when COVID lockdowns were imposed and supplies of crucial medical equipment were low.

Duong presented a novelty cheque and stood next to Mr Tudge when the cheque was handed over to the hospital CEO in front of the media.

However federal prosecutors alleged it was far from a goodwill gesture — instead arguing Duong was in regular contact with Chinese intelligence operatives and was seeking to improperly influence Mr Tudge, who he regarded as potential prime minister material.

Duong protested his innocence and pleaded not guilty at the trial before Judge Richard Maidment.

Duong is a 'big noter', court hears

Duong, a one-time Liberal Party political candidate and member, was described by his own lawyer as a "big noter" who liked to boast about his connections, but rejected suggestions he was recruited by Chinese officials or was following their orders.

Prosecutors told the jury Duong's actions couldn't be likened to the espionage they read about in spy novels or saw in James Bond films.

Instead, Patrick Doyle SC said it was about a "subtle form of interference".

"It's about influence," he said.

Much of the trial was held behind closed doors, with the public and media shut out of evidence given by witnesses with protected identities.

Duong's history with Chinese Communist Party

Prior to his arrest, Duong was a well-known business figure in the Chinese-Australian community and was the head of a local group called the Oceania Federation of Chinese Organisations from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

He was also involved in another group, which federal prosecutors claimed was registered with an agency of the CCP.

Secret recordings captured the businessman telling an associate: "When I do things it never gets reported in the newspaper but Beijing will know what I'm doing."

Duong was released on bail and will face a pre-sentence hearing at a later date.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-19/sunny-di-sanh-duong-foreign-interference-chinese-communist-party/103247096

A teacher pleads guilty to historical child sexual abuse. And he doesn’t have to spend a day in jail

Erin Pearson - December 17, 2023

1/2

When Stewart Carter walked into the Eltham police station to report the man who sexually abused him as a child, he never imagined the primary school teacher would later walk free without ever serving a day in jail.

Sitting in the second row of the County Court of Victoria, with his head bowed, Carter broke down as a judge revealed the man seated metres away in the dock with a bag packed at his knee – Gary Bloom – would walk with a three-year jail sentence, wholly suspended.

“I wanted to scream out, but I couldn’t. I’d poured petrol on myself and basically set my life on fire all to watch him walk from court,” Carter, 49, recalls.

“It took me days to process. I felt like nothing more than a file number.

“Is this what the community expects? Child sexual offenders spending no time in jail?”

It would be the beginning, he says, of a stark lesson in the realities of the justice system.

Carter gave permission for The Age to remove the cloak of anonymity the law gives to child sex abuse victims. He allowed us to publicly identify him because he wants to change the law and stop historical child sex abuse offenders receiving wholly suspended jail sentences.

He also wants to close a little-known loophole that allows some convicted child molesters to leave the country without ever notifying police overseas of their risks to the community.

Carter said some child sex abuse victims are falling through the cracks in cases which don’t involve attention-grabbing institutions such as the AFL or Catholic Church.

“If my abuser had been charged under what the crime is today, he would’ve been staring at about eight years in custody. He walked from court without spending a day in prison,” Carter said.

“He now has unfettered access to children in Scotland where he runs a bed and breakfast with his former wife.”

There were 2294 charges laid for sexual offences against children in the year to July 2023, the second highest in more than a decade, data from the Crime Statistics Agency shows.

Statistically, it’s recognised it can take decades, and often longer, for men to report childhood sexual abuse to the authorities.

In 2019, more than 2000 Australians reported for the first time incidents of sexual abuse to police – incidents that had occurred more than 20 years earlier.

Of those, half had occurred to children when they were aged under 10.

One in three women and one in five men are estimated to experience child sexual abuse by the time they’re 18.

“This needs to be reflected in sentencing given the known delay in reporting,” Carter said.

“In the 1980s it wasn’t possible for a male to be charged with raping another male, there was not a charge then, so people were charged with offences such as indecent assault and not the sexual penetration of a child which is the charge we see today.

“The changes I am proposing to sentencing of historical offences have already been made in NSW, in 2018.”

THE NSW LAW CHANGE

Last year, the NSW government changed the law around the sentencing of historical crimes to reflect current sentencing standards.

The then NSW attorney general Mark Speakman said the changes were implemented to ensure the courts apply contemporary sentencing practices, regardless of the nature of the crime or when it was committed.

It was an expansion of 2018 reforms that ensured child sex offenders would be sentenced according to contemporary practices, as recommended by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

But the law is very different in Victoria.

In 1985, Bloom was working as a teacher at Sacred Heart Primary School in Diamond Creek, in Melbourne’s north-east, and as a swimming coach, when he began visiting a paddock near Carter’s home, where children were known to frequent.

Carter said that while Bloom was not his teacher at the time of the offending, living with the knowledge that someone in a position of trust in the community had taken advantage of him added to his trauma.

(continued)

>>20098476

2/2

Carter said it wasn’t an easy task to report Bloom to the police. In fact, it took him more than 30 years to do so. Then COVID-19 hit.

“The police waited until he [Bloom] returned to Australia in December 2021 where he was arrested after completing home quarantine. He was later bailed and allowed to return to Scotland for work.

“In the phone call we recorded, he said he had been found guilty without conviction for similar offending on two other boys in 1992 while he was a teacher. He said he couldn’t remember me, but what he did was consistent with what he was doing at the time,” Carter said.

In the 1980s in Victoria, the charge of indecent assault could include anything from flashing to abusing a child.

More recently, there is now a specific offence for the sexual penetration of children aged under 12. The standard sentence for that offence is 10 years’ and a maximum sentence of 25 years’ jail.

THE SENTENCING ISSUES

A change in sentencing principles means different minimum sentences can apply to a person who commits a crime today when compared with historical crimes.

From 2011 to 2014, the Sentencing Advisory Council reported suspended sentences were phased out in Victoria and can only now be applied to historical offending that occurred before this time.

Data from the County Court of Victoria shows there were 32 people convicted of child sex related offences between 2018 and 2022.

Of those, two resulted in wholly suspended sentences and a further 27 were jailed with an average sentence of about seven years.

On October 6, Bloom, now 58, walked from court with a three year wholly suspended sentence after pleading guilty. He avoided spending a single day in prison.

“If you’ve been charged with a crime like Gary back in 1985 and the offence satisfies the current threshold under the current offence of sexual penetration of a child under 12, you should be sentenced accordingly,” Carter said.

“Societally, was child abuse different in 1985?”

GARY BLOOM

Bloom is one of a growing list of former Victorian teachers to be charged with historic child sex abuse.

He joins the ranks of other child molesters who were teachers including Malka Leifer, Steven Ronald Mellody, David Carnie, Brian Kenneth William Wallwork, Damien Woods, John McMillan, Graeme Harder, Monique Frances Ooms and Luke Joseph Martin – all sentenced in recent years.

A number of others accused offenders remain before the courts.

Liberal party member for the North-Eastern Metropolitan region Nick McGowan said the outcome of Carter’s case was somewhat frightening and feared it may see other victims, particularly men, avoid coming forward if they feel their efforts will amount to an offender simply walking out of court

“I am greatly concerned by a system which increasingly appears to prioritise an offender’s supposed good behaviour since offending, over the need for justice to contain an appropriate punishment for crimes against children,” McGowan said.

A Victorian government spokesperson acknowledged the impacts of sexual violence on victims could be profound and often have lasting consequences.

“We know the re-traumatising effect seeking justice can have on sexual assault victim-survivors – that’s why we’re continuing to improve how the justice system deals with sexual violence,” they said.

Carter reported his abuse to police in 2019. Bloom – by then living overseas – was charged and released on bail during a trip back to Australia in December 2021.

Ever since though, Carter said he’s been forced to grapple with crude comments from adults with one person at his workplace even suggesting he was lucky Carter himself didn’t grow into a sex offender.

“We should be encouraging people to speak up. We must learn to live with the uncomfortable. Because people like Gary hope that the uncomfortableness keeps people like me quiet,” he said.

For support call Kidshelpline 1800 55 1800, Lifeline 131 114

https://kidshelpline.com.au/

https://www.lifeline.org.au/

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/a-teacher-pleads-guilty-to-historical-child-sexual-abuse-and-he-doesn-t-have-to-spend-a-day-in-jail-20231212-p5equ2.html

>>20087601 (pb)

Political, Jewish leaders: Radical cleric inaction gives ‘green light’ to incendiary ‘final solution’ sermon

ALEXI DEMETRIADI - DECEMBER 19, 2023

1/2

Political and Jewish leaders have said inaction on incendiary sermons delivered at a Sydney Islamic centre has given radical clerics a “green light” as another preacher called for a Muslim army, describing it as “the final solution”, a term explicitly linked to Nazism and the Holocaust.

The Australian revealed on Sunday how a cleric known as “Brother Muhammad” gave the sermon at Bankstown’s Al Madina Dawah Centre – itself the subject of two police investigations now dropped – that called for a Muslim army and an Islamic state with sharia law, and wrongly accused Israel of using AI to target children.

Jewish leaders said “Australia’s tolerance of intolerance” was reaching its limits.

“Brother Muhammad is the latest self-described Islamic preacher to spew hatred against Jews,” Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Peter Wertheim said.

“In the wake of Hamas’s genocidal atrocities, he has adopted the expression ‘the final solution’ against the world’s only Jewish state, an expression made infamous by Nazi Germany as a euphemism for the genocide of the Jewish people.”

The Australian previously revealed how police had dropped investigations into hate-fuelled sermons at the centre by cleric Abu Ousayd – also known as Wissam Haddad – and “Brother Ismail”, which included calls for jihad, parables that said “kill Jews” and that if Islamic nations “spat on Israel the Jews would drown”. The police involved said each case had not breached the criminality threshold.

“Previous anti-Jewish rants by other Muslim preachers went unpunished, and now we see the consequences – Australia’s tolerance of intolerance must surely be reaching its limits,” Mr Wertheim said.

He contrasted Brother Muhammad’s use of the term with former senator Fraser Anning saying “the final solution to the immigration problem is a popular vote”, referring to Muslim immigrants, for which he was criticised.

“Brother Muhammad has used that identical expression in a manner that is even more directly reminiscent of Nazi ideas and practices,” Mr Wertheim said.

“Yet the same parties that screamed their disapproval of Mr Anning have been silent about this latest incident. Their hypocrisy and double standards could not be more obvious.”

(continued)

Labor MPs break ranks to accuse Israel of ‘domination’ of Palestinians

Michael McGowan - December 19, 2023

1/2

Dozens of high-profile Labor figures, including members of the Albanese, Minns and Allan governments, have signed an open letter declaring the human rights of Palestinians have been “grossly violated” and accusing Israel of policies aimed at “the domination of one people over another”.

The letter, co-ordinated by the NSW Labor MP Anthony D’Adam and Greens MP Jenny Leong, calls for a “permanent ceasefire and a just and lasting peace” in Gaza, and urges the Albanese government to recognise Palestine as a state “entitled to be free of occupation” and “examine” its relationship with Israel.

Signed by 11 members of Chris Minns’ government and three federal Labor MPs, Maria Vamvakinou from Victoria and WA senators Louise Pratt and Fatima Payman, as well as former NSW premier and foreign affairs minister Bob Carr, it accuses Israel of an ongoing “military occupation, illegal settlement expansion, land theft, violence, discrimination, restrictions on movement and the subjugation of the Palestinian people”.

“It is beyond dispute that Israel is committed to policies designed to entrench the domination of one people over another in the territories of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” the letter states.

“Attempts to deny this, or smear those who allege it, are an attempt to defy truth and reality.

“These events and policies have involved the destruction of Palestinian society and the denial of the legitimate national aspirations of the Palestinian people.”

Israel’s air and ground assault on Gaza, launched in response to Hamas’ attack in southern Israel on October 7, has caused the deaths of more than 18,700 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. In Australia, the conflict has spurred a wave of pro-Palestinian protest in capital cities including Sydney and Melbourne.

Last week the Albanese government announced a surprise shift in its previous stance on the conflict by breaking with the United States to support an immediate ceasefire at the United Nations General Assembly.

But the letter challenges Australia’s vocal support for Israel and urges the Commonwealth to view the conflict within a broader historical context.

While it condemns the “horrific acts of Hamas on 7 October” it urges the Albanese government to “recognise Palestine as a state that is entitled to be free of occupation” and argued that violations against Palestinian rights began with the “violent displacement of some 700,000 Palestinians from their homeland” when Israel was founded in 1948.

The “military occupation” of the West Bank and Gaza by Israel since 1967, the letter states, involved ongoing “illegal settlement expansion, land theft, violence, discrimination, restrictions on movement and the subjugation of the Palestinian people”.

The signatories argue that context has meant that “for too long the human rights of the Palestinian people have been grossly violated”.

(continued)

>>20098526

2/2

The letter was co-organised by the Australian Palestine Advocacy Network and signed by more than 200 current and former federal and state MPs and local councillors from across the political divide including members of the Victorian and Queensland governments. Victorian state Labor MPs Bronwyn Halfpenny, Jordan Crugnale, Mathew Hilakari, Dylan Wight and Sonja Terpstra have put their names to the list.

Australia should “examine its relationship with Israel”, it says, to focus on “positively contributing to the resolution of this intolerable and dangerous situation that threatens the people of Israel and Palestine and the entire international community”.

“We stand with Palestine, the Palestinian people, including Palestinian Australians and with all others who support truth and justice, including the many Jewish people protesting Israeli violence against Palestinians,” it states.

D’Adam, an assistant minister in the Minns government in NSW, and Leong, both welcomed the vote in the UN but said that the cross-party statement reflected a view that “the horrific escalation of the situation in Palestine cannot be disconnected from the systematic and long-term oppression which numerous respected Human Rights organisations have condemned”.

The conflict in Gaza has proved to be particularly vexing for the Labor government in NSW after the Premier, Chris Minns, emerged as a vocal supporter of Israel.

Minns has repeatedly rebuked his own MPs over the issue, including D’Adam, whom he accused of being “deliberately inflammatory” after the MP gave an interview in which he said the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was responsible for killing “thousands of innocent children”.

The inclusion of 11 members of his government on the letter, including four assistant ministers– D’Adam, Mark Buttigieg, Trish Doyle and Julia Finn – is likely to further tensions within the Minns government over the issue after an earlier letter signed by NSW Labor MPs urged Israel to comply with international humanitarian law.

The letter was also signed by Hawke-era foreign minister Gareth Evans, former Liberal Party Immigration Minister under Malcolm Fraser, Ian Macphee, and leader of the Australian Greens Adam Bandt.

“We call on the Australian government to publicly advocate for an immediate permanent ceasefire, to continue to call for the release of all hostages and urge that all parties fully comply with international standards,” it stated.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/nsw/labor-mps-break-ranks-to-accuse-israel-of-domination-of-palestinians-20231218-p5es4k.html

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfGidzUbtvn-9tYVn9JCHkpGLUIZRnqceKTtiYeDPv14863_Q/viewform?pli=1

https://docs.google.com/document/d/182u4eJnJUZ_Uruf1GlchLnF8XotnpnAX/edit

>>20072028 (pb)

Troop boost to Middle East but no ship to Red Sea

BEN PACKHAM and CAMERON STEWART - DECEMBER 19, 2023

1/2

Australia is unlikely to send a ­warship to join a dangerous new mission in the Red Sea but is set to deploy more personnel to the Middle East, amid pressure on the Albanese government to respond to a US request for Australia to be involved.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin will announce details within days of Operation Prosperity Guardian – a new multi­national task force to combat attacks on commercial shipping by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

The US Navy asked Australia to send a warship to join the ­operation, but after the Albanese government made it clear in ­initial talks that its primary focus was the Indo-Pacific, it is ­understood the US has decided to modify its request.

The growing number of ­attacks on ships, which forced a US warship to shoot down 14 drones on Saturday, has jeopardised transit through the Red Sea, prompting major shipping countries to suspend voyages through a waterway that carries 10 per cent of the world’s cargo.

Australian Defence officials will speak to US counterparts on Tuesday, when they are expected to be told that an Australian ship is no longer being sought for the operation. A modified request from the US will give political cover for the Albanese government, which was under increasing pressure to explain why it had not agreed to the US Navy request.

Instead of sending a warship, Australia is likely to agree to ­deploy more defence force personnel to shore-based roles with the US-led Combined Maritime Force in Bahrain. There are currently five ADF personnel working at CMF headquarters.

The Albanese government told US officials the Australian Navy’s priority was in the ­immediate region where it has been playing a role in securing freedom of navigation in the South China Sea at a time when Chinese navy harassment of ­foreign naval warships and planes is on the rise.

The initial request came just days before the US Congress gave the green light to the unprecedented transfer of three nuclear submarines to Australia under the AUKUS partnership. Anthony Albanese said on Monday his government was ­giving appropriate consideration to what was a “general request to a range of nations”.

“Of course, our first priority is in our own region, and certainly the United States understands the important role that we’re playing, including freedom of navigation and other issues in our region,” the Prime Minister said.

It’s understood that if the Red Sea security situation worsened and Mr Austin issued a direct appeal to Defence Minister Richard Marles to supply a warship for the operation, the government would prioritise the request.

(continued)

>>20098545

2/2

Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie said the ­government was “dithering” on the decision.

“This is an important request by our closest security partner, coming soon after the passage of the AUKUS legislation in Congress,” Mr Hastie said. “If they are putting the ADF in harm’s way, they need to explain why and what mission they will be undertaking. If not, they need to explain why they are not deploying the RAN, and detail the strategic and operational considerations.”

Last month several Australian naval personnel aboard the ANZAC frigate HMAS Toowoomba suffered minor injuries after being subjected to sonar pulses from a Chinese warship off the coast of Japan. Mr Marles described the incident as an “unsafe and unprofessional interaction”.

Last week four HMAS ships – Toowoomba, Stalwart, Brisbane and Choules – returned from a three-month deployment in northeast and southeast Asia.

Some military insiders believe the government’s reluctance to send a warship to the Red Sea ­reflects a parlous shortage of ships and crew, especially over the Christmas period. The navy has only three well-armed ships – its 48-missile-cell Air Warfare ­Destroyers – of which one, HMAS Hobart, has just come out of extended maintenance and ­another, HMAS Brisbane, ­returned from a three-month Asia deployment last week.

Only the AWDs would be suitable for such a dangerous deployment because they have enough firepower to shoot down missiles and drones fired by the Houthis in Yemen, which have been targeting commercial shipping in sea lanes in the Red Sea.

Some experts question whether an Australian ship or crew was “battle ready” given that no ­Australian warship has fired a shot in anger since the Iraq War in 2003.

Mr Austin, who is currently in the Middle East, will announce the formation of Operation ­Prosperity Guardian during his trip.

More than 20 ships have ­reported incidents or attacks in recent months in a campaign which Houthi rebels claim is in protest at Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

One ship, the Galaxy Leader, was boarded by rebels and captured last month.

A British destroyer and a French frigate have joined two US warships in the Red Sea.

On Saturday, the USS Carney shot down 14 drones sent towards Israel by the Houthis.

A British Type-45 destroyer also shot down a drone, marking the first time a Royal Navy ship had shot down an aerial target since the first Gulf War in 1991.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/troop-boost-to-middle-east-but-no-ship-to-red-sea/news-story/44007fdc28cdccb1fe190f8f4d3ed56b

>>20033314 (pb)

Daniel Duggan asks to be released from jail and detained at home as he fights extradition to US

Australian pilot accused of training Chinese military denies he is a flight risk in letter requesting NSW home detention

Catie McLeod - 19 Dec 2023

1/2

An Australian pilot accused of accepting money to illegally train Chinese military personnel has denied he is a flight risk and described himself as a model prisoner in a formal request to be released into home detention.

Daniel Duggan has written to the acting New South Wales corrections commissioner from Lithgow maximum security prison where he is being held in isolated custody while he fights extradition to the US.

Duggan, a former US marine who became an Australian citizen, has been charged with four offences in the US including conspiring to launder money and two counts of breaching arms trafficking laws.

The US alleges that Duggan said he hoped his children would be set for life after he committed to training Chinese naval pilots, court documents show.

He was allegedly paid between $116,000 and $188,000 to carry out the training in South Africa between 2010 and 2012.

Duggan has consistently denied the allegations against him and labelled them politically motivated.

If convicted, he faces up to 60 years in a US prison. He has spent 14 months in prison in NSW since he was arrested in October 2022.

Guardian Australia understands Duggan requested to be separated from the general prison population out of concerns for his own safety. Duggan’s team claims he was pressured into signing that request after he had already spent nearly a year in isolation.

In his letter to the acting NSW corrections commissioner, seen by Guardian Australia, Duggan stated he was “being punished as if I was convicted of some heinous crime”.

“Of course, the main justification for granting a home detention order in my case is not really for me, it is for my children, wife and father-in-law who are under an enormous, unhealthy level of trauma and duress,” he said.

“I humbly request that you exercise your authority to grant me home detention so I can assist my family with household chores, like cleaning, cooking, washing up, doing the laundry and jobs that are required on the farm.”

Duggan said he had been trapped in a “continuous nightmare of segregated and isolated incarceration” since the Australian federal police arrested him on behalf of the US in his hometown of Orange in regional NSW in October last year.

“To those who irrationally suggest that I might be a flight risk and do not accept that the most valuable collateral of all are my six children, I submit that Australia … is the safest place for me to be,” he said.

(continued)

>>20098559

2/2

A Corrective Services NSW spokesperson has previously said the state “does not use” solitary confinement although they conceded Duggan was housed in a one-person cell with a small outside yard.

The spokesperson said the department “does not have the authority to release unsentenced inmates to home detention”. The department otherwise declined to comment on Duggan’s request.

In his letter, Duggan said former NSW premier Bob Carr had raised his case with the corrections minister, Anoulack Chanthivong, who advised him the corrections commissioner was “the person who is empowered” to release him into home detention.

Chanthivong declined to comment when contacted by Guardian Australia. Carr was unavailable to comment.

As well as a team of lawyers, Duggan has hired communications agency pCOMZ to manage publicity for his case, which hinges on counterclaims of a political conspiracy as well as a public pressure campaign featuring his family.

US authorities say emails, travel and payment records led them to believe Duggan provided unauthorised defence services to Chinese pilots by training them at a controversial test flying school in South Africa.

They argue Duggan was aware of the legal restrictions on the export of US defence services before he allegedly breached them by providing training services to the Chinese military.

US authorities almost missed the five-year statute of limitations during which they could file charges against Duggan who was indicted by a grand jury in 2017.

The indictment says Duggan breached arms control laws by training Chinese fighter pilots and that his “co-conspirators” bought a T-2 Buckeye aircraft from a US dealer to use for the training by providing false information.

The indictment also says Duggan gave a presentation in China in 2011 entitled “The Fighter Pilot’s Guide to Mission Success”.

Lawyer and Australian Army veteran Glenn Kolomeitz, who is acting as an advocate for the Duggan family, said it was “common” for former military personnel to give presentations of the kind Duggan allegedly gave in China.

Kolomeitz said Duggan worked at the South African flying school “providing training for Chinese civilian pilots” and “had no reason to believe otherwise”.

The federal attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, has approved Duggan’s extradition request, meaning Duggan will be handed over to the US unless his legal team can prove his extradition is unlawful.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/dec/19/daniel-duggan-home-detention-appeal-pilot-flight-risk

>>20098545

Anthony Albanese: peace of mind but no warship for Red Sea

CAMERON STEWART and BEN PACKHAM - DECEMBER 20, 2023

Anthony Albanese has declared Australia is not just an observer in the defence of global freedom and the rule-based order at the same time as his government is set to reject a US Navy request to send a warship to the Red Sea to help ­secure a vital trade route under ­attack from Iran-based militants.

Australia is expected to decline a US request to send a ­warship to the Red Sea after ­participating in a meeting overnight with US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin.

The decision is political, coming despite assurances by the navy that it could send a warship to the Middle East if it was ordered to do so, and the Prime Minister’s declaration in a speech on Tuesday that “peace must be built, preserved, defended and upheld”.

Mr Austin has excluded Australia from a new 10-nation naval task force to help protect ­commercial shipping in the Red Sea after the Albanese ­government signalled it was reluctant to contribute a navy ship to the force.

Chief of the Defence Force Angus Campbell was due to represent Australia at a virtual meeting hosted by Mr Austin to discuss the new task force known as Operation Prosperity Guardian.

Instead of contributing a warship to the task force, as was originally requested by the US Navy, Australia is expected to contribute a handful of navy personnel to the Combined Maritime Forces headquarters to Bahrain to support the new force.

The Prime Minister told the Lowy Institute on Tuesday night that upholding Australia’s security involved “managing urgent and competing pressures and engaging with complex and fast-moving situations”.

He said the government’s decisions were “anchored in a strategic framework and shaped by an overarching vision for Australia’s future and our place in the world”.

Mr Albanese declared on Monday that “our first priority is in our own region”. But he told the Lowy Institute the government was also focused on the wider world, amid “new flashpoints, old fault lines, ongoing tests of the rules-based order and resurgent challenges to free societies”.

“It’s often said that what happens on the world stage matters to Australia,” the Prime Minister told the Lowy Institute.

“But we are not just observers of the interplay of others’ ambitions. And our foreign policy is not just a catalogue of things that happen to us. What Australia says and does on the world stage matters – to our security, our prosperity, to the strength and stability of the region we call home.”

Mr Albanese added: “Peace is always hard work – and defence and security are central to the task.”

Mr Austin announced the new taskforce to deal with attacks on shipping from Iran-backed Houthi rebels, which threatened “the free flow of commerce, endangers innocent mariners, and violates international law.”

“The Red Sea is a critical waterway that has been essential to freedom of navigation and a major commercial corridor that facilitates international trade,” Mr Austin said.

“Countries that seek to uphold the foundational principle of ­freedom of navigation must come ­together to tackle the challenge posed by this non-state actor launching ballistic missiles and uncrewed aerial vehicles at ­merchant vessels from many nations lawfully transiting inter­national waters.”

The taskforce includes the UK, Canada, France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.

Oil giant BP is the latest company to pause shipping through the Red Sea in response to missile and drone attacks by Houthi forces.

Houthi rebels attacked two more ships in the Red Sea on Monday after launching multiple drone attacks at the weekend which forced a US warship to shoot down 14 drones.

The commander of the Australian naval fleet, Rear Admiral Christopher Smith, declared last week the service was “ready to support any requirements that the government will ask of us”.

It’s understood that message was reiterated in recent days, with the navy telling the government that it could mobilise an Anzac-class frigate for the task force if necessary.

But Defence Minister Richard Marles has said the priority of the navy was Australia’s immediate region.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/anthony-albanese-peace-of-mind-but-no-warship-for-red-sea/news-story/83b900612a20c79d8d7eac1bced4c788

>>20098545

>>20103699

Why is the government afraid, unwilling or unable to send a warship to Red Sea when our allies ask?

CAMERON STEWART - DECEMBER 19, 2023

1/2

The Albanese government’s all-but-certain decision to refuse a US Navy request to send a warship to the Red Sea is an embarrassment for Australia.

It signals to the world that Australia is no longer the reliable contributor to global security, the loyal ally or the consistent ­defender of the so-called rules-based order it once claimed to be. Instead, this likely decision reveals a timid and insular government, afraid, unwilling or unable to send a single – yes, that’s right – a single warship to the world’s most pressing maritime hot zone.

It goes against the grain of Australia’s proud history of making modest but symbolically important contributions to multinational deployments on matters clearly in Australia’s national ­interest.

And what, right now, could be more in Australia’s interests than ensuring the security of the vital sea lanes on the Red Sea, where more than 12 per cent of the world’s trade passes through, including many billions of dollars of Australian imports and exports?

Exactly why Australia would refuse such a request remains shrouded in mystery because this secretive government refuses to publicly explain its thinking ­beyond vague generalities about giving priority to our immediate region in its naval deployments.

The government is set to formally announce on Wednesday that it won’t send a warship, but it was waiting first to participate in a virtual joint conference with US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and several other countries before making a final decision.

It has tried to justify its expected decision to refuse the initial US request for a warship by suggesting it wasn’t an urgent request from Washington because it came via the US Navy and therefore didn’t require a timely answer.

Mr Austin clearly disagrees, announcing on Tuesday a 10-country naval taskforce called Operation Prosperity Guardian to protect commercial shipping in the Red Sea from fast-growing missile and drone attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Mr Austin says the Red Sea crisis “threatens the free flow of commerce, endangers innocent mariners, and violates international law”, and “countries that seek to uphold the foundational principle of freedom of navigation must come together to tackle the challenge posed by this non-state actor”.

Sorry, Mr Austin, but Australia is no longer one of those countries. Never mind the fact like-minded nations such as the UK, Canada, France, Italy, Spain and Norway have joined the taskforce. In the week when critical legislation enabling AUKUS passed in the US congress, Australia is the only AUKUS member to refuse requests to send a ship to the Red Sea.

(continued)

>>20103702

2/2

The decision is all the more ­bizarre given the Australian Navy has vast experience in the ­region, having deployed warships to the Middle East almost continuously from the early 1990s to late 2020.

These have operated across the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Western Indian Ocean, Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.

In the absence of available facts, it is no surprise rumours are sweeping Canberra that the government could not actually deploy a single warship at short notice over the Christmas period.

Did we not have any of the eight Anzac frigates or three air warfare destroyers ready to go? Did we not have a full crew ready and available for deployment? Is it too hard to cancel Christmas leave or do we have a navy that can’t go to war during public holidays?

Is it because the Red Sea is a “hot zone”, where an Australian warship might have to fire a shot in anger or be fired upon? Is no Australian ship equipped to race to a conflict zone at short notice?

All of these questions are hanging in the air because the government refuses to address them directly. The stated reason for refusing the US request for a warship was that the navy is giving priority to Australia’s immediate region. Well, yes, but that regional focus doesn’t vanish just because one ship is deployed further afield.

The US was not asking for a fleet, it was asking for a single ship to operate in an area where the navy has proven expertise.

The reason all of these questions are being asked is that confidence in the government’s ability to manage the navy is at rock bottom. The same government that says we face the most dire strategic circumstances for 50 years has given no extra money for defence and can’t even make decisions on the future structure of the navy’s surface fleet, having deliberated on it now for more than eight months.

The consequence of this policy slumber is that Australia’s military clout is shrinking and its ability to contribute to vital global issues is fading.

It means Australian sailors will be watching Netflix at home this summer rather than trying to protect vital Australian trade routes from terror attacks.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/why-is-the-government-afraid-unwilling-or-unable-to-send-a-warship-to-red-sea-when-our-allies-ask/news-story/8a4a1caa068b841b49af3489910c76ee

>>20098526

ABC presenter Antoinette Lattouf sacked after anti-Israel social media posts

SOPHIE ELSWORTH - DECEMBER 20, 2023

1/2

The ABC has sacked fill-in Sydney mornings radio host Antoinette Lattouf after she breached the taxpayer-funded broadcaster’s social media code by posting anti-Israel comments.

The Australian can reveal that Lattouf who was filling in this week was told by management just shortly after she finished hosting the program on Wednesday morning that she would not be allowed to return for the rest of the week.

It is understood ABC chair Ita Buttrose – who has received many complaints about Lattouf – is “furious” she was put in the fill-in position given her prolific conduct on social media and her pro-Palestinian stance.

Many complaints have also been sent to the ABC board and managing director David Anderson and Lattouf has continued to upload a series of pro-Palestinian posts on her social media accounts including X, formerly Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

It is understood ABC management were extremely concerned the presenter’s activism on social media and which she has plastered across her account over the past two months.

The public broadcaster received numerous complaints about her commentary – these complaints were sent directly to Ms Buttrose and managing director David Anderson this week and its understood crisis talks were held on Wednesday about Lattouf’s conduct online.

An ABC spokesman confirmed Lattouf, who is of Lebanese heritage, would not be returning to the show again which she started hosting on Monday and was filling in for Sarah Macdonald.

“ABC Sydney casual presenter Antoinette Lattouf will not be back on air for her remaining two shifts this week,” he said.

Under the ABC’s social media guidelines employees must “protect the ABC’s reputation, independence, impartiality and integrity.”

Lattouf drew intense criticism after she has repeatedly said videos of pro-Palestine protesters chanting “gas the Jews” at the Sydney Opera House in October were unverified.

“Despite the enormous amount of attention and considerable response to the reports, third parties have been unable to verify the “gas the Jews” claim, and further footage corroborating the chants has failed to emerge,” Lattouf wrote in an article with Cam Wilson that published on the Crikey website last week.

This comes despite NSW police being provided with testimony from witnesses at the event who said they heard the chant “gas the Jews.”

(continued)

>>20103721

2/2

Lattouf also joined hundreds of journalists and signed the controversial open letter, calling for all Australian newsrooms to treat unverified information from the democratically-elected government of Israel and terror group Hamas with the same “professional scepticism.”

ABC news director Justin Stevens later emailed staff and told them impartiality would be required when reporting on the conflict in Israel: “You should not sign any ­petition that may bring into question your impartiality or that of the ABC’s coverage. Signing this petition may bring into question your ability to cover the story impartially.”

Despite this, the ABC still proceeded with having Lattouf as a presenter on its radio network.

Multiple sources from within the ABC, who did not wish to be named, told The Australian that ABC Radio Sydney manager Steve Ahern appointed Lattouf to the role as a fill-in presenter.

Ben Latimer is responsible for the ABC’s radio arm and was appointed at the head of audio content in July.

It is understood management will be reviewing how this occurred in the weeks to come.

The fallout also comes just a week after the ABC’s youth music channel was in turmoil after airing a controversial segment including the song ‘Long Live Palestine’ and claims from an Indigenous guest presenter there is “genocide and oppression and continued hate towards Palestine people”.

All Triple J guest presenters have been axed following the comments by Miss Kaninna, a Yorta Yorta, Djadja Wurrung, Yirendali and Kalkadoon musician and Triple j Unearthed artist.

ABC Middle East correspondent Tom Joyner was also investigated by the ABC after he posted offensive comments to a WhatsApp group with hundreds of international journalists in October and said that claims of babies in Israel being beheaded by Hamas terrorists were “bullshit”.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin said: “Lattouf has consistently used her platform to spread disinformation about Israel and to gaslight the Jewish community.

“Her irresponsible posts encouraged denial of the mob anti-Semitism we witnessed on the Opera House steps and fed anti-Semitic theories about Jewish dishonesty and manipulation.

“The national broadcaster understandably determined she didn’t meet their journalistic standards and would have used her position to cause greater harm.”

Lattouf was a fill-in host for five days, but only ended up being on air for three days after management took action.

Lattouf has been contacted for comment.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/abc-presenter-antoinette-lattouf-sacked-after-antiisrael-social-media-posts/news-story/1d96ccc2d21af0011e7fcced87275ee4

https://www.tiktok.com/@antoinette_lattouf/video/7299733657395137793

https://twitter.com/antoinette_news/status/1734744311408017682

https://www.instagram.com/antoinette_lattouf/p/C0oXlmOS7e5/

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese holds first official meeting with New Zealand counterpart Christopher Luxon

Tom Crowley - 20 December 2023

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has met with newly elected New Zealand PM Christopher Luxon in Sydney today.

It is the first in-person meeting between the leaders since Mr Luxon was sworn in last month.

The pair discussed Mr Luxon's interest in exploring opportunities to participate in technology sharing under the AUKUS partnership between Australia, the UK and the US.

Mr Albanese said he was supportive of opportunities for greater co-operation between the two countries' defence forces.

The two leaders spoke warmly of their relationship, with Mr Albanese noting they had known each other for "a very long period of time", dating back to Mr Luxon's tenure as the chief executive of Air New Zealand, which overlapped with Mr Albanese's period as transport minister.

Mr Luxon thanked Mr Albanese for his recent decision to make it easier for New Zealanders to gain Australian citizenship.

"Just putting it out there, I think they're probably your best migrants," Mr Luxon said.

Mr Luxon, who leads the conservative National Party, became prime minister after weeks of negotiations with minor parties, resulting in a coalition with the ACT Party and the NZ First.

His first actions in the job included disbanding the Maori Health Service, reducing the use of Maori language in the public service, and announcing plans to repeal legislation to outlaw tobacco smoking.

Those decisions prompted accusations from Maori Party co-leader Hauauru Debbie Ngarewa-Packer that the government had deteriorated race relations to their worst level "since the earliest stages of colonisation".

Asked about those comments today, Mr Luxon said his government had a "difference of opinion" with the Maori Party and did not believe a separate health authority would deliver good outcomes.

Mr Albanese said he had "no intention of commenting on domestic New Zealand politics", but re-affirmed his own government's commitment to closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

Last week, Mr Albanese and Mr Luxon joined with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to call for "urgent international efforts towards a sustainable ceasefire" in Gaza.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-20/anthony-albanese-new-zealand-christopher-luxon-meeting/103249888

Julian Assange's 'final' appeal against U.S. extradition to be held in February

Michael Holden - December 19, 2023

LONDON, Dec 19 (Reuters) - WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange's possible final legal challenge to stop his extradition from Britain to the United States where he is wanted on criminal charges will be held at London's High Court in February, his supporters said on Tuesday.

Assange, 52, is wanted by U.S. authorities on 18 counts, including one under a spying act, relating to WikiLeaks' release of vast troves of confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables which Washington said had put lives in danger.

Britain has given the go-ahead for his extradition, but he has been trying to overturn that decision. Campaigners said a public hearing would take place at the High Court on Feb. 20-21 when two judges will review an earlier ruling which had refused Assange permission to appeal.

"The two-day hearing may be the final chance for Julian Assange to prevent his extradition to the United States," WikiLeaks said in a statement.

WikiLeaks first came to prominence in 2010 when it released hundreds of thousands of secret classified files and diplomatic cables in what was the largest security breach of its kind in U.S. military history, which U.S. prosecutors say imperilled the lives of agents named in the leaked material.

Assange's supporters say he is an anti-establishment hero who has been victimised because he exposed U.S. wrongdoing, and that his prosecution is an assault on journalism and free speech.

He spent seven years holed up in Ecuador's embassy in London before he was dragged out and jailed in 2019 for breaching bail conditions. He has been held in prison ever since while his extradition case is decided.

His lawyers have also applied to the European Court of Human Rights which could potentially order the extradition to be blocked.

"The last four and a half years have taken the most considerable toll on Julian and his family, including our two young sons," said his wife Stella, who he married in prison.

"The persecution of this innocent journalist and publisher must end."

https://www.reuters.com/world/julian-assanges-final-appeal-against-us-extradition-be-held-february-2023-12-19/

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1737067511596662897

>>20103739

US officials monitored pro-Assange protests in Australia for ‘anti-US sentiment’, documents reveal

Previously classified papers detail how the US embassy in Canberra responded to WikiLeaks’ release of embassy cables in 2010 and ‘sensationalist’ local media

Christopher Knaus - 20 Dec 2023

1/2

American officials monitored pro-Assange protests in Australia for “anti-US sentiment”, warned of “increasing sympathy, particularly on the left” for the WikiLeaks founder in his home country and derided local media’s “sensationalist” reporting of the explosive 2010 cable leaks, previously classified records show.

Documents released by the US state department via freedom of information laws give new insight into how the US embassy in Canberra and its security team reacted to WikiLeaks’ release of 250,000 embassy cables in late 2010.

They show the embassy’s regional security office (RSO) monitoring and reporting on pro-WikiLeaks rallies held across Australian capital cities, feeding information to Washington via the embassy.

“The demonstrations have all been peaceful and generally numbers in the range of a few hundred persons. Embassy RSO notes the rallies have featured very little, if any, anti-American sentiment,” the US embassy cable, dated 17 December 2010, reads. “Wikileaks supporters held a recent demonstration in Canberra’s central business district and made no attempt to march to the US Embassy or direct any ire at other American interests.”

The cable also gives an appraisal on the level of sympathy held for Assange in Australia.

“Assange is gaining increasingly sympathy particularly on the left,” it reads.

Embassy officials also derided local media coverage of the 2010 cables as “sensationalist” and unserious.

The embassy was particularly critical of Australian media’s reporting of cables that showed the US government was closely watching the rise of the then deputy prime minister, Julia Gillard.

“Media continues to have a field day with the leaked cables,” the US embassy reported. “A few moderating voices can be heard. Michael Fullilove of the Lowy Institution, Australia’s highest profile think tank, while calling the leaks ‘fascinating’, also termed Wikileaks’ conduct reckless in a blog post.

“But for the most part, sensationalist headlines are drowning out Fullilove and other reasonable observers. For every serious story about Australian involvement in Afghanistan, for example, there are twice as many about the fact that [US government] contacts told us that (to no one’s surprise) Julia Gillard, while deputy prime minister, harbored ambition to be the prime minister.”

The embassy also reported back to Washington that the Australian federal police had concluded the cables revealed no crimes that were in its jurisdiction to investigate.

(continued)

>>20103745

2/2

The document was released to Italian investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi, who waged an eight-year FoI battle with the US state department to obtain it. Maurizi shared the document with Guardian Australia.

The cable is the result of a lengthy, expensive FoI battle by Maurizi, supported by the Logan Foundation and her lawyers, Lauren Russell and Alia Smith. She said it provided “indisputable evidence that the U.S. diplomacy’s Regional Security Office (RSO) in Canberra was monitoring the peaceful protests in support of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks in December 2010, as WikiLeaks had just started publishing the most important cables on Australia”.

“We know that the Regional Security Office protects U.S. diplomatic facilities, personnel and information, which is a legitimate activity, at the same time, one wonders what kind of monitoring activities were devised against peaceful protesters: were they identified? Were they intercepted? Were their donations to WikiLeaks tracked?” she said. “These are important questions, considering that we now know that later on, in 2017, Julian Assange, his wife, Stella … the WikiLeaks journalists, lawyers, doctors, and even we media partners were subjected to unprecedented spying activities inside the Ecuadorian embassy.”

The Italian journalist first filed an FoI request in February 2018, but it was ignored for two years, prompting her to sue the US state department.

She has filed similar FoI requests across the world, including in Australia, which she described as “the worst jurisdiction on earth when it comes to FOIA [Freedom of Information Act]”.

Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, said he had always imagined that the US was monitoring pro-Assange activities in Australia. He said that the campaign for Assange’s release relied on that feedback mechanism.

“I think in terms of the message that we want to send to the US, that the Australian public and the Australian people are on Julian’s side, it’s almost good that they’re monitoring and feeding it back into their system,” he said. “Part of the campaign, we rely on that infrastructure that they have through their embassies and state department, around the world, not just in Australia, there are protests in Mexico City, outside the US embassy, even in Slovenia, places all around the world where there are pro-Assange protests.”

Assange’s lawyers are suing the Central Intelligence Agency over the alleged espionage at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, saying it violated their US constitutional protections for confidential discussions with Assange.

The US embassy in Australia was approached for comment.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/dec/20/us-officials-monitored-pro-assange-protests-in-australia-for-anti-us-sentiment-documents-reveal

https://twitter.com/SMaurizi/status/1737407264737091992

>>20092945

Witness Fiona Brown says Brittany Higgins ‘didn’t tell me she had been raped’

JOANNA PANAGOPOULOS - DECEMBER 19, 2023

1/2

Former Liberal staffer Fiona Brown has repeatedly denied Brittany Higgins told her she had been raped by Bruce Lehrmann in their first meeting following the alleged assault in Parliament House.

The former chief of staff to Linda Reynolds told the Federal Court on Monday that she first became concerned about the “possibility” of a rape in the ministerial ­office after a Parliamentary Services official told her Ms Higgins had been found naked on the Liberal senator’s couch.

Ms Brown also said “her ­antenna was up” after Mr Lehrmann had told her that he had gone back to Parliament House to drink whisky in the early hours of Saturday, March 23, 2019.

In a late-night hearing on Monday to ensure Ms Brown would not be traumatised by multiple days at court due to concerns about her mental state, the ex-Liberal staffer repeatedly said she “couldn’t rule it in, couldn’t rule it out” that Ms Higgins had been sexually assaulted.

Ms Brown categorically denied that Ms Higgins told her in their first meeting on March 26 after the alleged incident that “he (Mr Lehrmann) was on top of me” or that she had been raped.

Ms Brown told the court that Ms Higgins’ demeanour had changed during the first meeting when she saw a code of conduct and an employee assistance handbook on Ms Brown’s desk.

“She saw the papers on my desk and I could see her eyes shifting,” Ms Brown said. “She was thinking quickly on her feet.”

In a later meeting on March 28, 2019, Ms Brown said Ms Higgins then told her that Mr Lehrmann had been “on top” of her. Ms Brown told the court she was shocked and when she asked Ms Higgins what she meant by that statement, her junior staffer replied: “I am responsible for what I drink and my actions.”

Television presenter Lisa Wilkinson’s lawyer Sue Chrysanthou cross-examined Ms Brown in the Federal Court on Monday, with a YouTube live­stream that has played throughout the trial turned off due to the witness’s fragile health.

Mr Lehrmann is suing Network Ten and presenter Lisa Wilkinson over her interview with Ms Higgins on The Project in 2021, detailing accu­sations that Mr Lehrmann raped Ms Higgins on March 23, 2019, but not naming him as the ­alleged attacker. Mr Lehrmann has consistently denied raping Ms Higgins.

Earlier in court, veteran Ten Network news boss Peter Meakin conceded The Project should have gone back to Ms Higgins after it received a contemporaneous email the night before the broadcast that showed Ms Brown had “supported” Ms Higgins in going to police.

Mr Meakin said an email of contemporaneous notes between a Parliamentary Services official and Ms Brown “certainly tells a different narrative” than the one presented by Wilkinson’s interview with Ms Higgins, and agreed that if he had read the email, it would have been “obviously important to go and check this account with Ms Higgins”.

Ms Brown told the court on Monday that when she heard Ms Higgins was found naked in the then defence industry minister’s office, it “crossed her mind” that Ms Higgins might have been assaulted. “I couldn’t rule it out, and I couldn’t rule it in,” she added.

In her first meeting with Ms Higgins, Ms Brown said she gave Ms Higgins a brochure for an Employee Assistance Program but denied the reason was because Ms Higgins told her she had been assaulted. “Nope,” she responded, when asked.

When pressed about whether she suspected from what she was told in that meeting that Ms Higgins had been assaulted, Ms Brown said: “It was a possibility.”

(continued)

>>20103761

2/2

Ms Chrysanthou asked her whether Ms Higgins was told to take a few days off because she told Ms Brown she was assaulted.

“(The) advice from department was she had been found naked … it was the appropriate thing to do,” she said instead.

Ms Brown would not admit Ms Higgins was “crying” in that meeting, or that she was hysterically crying, only that she had “water in her eyes” for which she offered her a tissue.

Asked why she didn’t press Ms Higgins on why she was naked, she said she “wasn’t there to interview the staff”.

“I was there to make inquiries about what their version was, what the department had told me, and I would let the department know,” she said.

Ms Brown said, based on a text from Ms Higgins a few days later, she understood she had been “in the office drunk” and naked, and was vocalising that she was ­embarrassed.

Just before her meeting with Ms Higgins, she had a meeting with Mr Lehrmann.

Ms Brown told the court she was largely concerned about the security implications of the pair coming to parliament in the middle of the night. “He was just a 23 year-old, immature staffer. I did not think anything other than that,” she said.

She said she didn’t necessarily think Mr Lehrmann was lying but that her “antenna was up” when he said he came back to Parliament House to drink whisky.

“One thought I did have was ‘has he come back here to access files?’”, she said.

Ms Brown was asked whether after her meeting with Mr Lehrmann – and witnessing his behaviour during that meeting – whether it entered her mind that Ms Higgins had been assaulted.

“I couldn’t rule it in and I couldn’t rule it out. I hadn’t spoke to the other staff member (Ms Higgins),” she said.

When pressed, she said “Yes, it had entered my mind”.

Ms Brown told the court that, in a further meeting on March 28, Ms Higgins said, in a casual manner, that she remembered Mr Lehrmann was on top of her.

Ms Brown said she was shocked. “I did not know what she meant by that,” she said.

She said Ms Higgins also told her during that conversation: “I am responsible for what I drink and my actions.”

Ms Brown said she didn’t include it in her notes but should have.

Earlier in the day, the court heard an email was forwarded to The Project producer Angus Llewellyn from the Prime Minister’s office the day before the broadcast. It was a copy of an email chain between a Department of Parliamentary Services assistant secretary and Ms Brown. It stated that: “Should (Ms Higgins) choose to, she’s able to pursue a complaint, including a complaint made to the police and that to do so would be within her rights … She would have the full and ongoing support of yourself and the minister.”

Mr Meakin said the email “certainly tells a different narrative” and agreed that if he had read the email, it would have been “obviously important to go and check this account with Ms Higgins”.

“It would have been desirable, yes, (to check her account).”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/witness-fiona-brown-says-brittany-higgins-didnt-tell-me-she-had-been-raped/news-story/1bc39d826637b372916ed4380b94a031

>>20092945

Linda Reynolds to seek freeze on Brittany Higgins’ assets as her former staffer leaves for new life in France

GRACE MACPHERSON - DECEMBER 20, 2023

Former Liberal Minister Linda Reynolds will apply for freezing orders against Brittany Higgins after her former staffer flew out of the country this week to start a new life in France with her fiance, David Sharaz.

Senator Reynolds, who is suing both Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz for defamation, will ask the Supreme Court of Western Australia for the orders, which restrain a party to a case from selling or moving assets while a legal action is still in process.

Ms Higgins has reportedly bought her first home in a small village in the south of France, following her $2.4 million compensation settlement with the Commonwealth.

The couple said goodbye to family and friends at Brisbane International Airport on Monday night, flying to Singapore before boarding a connecting flight to France, where it is reported Ms Higgins plans to study and learn the language.

The property is reportedly located in the village of Lunas, in France and is a six-hour train ride from Paris and four hours from Barcelona in Spain.

Ms Higgins, her parents Kelly and Matthew, and Mr Sharaz all wore white outfits at the airport – the women’s suffragette colour, which Ms Higgins wore at the Women’s March for Justice in March.

Senator Reynolds has launched defamation actions against Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz over their comments about the senator in social media posts. In Ms Higgins’ allegedly defamatory Instagram story, she criticised her former boss for continuing “to harass me through the media and in the parliament”.

West Australian Supreme Court judge Marcus Solomon has previously urged the parties to do their best to settle the matter, warning of the immense financial and human cost of a protracted trial.

On Tuesday, lawyers for Senator Reynolds wrote to Ms Higgins’ lawyer Leon Zwier, referring to media reports she and Mr Sharaz had left the country. “If such reports are true, we consider that an application for freezing orders is appropriate. Please advise as a matter of urgency your client’s intentions in respect of her travel to France and your availability to confer in respect of our client’s proposed application.”

Lawyers described the amount and speed of the settlement – finalised just days after Bruce Lehrmann’s rape trial was abandoned in the ACT ­Supreme Court – as “extraordinary” and “unprecedented”.

The deed of settlement ­between Ms Higgins and the ­commonwealth was released last week in the defamation trial brought by Bruce Lehrmann against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson over Ms Higgins’ ­allegation on The Project that she was raped by him in Parliament House in 2019, after her lawyers successfully asked that personal medical information be excluded.

The one-day mediation took place 10 days after ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Shane ­Drumgold announced he would not be proceeding with a retrial of rape charges due to Ms Higgins’ mental health.

The deed shows that the total amount paid to Ms Higgins was $2.445m – $1.48m for loss of earning capacity for 40 years; $400,000 for hurt, distress and humiliation; $220,000 for medical expenses; $100,000 for “past and future domestic assistance”; and $245,000 for legal costs.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/brittany-higgins-david-sharaz-leave-australia-to-start-new-life-in-france/news-story/2252cf1bb78bce331c6c7e140a7e51d4

HIV-positive pedophile Jadd William Brooker jailed for 36 years with order to serve 29 years before becoming eligible for parole

The pedophile guilty of 182 “exceptionally grave” crimes against 96 children around the world will serve the second-longest sentence ever imposed in Australia.

Sean Fewster - November 27, 2023

An HIV-positive pedophile syndicate leader’s 182 crimes against 96 children around the world deserve the second-longest sentence ever imposed in Australia for child sex offending, a court has ruled.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court jailed Jadd William Brooker for 36 years, ordering he serve 29 years before becoming eligible for parole.

Brooker’s term is only slightly shorter than that of fellow predator and “child collector” Ruecha Tokputza, who is serving 40 years behind bars.

In sentencing, Justice Adam Kimber said Brooker must be denounced for his “abhorrent, horrific” offending and others must be deterred from following in his footsteps.

“Your offending is exceptionally grave, the victims are almost too many to count,” he said.

“You contributed to the demand for child exploitation material, you participated in that market.

“Child sex offending in any form is abhorrent, all of society is degraded by it.

“You have placed at risk the wellbeing and future potential of every victim.”

Outside court, one of Brooker’s victims – known as “BP” – said listening to Justice Kimber’s 90-minute sentencing was a debilitating experience.

“We were horrified, we were sick to our stomachs … I would dare say he is SA’s most notorious, prolific pedophile … he is a vile, vile man,” he said.

“He committed some of the worst (crimes) I’ve ever seen, and I helped put him away … it’s a closing point on everything, really.”

“I broke down in tears … some of the victims are no longer with us … their stories are unable to be told or heard, they are unable to speak for themselves.

“I hope that this is a life sentence for him and that he will never, never be able to get out and do more damage.”

Brooker, 41, pleaded guilty to 182 sexual abuse and exploitation charges following his arrest, in 2020, by SA’s elite Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team.

He had more than 20 victims across Australia and around the world – some of whom he tried to infect with HIV.

Brooker filmed himself in these attempts, prompting JACET to dub his crimes “the worst and most degrading” they had investigated up to that point.

He compiled 4.5 million images and 50,000 messages of child exploitation – which he asked family to delete following his arrest – as the centre of an online pedophile syndicate.

Brooker’s victims described him, in their statements to the court, as “an evil parasite” who “left a piece of himself” in every child whose innocence he destroyed.

The court also heard expert mental health evidence that his crimes could have escalated to trafficking babies and toddlers for sex had he not been apprehended.

Prosecutors urged the court to jail Brooker indefinitely as an uncontrollable predator, using laws created following a campaign by victim advocates and The Advertiser.

On Friday, Justice Kimber opted to set Brooker a non-parole period, but noted his prospects of rehabilitation were “guarded” at best and his risk of reoffending “particularly high”.

He said Brooker’s “horrific” offences spanned bestiality, necrophilia, scatological perversion and making one boy the subject of “a bidding war” between pedophiles.

It also involved the degrading abuse and torture of babies and toddlers, “power disparity”, “breaches of trust” and “exploitation of the most egregious fashion”.

Justice Kimber said that, if not for laws regarding harsh sentences, five of Brooker’s offences would have warranted a 40-year prison term on their own.

“Your pleas of guilty are the most significant factor in your favour – otherwise, there is very little that can be said that is positive … it’s overwhelmed by your prolific offending,” he said.

“You pose a grave risk to children and, if you are to reform, the journey will be a long one.”

Outside court, Commissioner for Victims’ Rights Sarah Quick said the sentence reflected the “significant harm” suffered by abuse survivors and their families.

“Nothing can erase the lifelong harm caused by this horrific and degrading offending … offenders such as Brooker destroy innocence and create countless victims,” she said.

“Hopefully the victims feel secure in the knowledge that this sentence will prevent Brooker from harming other children.”

https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts-sa/jadd-william-brooker-jailed-for-36-years-with-order-to-serve-29-years-before-becoming-eligible-for-parole/news-story/55198bbca43931e7424a4e69cda82ab0

Jeffrey Epstein associates to be named after US judge rules court documents should be unsealed in full

Andrew Thorpe - 20 December 2023

A US federal judge has ruled court documents revealing the names of more than 170 people linked to a case regarding disgraced American financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein should be "unsealed in full".

The documents, which relate to a 2015 defamation lawsuit filed by victim Virginia Giuffre against Epstein's accomplice and former partner Ghislaine Maxwell, are due to be made public on January 1, giving those identified in the case time to appeal the judge's ruling.

Those set to be identified range from high-profile Epstein associates, including at least one public figure whose name is said to have appeared in Epstein's infamous "little black book", to alleged co-conspirators, to innocent people mentioned in passing in deposition transcripts.

Manhattan district judge Loretta Preska issued the ruling on Monday, going into detail on each of the individuals identified in the documents and weighing each of their interests against the public's presumption of access to judicial records.

She kept sealed documents relating to a small number of victims who were underage at the time of the offences committed against them, and who have sought to maintain their privacy in the years following the public revelation of Epstein's crimes.

Legal fight over sealed names lasted years

The defamation case in question was filed in 2015 by Australia-based victim Virginia Giuffre, who alleged she was defamed by Maxwell when Maxwell denied her claims she was forced by Epstein into providing sexual services for wealthy and powerful men when she was a teenager.

The case was settled in 2017 for an undisclosed sum of money, reportedly in the millions of dollars, however the legal fight over whether documents from the case should remain sealed continued for years, with Maxwell's lawyers only last year dropping their fight for a number of names to be kept secret.

Ms Giuffre had previously told the ABC she was "very angry" that several names from an April 2016 deposition of Maxwell, including that of Britain's Prince Andrew, had been kept sealed as part of a separate release of court documents related to the case.

Ms Giuffre last year settled a civil case brought against the prince, who she claimed sexually abused her on multiple occasions at Epstein's and Maxwell's properties, including when she was underage.

Prince Andrew strongly denies the claims and has never been criminally charged.

Maxwell is currently serving 20 years in prison after being convicted in 2021 of recruiting and grooming underage victims for Epstein between 1994 and 2004.

Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges, with his cause of death listed as suicide.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-20/jeffrey-epstein-names-identities-unsealed-court-documents/103249734

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-23/virginia-giuffre-ghislaine-maxwell-court-documents-epstein/12803180

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4355835/giuffre-v-maxwell/?order_by=desc

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.447706/gov.uscourts.nysd.447706.1315.0.pdf

https://qanon.pub/#4568

https://qanon.pub/?q=Dearest%20Virginia

Terror leader Abdul Nacer Benbrika to walk free after Supreme Court order

David Estcourt and Angus Thompson - December 19, 2023

1/2

Convicted terror cell leader Abdul Nacer Benbrika will walk free from prison on Tuesday on a strict supervision order, ending a years-long legal battle waged by the government to keep him behind bars beyond his sentence.

Benbrika’s lawyers successfully argued the notorious Muslim cleric should be released from a continuing detention order, which has kept him inside Barwon Prison since 2020, after he finished serving a 15-year sentence for terror offences. The government subsequently agreed but has since opened the door to challenging the supervision order, which includes fewer conditions and covers a smaller period than the government originally requested.

Supreme Court judge Elizabeth Hollingworth said the government and Benbrika’s lawyers agreed he should be subject to an extended supervision order (ESO) and released into the community because of his reduced risk of offending.

”The evidence clearly establishes, and the Attorney-General quite clearly accepts, that Mr Benbrika has been making substantial progress towards de-radicalisation in recent years,” Hollingworth said.

“The risk of offending is now low enough that it can be managed by Mr Benbrika living in the community on a strict ESO.”

Benbrika will be on the ESO for one year. Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said in a statement after the ruling that while he welcomed the court’s decision to impose an ESO, it did not include every condition sought by the government nor did it exist for the three-year period he had applied for.

“This application was made in accordance with advice from all operational agencies involved in the matter, including the Australian Federal Police,” Dreyfus said.

“The government will carefully consider the court’s written reasons when published, in consultation with the Commonwealth’s lawyers and our security and law enforcement agencies, before determining next steps.”

The 30 conditions include a curfew, living at a specific address that he cannot change without permission from authorities and answering the door when called upon by police. He must also continue receiving psychological treatment and continue to engage with de-radicalisation programs.

His treating psychologists may also disclose any information that might concern the safety of people in the community, he must wear an electronic monitoring device, and he must not associate or communicate with people who live in certain countries, who are in prison or who have been convicted of terror offences.

Benbrika can also only start working or volunteering with the permission of federal police, has strict rules around financial transactions and is prohibited from making public speeches about certain topics.

He is also subject to strict conditions regarding the use of mobile phones and other electronic devices, and cannot possess weapons and other objects which could be used as weapons.

Federal police can also perform searches to ensure Benbrika’s compliance with the conditions.

Benbrika, an Algerian grandfather who goes by Nacer, appeared from Barwon Prison’s Piper Unit, a prison unit designed for dangerous offenders, in a blue robe to watch the hearing in the Supreme Court. He is expected to be released later on Tuesday.

Following a federal police operation, Benbrika was convicted in 2009 of directing a terrorist organisation. A jury found him guilty of being the spiritual leader of a terror cell with members in Melbourne and Sydney that planned attacks on Australian soil.

Benbrika’s group discussed carrying out attacks because it wanted the Australian government to withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. No attacks were ever carried out.

(continued)

>>20108451

2/2

It is often reported that Benbrika was linked to plots to bomb iconic Melbourne targets, such as the MCG, Crown Casino and the NAB Cup. This evidence, provided by witness Izzydeen Atik, was rejected by the court in 2009, and Atik was found to be “a liar, a cheat and a fraudster” attempting to reduce his own sentence by supplying the information.

Benbrika’s ongoing detention has presented considerable political and legal complications for the government since 2020.

The court heard that over the past few years, Benbrika has participated in de-radicalisation programs, engaged with prison psychologists and consistently spoke with an Islamic scholar who had successfully challenged his strict interpretation of Islamic doctrine.

Last week, the former watchdog for Australia’s national security laws, Grant Donaldson, SC, labelled the Commonwealth’s treatment of Benbrika a disgrace and criticised his continued detention using the government’s risk assessment tool, VERA-2R.

In his final report, Donaldson said the government had failed to explain why it had concealed a secret report criticising the efficacy of VERA-2R. Donaldson also called for an inquiry to examine the government’s withholding of crucial evidence about the VERA-2R.

VERA-2R – the Violent Extremism Risk Assessment 2 Revised – is used to measure the threat posed by extremists, often when determining whether they should be subject to restrictions once they have completed their prison sentence.

Hollingworth said on Tuesday that the government repeatedly failed to disclose the report to the court or Benbrika’s lawyers in breach of obligations under national security legislation.

Dreyfus said Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who had carriage of the case when he was home affairs minister, had been repeatedly criticised for his handling of the matter.

“Just this morning, the court noted that Mr Dutton engaged in a ‘serious breach’ of the Criminal Code by withholding evidence from Mr Benbrika and the court in 2020. After this failure was exposed in late 2022, Mr Benbrika sought a review of his continuing detention order – making this case much more complicated than it needed to be,” he said.

Dutton was contacted for comment.

The court also heard that the current government had consistently failed to comply with deadlines to provide documents to the court and had not disclosed several other relevant reports.

Hollingworth labelled the government’s conduct “totally unacceptable,” saying it “does not reflect well on the government”. She said she intended to report the instances of non-disclosure to the new national security watchdog to examine the government’s breaches.

Benbrika’s lawyer, Doogue + George partner Isabelle Skaburskis, reiterated calls for an inquiry into the “miscarriage of justice” that Benbrika has been subject to over the VERA-2R controversy.

She said that Benbrika intends to comply wholeheartedly with the onerous conditions that have been imposed and will continue to engage fully with therapeutic interventions.

“Both experts found that Mr Benbrika has made significant progress towards complete deradicalisation. Dr Anne Speckhard, renowned international expert in violent extremism, has found that Benbrika poses a low risk of reoffending,” she said.

The application was stalled due to Benbrika’s ultimately successful High Court bid to overturn a law allowing the federal government to strip him of his Australian citizenship, prompting Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil to pass new laws placing the power to do so with the courts.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/court-orders-release-of-terror-leader-abdul-nacer-benbrika-on-strict-conditions-20231218-p5esbm.html

>>20092945

Judge says parts of Higgins, Lehrmann evidence ‘simply can’t be accepted’

Michaela Whitbourn and Harriet Alexander - December 21, 2023

1/3

The judge presiding over Bruce Lehrmann’s high-stakes defamation case has said it appears parts of the evidence of both the former Liberal staffer and his former colleague Brittany Higgins, who has accused him of sexual assault, “simply can’t be accepted”.

Lehrmann is suing Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson for defamation over an interview with Higgins, aired on The Project on February 15, 2021, that he says suggests he is guilty of raping Higgins in Parliament House in March 2019. Lehrmann has denied there was any sexual activity.

The case entered its final days on Thursday as the parties delivered their closing addresses in Sydney before Federal Court Justice Michael Lee.

Credit issues

In an insight into his approach to deciding the case, Lee said that “one of the challenges in this case, it seems to me, is that the two principal witnesses [Lehrmann and Higgins] have real credit issues” and “various parts of each witness’s evidence simply can’t be accepted, it seems to me”.

“We agree,” Ten’s barrister, Dr Matt Collins, KC, said.

“We’ll seek to persuade your honour that there is a qualitative difference between the dishonesty of Mr Lehrmann and the successful credit attacks that were levelled at Ms Higgins.”

Collins said Higgins had conceded some errors or discrepancies in her accounts but “it did stand to her credit that she was prepared to acknowledge past errors and correct them”, while Lehrmann was “revealed to be a fundamentally dishonest man”.

There was no suggestion Higgins “has ever wavered in any material respect” in her central allegation, Collins said. He submitted her evidence about the alleged assault was compelling, distressing and believable.

Lee asked: “Your core point … and I hope this is not a crude reduction of what you are saying, is … the irreducible core about her being a victim of a sexual assault was given with crystal-clear clarity, you would say, and must be accepted whatever other misgivings one has about her evidence?”

“That’s so,” Collins said.

Collins said Lehrmann had given a “ludicrous” reason for going back to Parliament House in the early hours of March 23, 2019, which included working on question time briefs.

Lehrmann told the court he had lied when he told the chief of staff to Liberal senator and then-defence industry minister Linda Reynolds that he went back to the office to have a drink. Higgins and Lehrmann worked for Reynolds as advisers.

Lee said “this is an unusual case” where one might be in a position where “you disbelieve story A [and] you disbelieve story B”. He asked rhetorically, “What are the consequences of that?”

“We say this is not that case, because your honour does have direct evidence from the two protagonists about what happened in that room,” Collins said.

“To find that sexual intercourse without consent did not happen, your honour, would have actively to reject the evidence given by Ms Higgins. Your honour would have to find it was false or mistaken in some way.”

But Lee said “That’s not quite true”.

“You have to be positively persuaded to reach an actual sense of persuasion that it is true.”

(continued)

>>20108466

2/3

Not there ‘to play Scrabble’

Collins said there was a “limited universe of things” that could plausibly have happened that night, and “they weren’t there to play Scrabble”.

“Even if your honour were in some doubt about the question of consent, we’d say your honour ought to feel an active persuasion … that sexual intercourse took place. Why else is Ms Higgins naked at 4.20am, passed out?”

Sue Chrysanthou, SC, acting for Wilkinson, offered five objective facts that supported a finding that sexual intercourse occurred, including that Higgins and Lehrmann entered Parliament House at the same time with nobody else; he left after 40 minutes in a hurry; he missed phone calls from his girlfriend and did not call back; and Higgins was found naked and passed out by a security guard at 4.30am.

“The question for Your Honour is, why was she naked? If they didn’t have sex, why was she naked?” she said.

Chrysanthou submitted that there couldn’t really be “any doubt in anyone’s mind that there was sex, and that the only issue that would trouble your honour, having regard to the unsatisfactory state of the evidence by both persons, is the consent issue”.

If the court found there was sexual intercourse, “it is quite disgraceful conduct [by Lehrmann] … to have denied that at the outset”, Chrysanthou said, because Higgins had been accused of “making up the whole thing”.

‘Wicked set of circumstances’

Collins submitted that if the judge “came to the view that on the balance of probabilities sexual intercourse occurred in that room in those 40 minutes but didn’t feel the degree of persuasion necessary to establish that was it as non-consensual or reckless, we would be in the situation of a most wicked set of circumstances”.

“Mr Lehrmann would have gone to a criminal trial on a basis which he knew to be false,” Collins said, and “that wicked scheme would have been perpetuated” in the defamation case.

He said that in those circumstances “the abuse of process would be so extreme” that the judge ought not award damages.

Sexual assault charge dropped

Lehrmann’s ACT Supreme Court trial for sexual assault was aborted last year due to juror misconduct. The charge against Lehrmann was later dropped altogether owing to concerns about Higgins’ mental health.

Logies speech

Lee raised concerns with Chrysanthou about the Logies acceptance speech given by Wilkinson for The Project interview eight days before Lehrmann’s criminal trial, in which she praised Higgins’ courage. Lehrmann’s lawyers have pointed to the speech as a factor in support of aggravated damages. The criminal trial was subsequently delayed for three months to avoid prejudice to the jury.

Wilkinson said in her evidence that she had received advice that the speech was acceptable, but Lee said it was “fantastic” that any lawyer could have thought the speech was appropriate.

“Your honour assumes that people watch the Logies,” Chrysanthou responded. “There’s no proof of that.”

Chrysanthou added that Wilkinson’s comments were “a drop in the ocean” of allegations being made about Lehrmann at the time, including Higgins’ speech to the National Press Club and supportive comments made by the then prime minister Scott Morrison on the floor of Parliament.

“You would think that would be more memorable than what my client said in a Logies speech,” Chrysanthou said.

Lee replied: “There’s some force in that.”

(continued)

>>20092945

>>20103774

Bienvenue: Brittany Higgins and David Sharaz arrive in France

ELISE KAINE - DECEMBER 21, 2023

Brittany Higgins and David Sharaz have arrived in Paris to start their new life in France.

Dressed in matching black outfits, Ms Higgins and her fiance landed at Charles de Gaulle airport on Tuesday evening.

The couple are moving to the small town of Lunas which is six-hours by train from Paris.

On her Instagram, Ms Higgins posted a carousel of images taken in Canberra, Sydney and other iconic locations in Australia.

“No matter how far or how wide I roam, I still call Australia home,” the caption read.

Ms Higgins has reportedly bought her first home in the small village in the south of France, following her $2.4 million compensation settlement with the Commonwealth.

The couple said goodbye to family and friends at Brisbane International Airport on Monday night, flying to Singapore before boarding a connecting flight to France, where it is reported Ms Higgins plans to study and learn the language.

Ms Higgins, her parents Kelly and Matthew, and Mr Sharaz all wore white outfits at the airport – the women’s suffragette colour, which Ms Higgins wore at the Women’s March for Justice in March.

Their departure comes as the defamation trial, lodged by Bruce Lehrmann against Channel Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson in which Ms Higgins was called as a witness, comes to an end this week.

Also this week, former Liberal Minister Linda Reynolds indicated she will apply for freezing orders against Ms Higgins in the wake of her relocation.

Senator Reynolds, who is suing both Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz for defamation, will ask the Supreme Court of Western Australia for the orders, which restrain a party to a case from selling or moving assets while a legal action is still in process.

Senator Reynolds has launched defamation actions against Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz over their comments about the senator in social media posts. In Ms Higgins’ allegedly defamatory Instagram story, she criticised her former boss for continuing “to harass me through the media and in the parliament”.

West Australian Supreme Court judge Marcus Solomon has previously urged the parties to do their best to settle the matter, warning of the immense financial and human cost of a protracted trial.

On Tuesday, lawyers for Senator Reynolds wrote to Ms Higgins’ lawyer Leon Zwier, referring to media reports she and Mr Sharaz had left the country. “If such reports are true, we consider that an application for freezing orders is appropriate. Please advise as a matter of urgency your client’s intentions in respect of her travel to France and your availability to confer in respect of our client’s proposed application.”

The deed of settlement ­between Ms Higgins and the ­commonwealth was released last week in the defamation trial brought by Bruce Lehrmann against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson over Ms Higgins’ ­allegation on The Project that she was raped by him in Parliament House in 2019, after her lawyers successfully asked that personal medical information be excluded.

The one-day mediation took place 10 days after ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Shane ­Drumgold announced he would not be proceeding with a retrial of rape charges due to Ms Higgins’ mental health.

The deed shows that the total amount paid to Ms Higgins was $2.445m – $1.48m for loss of earning capacity for 40 years; $400,000 for hurt, distress and humiliation; $220,000 for medical expenses; $100,000 for “past and future domestic assistance”; and $245,000 for legal costs.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/brittany-higgins-and-david-sharaz-arrive-in-france/news-story/a4a6cd0bb336b0f5f05c68da34668749

>>20098526

>>20103721

Media union criticises ABC’s decision to sack radio host Antoniette Lattouf

SOPHIE ELSWORTH - DECEMBER 21, 2023

1/2

The media union has labelled ABC radio host Antoinette Lattouf’s sacking over her social media use as “disturbing” and claimed staff from “diverse backgrounds” are “disproportionately” attacked from the public.

The fallout at the national broadcaster continues after management axed Lattouf just hours after she finishing hosting the ABC Sydney mornings program on Wednesday morning and sources have told The Australian there was serious concerns not only over her social media use – which includes many anti-Israel posts which are against the ABC’s impartiality guidelines – but also her commentary on her radio program relating to the Israel-Hamas war.

On Thursday the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance’s acting chief executive Adam Portelli said in a statement the “ABC should back its employees when they are under attack”.

“Australians expect and deserve an ABC that is home to a range of ideas and opinions reflective of the diversity of Australian society,” he said.

“The ABC should be backing its own employees when they come under attack.

“It is also disturbing if – as has been reported today – the ABC chairperson or other board members are dictating staffing decisions in breach of editorial independence.”

In the statement it said Lattouf had been sacked after she shared a social media post from a “reputable human rights organisation”.

The post she shared was by Human Rights Watch which said, “The Israeli government is using starvation of civilians as a weapon of war in Gaza.”

Lattouf added on the post, “HRW reporting starvation as a tool of war”.

Lattouf, a Lebanese-Australian woman, has also repeatedly rejected the legitimacy of the “gas the Jews” footage from Sydney’s Opera house and attacked Israel numerous times including accusing Israeli forces of committing rape.

Lattouf posted on social media that she was considering her legal options following her sacking.

ABC chair Ita Buttrose is “furious” over the situation involving Lattouf and concerns have been raised internally as to how she was appointed to the role to fill-in for Sarah Macdonald in the first place.

(continued)

>>20108499

2/2

Sources have told The Australian that there was not only concern about Lattouf’s conduct on social media but also some commentary on her mornings program on Monday where she discussed with a university expert on second-hand trauma and she read out a comment from a listener, Dianne who said: “Perfectly timed topic … it was the images just now on the news of Palestinian people running out of food and water in Gaza that sent me over the top. I don’t think the images should stop.”

Lattouf then asked the expert, “you might have a bit of a different view as to whether those images should stop?”

During the same program she also discussed an advertising campaign “which looks a bit like a war zone, complete with a corpse wrapped in a white cloth reminiscent of a Muslim burial cloth in which many of us have seen thousands of because of the mounting death toll in Gaza and it has a lot of people really upset.”

Clothing brand Zara removed the controversial advertising campaign after pro-Palestinians activists urged people to boycott the retailer.

The ABC’s house committee said colleagues from diverse backgrounds were often the subject of unfair attacks and “often feel unsupported from ABC management and the board”.

“To our culturally and linguistically diverse colleagues: you are not alone, we have your back,” the MEAA said.

Lattouf is among hundreds of journalists who signed a controversial open letter calling for all newsrooms to treat unverified information from the democratically elected government of Israel and terror group Hamas with the same “professional scepticism”.

Lattouf was contacted for comment but did not respond.

The ABC also has refused to comment after its news division deleted a controversial TikTok video by a Palestinian journalist that presented a one-sided report about boycotting businesses linked to Israel.

The one-minute now-deleted ABC News Australia TikTok video which was published this week and discussed the controversial Palestinian BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) scheme and told viewers “organisers say changing sentiment among customers is powerful”.

The Anti-Defamation Commission’s chair Dr Dvir Abramovich said the TikTok video is “beyond belief and is a kick in the stomach of every Australian Jew”.

“The evil BDS bandwagon is reminiscent of 1933 Nazi Germany when Hitler’s regime initiated a “Don’t buy from Jews” day, and to have our public broadcaster run a story that champions a malevolent cause that advocates for the destruction of Israel dishonours and taints the ABC,” he said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/media-union-criticises-abcs-decision-to-sack-radio-host-antoniette-lattouf/news-story/c002e0f9dd67e677d70a208e91ff558a

https://twitter.com/antoinette_news/status/1737423359435301244

https://twitter.com/AustralianJA/status/1737420078877147139

>>20072071 (pb)

>>20072085 (pb)

>>20098526

Boxing Day Test: Usman Khawaja’s black armband protest not approved, faces ICC reprimand

DANIEL CHERNY - DECEMBER 21, 2023

Usman Khawaja did not have ICC approval to wear a black armband during the first Test to mark the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, leaving him open to sanctions from the governing body.

Having been told he would not be allowed to wear pro-Palestinian slogans on his shoes during the match as he had hoped to do, Khawaja instead chose to don a black armband throughout the game.

Black armbands are worn routinely by players to mark personal or cricketing bereavements, however in order to do so they must have approval from both their home board and the ICC’s cricket operations department.

There are prohibitions on wearing an item that has a “political, religious or racial cause.”

After repeated inquiries over the space of a week, the ICC confirmed to this masthead on Wednesday night that Khawaja had not been given approval to wear the armband during the Test between Australia and Pakistan in Perth.

The ICC would not comment on whether the opener would be penalised for wearing the armband without a green light, although the starting point for any sanctions would be a reprimand, meaning Khawaja is not in any serious doubt of missing the Boxing Day Test.

Khawaja, Australia’s first Muslim Test cricketer, had hoped to wear shoes with the messages “Freedom is a human right” and “All lives are equal” written in the Palestinian colours of black, green and red.

He has stressed that his views are purely humanitarian and non-political.

While blocked by the governing body, he has indicated he will push to do so in future matches, having worn the shoes in the nets in the lead-up to the Test at Perth Stadium.

The ICC’s clothing and equipment regulations state that: “In determining whether a message is for a ‘political, religious or racial cause’, the starting point is that the ICC and its members acknowledge and agree that cricket should be used as a tool to bring people and communities around the world together and not as a platform to draw attention to potentially divisive political issues, rhetoric or agendas.

“Each case must be considered on its own facts and the ICC will take into account all relevant circumstances, including (as it sees fit): (a) the views of any other relevant team or individual; (b) the likely sentiment and response in the media to the message in all relevant countries; (c) whether the message is a ‘one-off’ or whether it is to be displayed for a longer period; (d) the purpose and impact of conveying the message,” the regulations continue.

“By way of example only, and without limitation, where the purpose of a message appears to be commemorative in nature (e.g. the use of a black armband or a poppy) or to serve a charitable purpose (e.g. to generate funds or awareness for a non-political charitable cause), it is more likely to be permitted; where a message appears to indicate support for a particular government, political party or individual, it is more likely to be prohibited. Where a request for approval is submitted to the ICC, the ICC shall be entitled to request such further information as it considers necessary before making its decision and to impose such conditions as it sees fit in providing its approval (as applicable).”

Cricket Australia has largely deferred to the ICC regulations, reiterating that while it supports the rights of players to express themselves it expects players to follow ICC rules.

Khawaja is due to arrive in Melbourne later in the week ahead of the second Test, which begins on Tuesday.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/cricket/boxing-day-test-usman-khawajas-black-armband-protest-not-approved-faces-icc-reprimand/news-story/56560db98dd2c11c6bdca684bb60f2a7

Anglican Church finds former governor-general Peter Hollingworth failed children over reporting obligations

JOHN FERGUSON - DECEMBER 21, 2023

The Anglican Church has found against former governor-general Peter Hollingworth over two allegations of significant neglect of a child regarding his handling of a sex abuse scandal.

An internal Anglican investigation into seven allegations has found against Dr Hollingworth twice on the grounds of an alleged failure to take action to protect children.

Sources familiar with the probe said Victoria’s Commission for Children and Young People had been alerted to the internal findings and the matter would be referred to authorities to determine what action was to be taken. The findings related to “significant neglect” of a child, sources said.

Under the investigation protocols, the inquiry was conducted by the church but overseen by the CCYP.

Friends of Dr Hollingworth, 88, said the former archbishop had no intention of working with children and had not done so for a significant amount of time.

The church said: “Archbishop Philip Freier, who leads the ­diocese, takes his responsibility as the head of entity with mandatory reporting obligations under the Act, very seriously.

“The diocese ensures that any information about harm to a child that falls under the mandatory reporting regime is reported to the CCYP.”

The investigation findings come after Dr Hollingworth this year was found to have mishandled abuse complaints against two clergy members, John Elliot and Donald Shearman, both of whom he allowed to remain in the church while he was archbishop of Brisbane in the 1980s

That board inquiry also found he had made unsatisfactory ­comments about abuse survivor Beth Heinrich ­in a 2002 episode of ­ ABC TV’s Australian Story.

A CCYP spokesman said the organisation was unable to ­comment on individual cases under the state’s reportable ­conduct scheme or child safety standards.

“Under the reportable conduct scheme, investigations are carried out by organisations under the commission’s oversight, with findings required to be reported to us,’’ he said.

“The commission then refers any substantiated findings to Working with Children Check Victoria, which can then review whether a person is suitable to maintain their Working with Children Check.

“The commission may also make recommendations to an organisation about improving their reporting and investigation of allegations. The findings of investigations cannot be publicly released.

“In addition, the commission may undertake action, including investigations, to ensure organisations are meeting their obligations under Victoria’s Child Safe Standards to adequately respond to child safety complaints.’’

Chris Goddard a global expert on child abuse, said the latest development reconfirmed his view that Dr Hollingworth’s governor-general’s pension should be cut and the cash given to abuse victims. “This is just another opportunity to review his extravagant pension,’’ Professor Goddard said.

Details of the two substantiated allegations – as determined by the church – have not been made public.

However, Dr Hollingworth has been widely condemned for his failure to deal with the child sex abuse scandal in Brisbane and his handling of offenders.

This includes keeping known offenders in the ministry, even in the face of strong evidence against them.

The constant publicity about his time as archbishop and governor-general have taken a toll on Dr Hollingworth, who was once the nation’s main advocate for social justice.

A separate, church-initiated inquiry into Dr Hollingworth ­earlier this year found him guilty of seven counts of misconduct.

But at the time the board did not defrock him or strip him of the right to officiate; the committee had sought for him to lose the right to officiate, and says it submitted that it was open for the board to recommend his removal from holy orders.

But on May 12, Dr Hollingworth announced his intention to return his permission to officiate and this was accepted by the church on May 19.

On May 23, at the request of the committee, Dr Hollingworth gave an undertaking he would not apply in the future for a permission to officiate anywhere in Australia.

Comment was sought from Dr Hollingworth and the church.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/church-finds-former-governorgeneral-peter-hollingworth-failed-children-over-reporting-obligations/news-story/0ba4602aaf65dc01970dce41928bf3eb

>>20103801

Jeffrey Epstein Victim Taunts His Associates Ahead of Document Dump

Virginia Giuffre mused about who would be on the “naughty list” when the names are published next year.

Tom Sykes - Dec. 20, 2023

Virginia Giuffre, the Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking victim who accused Prince Andrew of rape and received a reputed $14 million from him to settle, celebrated online Wednesday after it was revealed that more than 170 individuals linked to Epstein are due to be publicly named early next year.

In a post on X, Giuffre appeared to taunt those associates of Epstein whose identities have long been hidden in the sealed documents, writing: “There’s going to be a lot of nervous ppl over Christmas and New Years… who’s on the naughty list?”

Giuffre also thanked the judge responsible for the ruling ordering the unsealing of the documents, Judge Loretta Preska, praising her commitment to truth and justice.

The documents, which relate to a libel trial brought by Giuffre against the disgraced and jailed former Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, are scheduled for release beginning Jan. 1, after the Miami Herald sued the court to get them released.

Andrew, who settled with Giuffre out of court in 2022, is likely to face renewed scrutiny if named in the documents. The judge has indicated that the 177 individuals encompass Epstein’s friends, recruiters, and victims. The documents are set to be fully unsealed unless an appeal is made.

There has also been speculation there may be documents pertaining to French modeling boss Jean-Luc Brunel, an Epstein associate who faced multiple sex charges before his 2022 suicide in a Paris prison.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/epstein-victim-virginia-giuffre-taunts-his-associates-ahead-of-document-dump

https://twitter.com/VRSVirginia/status/1737337186012541013

https://twitter.com/VRSVirginia/status/1737329578534998215

>>20103801

>>20108544

Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre taunts 170 people to be exposed on his ‘naughty list’

Katherine Donlevy - Dec. 20, 2023

An alleged victim of deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein celebrated Wednesday after it was revealed that more than 170 people with ties to the accused sex trafficker will soon be exposed — calling the reveal an early Christmas gift.

Virginia Giuffre — who settled a $12 million lawsuit over allegations Epstein sex-trafficked her to Prince Andrew — appeared to taunt the dozens of associates and ex-employees whose names will be dredged up in a trove of court documents to be unsealed in the coming weeks.

“There’s going to be a lot of nervous ppl over Christmas and New Years, 170 to be exact, who’s on the naughty list?” Giuffre wrote on X.

“Merry early Christmas,” Giuffre, 40, said in another tweet.

Manhattan federal Judge Loretta Preska on Monday ordered the release of the long-sealed documents in a since-settled defamation lawsuit that Giuffre brought against the convicted pedophile’s madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, back in 2015.

Under the ruling, dozens of individuals — who have previously been referred to as “Jane Does” or “John Does” in various court filings linked to the suit — will likely be identified publicly when the materials tied to them are “unsealed in full.”

Although she gave the yet-to-be-named individuals two weeks to appeal the decision, Preska pointed out that most of the names were already public in the form of media interviews and as a result of Maxwell’s trial.

Former President Bill Clinton and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates are just some of the prominent figures anticipated to be featured in the report — after both were photographed with alleged Epstein victims.

Some portions will remain confidential, however, including people who were children when they were sexually abused by Epstein.

Giuffre — once described as the late financier’s “sex slave” — repeatedly thanked Preska for her ruling, calling her a “truth seeker & justice maker.”

The sexual abuse advocate reached a $12 million settlement with Prince Andrew in 2022 over allegations he had sex with her three times when she was a teen through Epstein’s wide-reaching trafficking web.

The Duke of York — who was stripped of his military and royal titles — is likely to face renewed scrutiny if named in the mountain of documents despite his longtime proclamations of innocence in the debauched trade.

“It is known that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked countless young girls over many years. Prince Andrew regrets his association with Epstein, and commends the bravery of Ms. Giuffre and other survivors in standing up for themselves and others,” an unsigned letter from Prince Andrew said at the time of the settlement.

Epstein took his own life in August 2019 in a federal lockup in Manhattan as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.

He was accused of luring numerous underage girls to his homes under the guise of giving him massages and then sexually abusing them.

Maxwell, 61, is serving a 20-year prison sentence after she was convicted in December 2021 of helping Epstein recruit and sexually abuse underage girls.

https://nypost.com/2023/12/20/news/jeffrey-epstein-victim-virginia-giuffre-taunts-those-to-be-named-in-unsealed-docs/

Donald Trump’s return could hurt Australia, warn business leaders

Australian business leaders have sounded the alarm about Donald Trump’s economic plan if he returns to the White House.

Tom Minear - December 21, 2023

Exclusive: Australian business leaders have sounded the alarm about Donald Trump’s potential return to power next year, warning his trade plan would smash the economy and betray our alliance.

The former president – who is leading Joe Biden in the polls and could be confirmed as the Republican candidate within weeks – is promising to hit all imports to the US with a universal 10 per cent tariff.

The radical policy would breach Australia’s free trade agreement with the US and harm domestic businesses that exported $30bn in goods and services to our closest ally last year.

Australian Industry Group boss Innes Willox said such a “reckless and indiscriminate act” would be “potentially calamitous for both the international and the American economies”.

“Security allies like Australia, who have a free-trade agreement with the US, would feel especially deeply betrayed if they were caught up in such a short-term, self-centred act of economic harm,” he said.

Business Council of Australia chief executive Bran Black said the tariff plan “would be bad for business and bad for all Australians”.

And Export Council of Australia chair Dianne Tipping said the Australian government needed to be lobbying Mr Trump and his team now to ensure an exemption for Australian businesses, including the meat and technology industries that would be most affected.

With less than a year until the presidential election, Mr Trump has established a clear advantage over Mr Biden in recent polls, with the Wall Street Journal’s latest survey giving him a lead of 47 per cent to 43 per cent in the hypothetical 2020 election rematch.

And while the former president is embroiled in four state and federal criminal cases that could put him in jail, he has also been rolling out a policy agenda that is even more extreme than his first four years in the White House.

Australia managed to secure a rare exemption from Mr Trump’s steel and aluminium tariffs during his presidency. But he is now promising to go further with “a system of universal baseline tariffs” and has said: “I do like the 10 per cent for everybody.”

Mr Willox said American tariffs in 1930 “undoubtedly prolonged the Great Depression”, and that “to repeat this folly would only serve to slow the global economic recovery”.

Ms Tipping agreed, saying it would “undermine all the work that’s been done for 30 years on trade” and would “contravene our free trade agreement”.

“It would be a really backward step for global trade,” she said.

Mr Black added: “One in four Australian jobs depend on trade and having open and transparent markets, including to the United States, is vital to the Australian economy and our economic success as a country.”

While in office, Mr Trump also pulled the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Mr Biden has not moved to rejoin the sweeping trade deal, and the trade pillar of his alternative Indo-Pacific Economic Framework has been hampered by the domestic political backlash.

Australian officials have cautiously criticised America’s trade policies, although Kevin Rudd went further prior to starting as Australia’s US ambassador, saying that the US was “happy to throw some of its allies under a bus” with its protectionist approach.

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/business/companies/donald-trumps-return-could-hurt-australia-warn-business-leaders/news-story/a9d2e532800bd208efc7efa8e32ef00e

>These people are stupid.

>Enjoy the show!

>>20092945

‘Lies, damned lies and CCTV’: Lehrmann’s barrister delivers blistering closing address

Michaela Whitbourn - December 22, 2023

1/3

The barrister acting for former federal Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann says his client’s high-stakes defamation case against Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson is about “lies, damned lies and CCTV”, and the ripple effect of the interview at the centre of the case was profound.

Delivering his closing address to the Federal Court in Sydney on Friday, Lehrmann’s barrister, Steven Whybrow, SC, said a “virus of madness” spread after Ten aired the interview in February 2021 with his client’s former colleague, Brittany Higgins. That virus “seems to have infected the media and the political class”, he said, and led to the rights of his client ceasing to exist.

The interview dropped “like a large stone in a pond”, Whybrow added, with ripples spreading across its surface.

‘Revision of history’

But Wilkinson’s barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, SC, retorted that it was a “revision of history” to lay at the feet of the high-profile journalist and her employer “all of the woes” of Lehrmann, when News Corp had published an interview with Higgins earlier that day.

After a month-long defamation trial, the court heard closing submissions on Friday from Lehrmann’s legal team and a reply from the media parties. Justice Michael Lee will deliver his decision at a later date.

Judge reserves decision

Lee formally reserved his decision on Friday afternoon, prompting Chrysanthou to quip, in a reference to his willingness to sit extended hours: “Really? Your honour’s still got many hours left of light.”

During his closing address, Whybrow re-cast a phrase often attributed to Mark Twain and said the defamation case was about “lies, damned lies, and CCTV”. It involved an examination of lies, he said, namely “who’s telling them and how serious” they were, and CCTV footage of Lehrmann and Higgins at a Canberra bar on March 22, 2019, in the hours before Higgins alleges Lehrmann raped her in Parliament House.

He said CCTV footage could show “anything you want it to, depending on how you present it”, and accused Ten of deploying a “very selective section” of it during the trial.

Asked by Lee about a section of the CCTV footage in which Lehrmann moves three drinks in front of Higgins, Whybrow said it was a “friendly” exchange “rather than some evil against-her-will plying” of her with alcohol.

Ten, who called an expert lip-reader to give evidence in the case, put to Lehrmann that the words he said at this point were “all hers, all hers”. Lehrmann denied uttering those words.

Paraphrasing Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Whybrow said his client had been subjected to a form of “sentence first, trial later”.

Trip to Parliament House

The barristers for Ten and Wilkinson suggested during closing addresses on Thursday that Lee had sufficient evidence to find, at a minimum, that Higgins and Lehrmann had sex in Parliament House in the early hours of Saturday, March 23, 2019.

They argued that in those circumstances Lehrmann should not receive damages because he had persisted in a lie that no sexual activity occurred at all. Higgins has told the court that she woke up while Lehrmann was raping her.

Whybrow said on Friday that neither of the chief protagonists in the case had said in their evidence that they went back to Parliament House for any kind of “amorous activity”. He said that even if they went back to the office with that intention it didn’t mean that it happened.

He said his submissions examining the evidence “will hopefully cause your honour to be able to confidently exclude that Mr Lehrmann raped Ms Higgins, and that Mr Lehrmann had sex at all with Ms Higgins”.

He conceded Ten’s barrister, Dr Matt Collins, KC, had “tied [Lehrmann] … in knots” and “undid him” when he cross-examined him about whether he bought Higgins drinks at Canberra’s The Dock hotel in the hours before the alleged rape, but said this did not translate to his client being a “compulsive liar”.

Whybrow alleged Higgins was not an accurate or reliable historian and had “invented allegations”, while Ten alleged on Thursday that Lehrmann had been “revealed to be a fundamentally dishonest man”. Chrysanthou said on Friday that Higgins had continued to see a rape counsellor “on and off” for two years, which was inconsistent with her fabricating the allegation.

(continued)

>>20114415

2/3

Higgins’ state of undress

Asked by Lee what he was to make of the fact that Higgins was found naked in the office hours after Lehrmann had left, Whybrow said it was a “complex matter” for the judge, and his client’s evidence was that he didn’t know about that and had not checked on her before he left the office.

It was potentially consistent with a range of scenarios, Whybrow said, including some form of intimacy or the expectation of it, or of Higgins feeling sick and removing her dress. He noted that Higgins had subsequently washed her dress, which would have removed what he described as a “lack” of evidence.

He submitted it was incomprehensible that Higgins would wear the dress she wore on the night she alleges she was raped by Lehrmann to a work dinner on May 16, 2019, six weeks after the alleged sexual assault, if that assault had happened. Higgins gave evidence that it was an attempt to “reclaim” the dress, and she never wore it again.

‘Up to no good’

In a question the judge described as deliberately provocative, Lee noted Lehrmann’s girlfriend had called him in the early hours of March 23, and asked: “Unless he was up to no good, why didn’t he ring his girlfriend?”

Whybrow replied that Lehrmann’s evidence was that he had not seen the calls until later, and it was not necessarily the case that one would call back at 2.30am.

‘Phoning a friend’ email

During his closing address, Whybrow pointed to an email Higgins sent Lehrmann on March 26, three days after the alleged assault, in which she asked for help with a work task and said she was “phoning a friend”.

Lee suggested it might be “a tad simplistic” to suggest the email was inconsistent with an assault having taken place. He said examples were “legion” of young women in professional roles dealing with more senior men and needing to “navigate a very tricky path sometimes” to maintain a working relationship when they had been harassed or worse.

Whybrow agreed with those general observations, but said the email had to be seen “in a context”.

Sexual assault charge dropped

Lehrmann’s ACT Supreme Court trial for sexual assault was aborted last year due to juror misconduct. The charge against Lehrmann was later dropped altogether owing to concerns about Higgins’ mental health.

The lawsuit

Lehrmann is suing Ten and Wilkinson over an interview with Higgins, broadcast on The Project on February 15, 2021, that he alleges defames him by suggesting he is guilty of raping Higgins in then defence industry minister Linda Reynolds’ office on March 23, 2019, when they were both working as staffers to the Liberal senator.

Lehrmann not named

Lehrmann was not named in Ten’s interview. A preliminary issue in the case is whether he was identified because of the details provided in the broadcast.

If the court finds Lehrmann was identified in the interview, Ten and Wilkinson are seeking to rely on defences of truth and qualified privilege.

The truth defence

Under the truth defence, Ten must prove on the balance of probabilities that Lehrmann raped Higgins.

While this is less onerous than the criminal standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt, the so-called Briginshaw principle applies in civil cases involving serious allegations and requires courts to proceed cautiously in making grave findings.

Qualified privilege

Qualified privilege relates to publications of public interest and requires a media outlet to show it acted reasonably. Wilkinson’s evidence was directly relevant to that defence.

Matthew Richardson, SC, acting for Lehrmann, said Lee could not be satisfied the media outlet acted reasonably, including in relation to the amount of time it gave to Lehrmann and political figures to respond to Higgins’ allegations, and to put any responses to her before the program aired.

(continued)

>>20114421

3/3

Ex-chief of staff’s call to ASIO

Documents released by the Federal Court on Thursday reveal that Fiona Brown, the former chief of staff to Reynolds, told the court she contacted the ASIO director-general about Lehrmann after he accessed the parliamentary office after hours.

In an affidavit filed in Lehrmann’s defamation case, Brown, who was chief of staff to Reynolds in 2019, said she understood Lehrmann was “keen for a promotion or allocation of ongoing tasks which involved ASIO and security matters”.

But Brown said that ASIO matters were “not relevant to the Defence Industry portfolio”.

She said that when Lehrmann “learnt that the job offer in the Defence Industry Minister’s office was going to be straight Parliamentary and Budget with some policy, he indicated he was not interested in staying on and said he wanted to pursue opportunities in ASIO”.

“At some point, Mr Lehrmann told me he’d had a job interview, or was pursuing work, with ASIO,” Brown said.

The court has heard Lehrmann had decided to leave Reynolds’ staff for a new job when he was instructed on March 26, 2019, to pack up his things after accessing the Parliament House office after hours. His role was formally terminated on April 5 over the security breach.

The court has heard Brown was advised by the Department of Finance on March 26 that Lehrmann and Higgins had entered the office in the early hours of March 23, and Higgins had been found later by a security guard naked and passed out.

Brown said Lehrmann told her she came back to the office to drink whisky.

“I asked ‘What else did you do whilst in the office?’ He said ‘I don’t wish to get into that’,” Brown said in her affidavit.

She said that she contacted the ASIO director-general on about March 27 and “informed him that the Minister had asked me to contact him about Bruce Lehrmann as it was our understanding that Mr Lehrmann was in the process of getting a job with ASIO”.

“Mr [Duncan] Lewis [the then ASIO director-general] told me he did not recall Mr Lehrmann and asked me to spell his name. He advised that he was not aware of him being in the process of getting a job with ASIO.

“I told him that the Minister asked that he consider revocation of his security clearance should Mr Lehrmann ever be looking for a job with ASIO. I subsequently informed the Minister of my conversation with the director-general.” Brown said she told Lewis about the unauthorised after-hours office access and an earlier incident in March in which Lehrmann had left a top secret document on his desk.

She said in her affidavit that after the first incident she was “starting to form the opinion that Mr Lehrmann was too immature to hold such highly classified material”.

Lee asked Whybrow on Friday what he was to make of “silly lies” it appeared Lehrmann told, including about ASIO, and whether it might indicate he was “indifferent to the truth or falsity” of what he said. Whybrow replied that the same might be said of Higgins.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/nsw/reynolds-chief-of-staff-contacted-asio-director-general-about-lehrmann-court-told-20231222-p5et80.html

>>20098526

ASIO director to Labor MP: Pro-Palestine rallies are a ‘pressure release’ on domestic terrorism

ALEXI DEMETRIADI - DECEMBER 22, 2023

1/2

ASIO director-general Mike Burgess advised Labor MP Michelle Ananda-Rajah that Australia’s pro-Palestine rallies served as an important “pressure release” given a “real risk of a terror ­attack”, a letter from the backbencher to a local voter has revealed.

Mr Burgess’s apparent comments and briefing was relayed by the Higgins MP to a Jewish resident who had become concerned about the location of Melbourne’s weekly pro-Palestine rally.

“On the matter of protests, the DG of ASIO, Mike Burgess, ­advised me that these (pro-Palestine rallies) serve as a pressure release, which is valuable given the real risk of a domestic terror attack,” the MP wrote to the voter. “I can live with a protest (provided it is respectful) but not with terrorism.”

A pro-Palestine rally has been held every Sunday outside the State Library Victoria, which is hosting Hebrew scripture exhibition Luminous. The voter wanted to talk to Ms Ananda-Rajah about the location, given herself and fellow members of the Jewish community were concerned about wearing identifiable clothing en route to the exhibition.

An ASIO spokeswoman ­declined to comment on Mr Burgess’s advice given the “sensitive” and confidential nature of all briefings given by the director-general.

“At the commonwealth, state and territory level, ASIO provides briefings on a range of intelligence matters to political leaders, ministers, senior staffers, parliamentary officials, security officers and other relevant parties,” the spokeswoman said. “The details of those discussions are sensitive, and it would be inappropriate to comment further.”

Dr Ananda-Rajah didn’t comment specifically on Mr Burgess’s advice, or why she had disclosed “sensitive” ASIO intelligence to a voter. She did tell The Weekend Australian, however, that social cohesion was “our most valuable national asset”.

“Our government is working with our intelligence agencies to ensure that violence overseas does not precipitate violence in Australia,” she said, referring further questions to the Home ­Affairs Department.

It is understood that Dr ­Ananda-Rajah has been a “staunch friend” of the Jewish community, recently returning from a “solidarity mission” to ­Israel. In her email to the Jewish voter, she also condemned Hamas and said that Israel unilaterally laying down its arms would “underwrite its destruction”.

Organisers at the Palestine Action Group, who leads Sydney rallies, were contacted for reaction to the “pressure release” comments, as was Melbourne’s Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network. Free Palestine Melbourne, which organises that city’s rallies, was contacted.

The news that Australia’s ­security organisations view the pro-Palestine rallies as a necessary “pressure release” was met with condemnation and questions about the likelihood of a ­terror attack. Strategic Analysis Australia director Peter Jennings – speaking broadly on the whole-government approach to the pro-Palestine rallies and domestic radicalism – questioned whether the authorities’ “light-handed” approach had worked.

“For more than a decade the dominant thinking on how to deal with radicalism in Australia has been light-handed,” he said, arguing it was time authorities stopped “walking on eggshells”.

“Our major cities now have these ugly rallies, of which, at the fringes, there is clearly extremist ideology,” he said. “We haven’t done so well out of that. We have firebrand preachers and more visible signs of aggression taking place at these rallies.”

Mr Jennings said it was “time we asked the question” whether authorities should be tougher on dealing with radicalism.

“MPs and police seem to be ­almost fearful of them (the ­rallies),” he said.

“Creating a community (at the rallies) where you can get together and embolden each other’s radicalism is not a good thing either.”

(continued)

>>20114518

2/2

NSW upper house deputy president Rod Roberts – a 20-year police officer before becoming a MP – asked what security agencies were doing.

“If there is a threat, and they’re aware of it, what are they doing about it,” he asked. “If they have intelligence of a credible and heightened risk of domestic terrorism, they should bring that ­information forward.”

The voter – speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of harassment – said Dr Ananda-Rajah’s comments showed it was the Jewish community that would have to “shoulder the burden” and accept “feeling less safe”.

“Jews shouldn’t have to ask themselves ‘is it safe to wear a ­kippah or a Magen David pendant as I walk through this rally,” she said. “We shouldn’t have to navigate around the city because certain places are hostile to Jews … nor expected to cloister ourselves.”

The Jewish constituent said she “respected the right to protest”, but asked why the rally had to be outside the library, “directly next to a Hebrew exhibition Jews want to go to”.

“It tells us we don’t belong in the public sphere,” she said. “It’s … insulting to the people at the rally, that they ­require a ‘pressure ­release’. How little do they think of us all?”

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Peter Wertheim said viewing rallies as a “pressure release” was a “misguided approach”.

“Although peaceful protests are a cherished right, a boundary is crossed when demonstrations become regular occasions for hate speech and incitement against any section of the community to try to intimidate it into silence or force it to change its behaviour,” he said.

“It’s intolerable that members of the Jewish community cannot visit their places of worship in peace or enjoy life in the wider community without being confronted by expressions of hatred.

“Tolerance for such behaviour … in the hope that it will serve as a pressure release against terrorism would be an astonishingly misguided approach.

“It would give licence to the development of social divisions, which ultimately limit everybody’s rights and freedoms. This is completely alien to our way of life, and would negate any supposed safety valve effect.”

Mr Burgess has commented on the rallies and domestic tensions since the outbreak of the war. “ASIO is not interested in those who are engaged in lawful protest, but rather the small subset of protesters who may wish to escalate protest to violence,” he said at October’s budget estimates, adding that Australia’s terrorism threat level remained at “possible”.

“ASIO has previously seen ­direct connections between inflamed language and inflamed community tensions … (we) will continue to monitor emerging trends, drivers and shifts in the threat environment.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/asio-director-to-labor-mp-propalestine-rallies-are-a-pressure-release-on-domestic-terrorism/news-story/eb6af0ded9589ae837b4f906abf64ca5

>>19897955 (pb)

Security agencies mobilise to stem attack on operator of 10 hospitals and 26 aged-care facilities

SARAH ISON, JOSEPH LAM and DAVID MURRAY - DECEMBER 22, 2023

Cyber criminals have hacked into one of Australia’s biggest health networks, stealing data in an attack that has set off alarm bells across the nation.

The federal government’s cyber security defence capabilities have joined forces to contain and investigate the extent of the breach at St Vincent’s, operator of 10 hospitals and 26 aged-care facilities in NSW, Queensland and Victoria.

It’s the latest in a series of major cyber attacks over the past 18 months that have led to tens of millions of people having their records stolen or data compromised from organisations including Medibank, Optus and Latitude Financial.

St Vincent’s confirmed on Friday it was the target of a cyber security breach which it had first detected and begun responding to on Tuesday.

Initial investigations led to the health network on Thursday discovering data had been removed from its systems.

“St Vincent’s is working to determine what data has been removed,” a spokesman for the organisation, which employs 30,000 people across the country, said on Friday.

Two sources close to the investigation said there had been no communication from the criminals as of Friday afternoon.

The healthcare sector globally has been the target of malware attacks that lock down an organisation’s data until a ransom is paid, severely impacting services and posing a direct threat to patient safety.

St Vincent’s has instead been the victim of theft, leaving services functioning normally.

“It’s a really small amount of information at the moment. There’s been no ransomware deployed in the system,” one source said.

However investigators were still seeking to confirm if more data was stolen, how long the cyber criminals were in the system and what else they did while they had access, along with trying to determine who was behind the attack.

Shortly after the St Vincent’s statement, Acting National Cyber Security Co-ordinator Hamish Hansford confirmed he was working with the health network, alongside the National Office of Cyber Security and the Australian Signals Directorate to contain the breach and investigate possible damage.

“My team is working with Services Australia, the Department of Health and Aged Care, and relevant state and territory agencies to ensure a co-ordinated government response to this incident and to mitigate any flow-on effects,” Mr Hansford said.

“We’re advised that this incident has not affected the ability of St Vincent’s to deliver their important services to patients, residents, and the broader community across their hospital, aged care, and virtual and home health networks.”

A hospital spokesman said an investigation was underway as was an action plan with “key activities (which) include securing and containing the incident, understanding what the cyber criminals have done, and identifying what data may have been accessed and stolen”.

The St Vincent’s breach arrives just one month after a cyber attack on a multinational logistics operator which controls four Australian ports responsible for 40 per cent of the nation’s exports.

The breach on the Australian arm of Dubai-based DP World on November 10 shut down the company’s ports in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, and resulted in a backload of 30,000 containers.

The breach at the time sparked major concerns over the ability for imports to reach Australian shelves in time for Christmas.

It was later revealed the personal details of former and current staff were stolen by a hacker.

A St Vincent’s spokesman said the hospital network was still able to function despite early mitigation efforts to contain the breach.

“Our priority is the health and safety of our patients, residents, and our people, and the continuity of St Vincent’s services for the community,” he said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/security-agencies-mobilise-to-stem-attack-on-operator-of-10-hospitals-and-26-agedcare-facilities/news-story/7270d2c75b3952a1c0a786c99c0c985a

>>20114582

2/2

However, it was a recent photo of Nahas with his arm around an alleged high-ranking Alameddine figure that led to questions being asked in NSW Parliament in September 2022.

A parliamentary committee asked Police Commissioner Karen Webb, her deputy Dave Hudson and the Crime Commission’s Peter Bodor, QC, about the photo that featured several high-ranking associates of the Alameddine crime family with Andy Nahas.

The photo published in the Herald and shown in parliament accompanied an August 2021 Rolling Stone article featuring rapper Ay Huncho, whose real name is Ali Younes, an associate of the Alameddines. This year Younes, 26, pleaded guilty and was fined over charges of affray, recklessly causing grievous bodily harm in company and assault with intent to participate in the activity of a criminal group.

Some of the other mates of the rapper in the photo also have connections with the Alameddines, including one of Australia’s most wanted fugitives, Masood Zakaria, who was recently extradited from Turkey in relation to a commercial drug supply and conspiracy to murder a member of the Hamze family, with whom the Alameddines have been waging a deadly war.

Parliament heard that Zakaria’s company Zak Services is a shareholder in Alpha Omega Enterprises, a labour hire firm that has worked for Coronation.

Other people in the photo are Stephen Bou-Abbse, who police are seeking over a non-association order with alleged crime figure Mohamad “Almo” Alameddine; Joseph Vokai, currently charged with conspiracy to commit murder and knowingly directing the criminal activities of a criminal group; and John Ray Bayssari, charged with drug supply, dealing with proceeds of crime and participating in a criminal group.

Asked whether he was concerned about any connection between Coronation and these people, Deputy Commissioner Hudson replied: “I am concerned about any people or any organisation that that particular group is associated with.”

After viewing the photo in which Nahas was featured, Bodor and Hudson assured the hearing their organisations would investigate further.

There is no suggestion that any member of the Nahas family nor Barilaro had any knowledge of or involvement in the arson attack on Shanks’ Bondi rental property which suffered significant damage when firebombed in November 2022.

The YouTuber was not home at the time. There had been another attempt to firebomb the same house the previous week.

Tauese-Auelua did not apply for bail. The matter will return to court on January 30.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/nsw/alameddine-crime-family-associate-charged-over-friendlyjordies-firebombing-20231220-p5esue.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXFMfDykPSs

>>20098476

Paedophile ex-teacher who dodged jail in Australia now running B&B in Aberdeen

Gary Bloom, who was convicted in a court on the other side of the world, avoided a jail sentence for three charges of indecent assault when he worked as a teacher

Sally Hind - 22 DEC 2023

A convicted child abuser and ex-teacher who avoided a prison sentence in Australia is now running a B&B in Aberdeen.

Convicted child abuser Gary Bloom, 58, sparked fury when he walked free from court in Victoria, south-east Australia, with a three-year suspended sentence after pleading guilty to three charges of indecent assault.

The geologist, who has worked for oil companies such as Shell, was allowed by Aussie authorities to return to Aberdeen, where he was traced by the Daily Record to a bed and breakfast in the city centre.

His victim, who was 10 at the time of the attack, has told of his horror at watching Bloom evade justice, and said he now has “unfettered access to children in Scotland”.

Reacting to the sentence, 49-year-old said: “I wanted to scream out but couldn’t. I’d poured petrol on myself and basically set my life on fire all to watch him walk from court. I felt like nothing more than a file number. Is this what the community expects? Child sexual offenders spending no time in jail?”

Bloom was working as a teacher at Sacred Heart Primary School in Diamond Creek, Melbourne, in 1985 and also as a swimming coach when he began visiting a paddock, which was used by children, near his victim’s home. The County Court of Victoria heard Bloom wasn’t the boy’s teacher at the time but visited the area almost every second day and regularly approached children and spoke to them.

Prosecutor Emma Fargher said Bloom approached his victim one day in 1985 and asked him to follow him to an area on the other side of some thick trees, where he was abused. The prosecutor said: “Mr Bloom told the victim that he would find out if he told anyone and that he would get angry.”

In an emotional impact statement read to the court, the victim said: “I kept your secret hidden from almost everyone. I didn’t know how to reclaim my voice, so I stayed quiet. In those moments, you stole my voice, my sound, the air, my sense of self.”

The court heard Bloom had written a letter of apology to his victim and denied that his behaviour was predatory. But a judge rubbished his claims, saying he “ingratiated” himself with a group of young kids before engaging in “clearly unwanted sexual conduct” with the boy. The court heard Bloom had relocated to Scotland from Melbourne in the 90s.

Judge Robyn Harper told him: “You were not exploring your sexuality, you were sexually assaulting a child some 10 years younger than yourself in a devious and opportunistic way.”

The victim finally summoned the strength to report the abuse to police in 2019, by which time Bloom was living overseas. He was charged and released on bail during a trip back to Australia in December 2021. His victim spoke out in the Australian media because he wants to see law changes to stop historical child sex abuse offenders receiving wholly suspended jail sentences.

He also believes convicted child molesters should be prevented from leaving Australia without notifying police overseas of the risks to communities.

When the Record approached Bloom at his B&B, a woman said he didn’t want to speak to us. She added: “He has been advised by his lawyer to say, ‘No comment’.”

https://www.aberdeenlive.news/news/paedophile-ex-teacher-who-dodged-8992704

‘Moving towards violence’: Authorities alert to radicalised sovereign citizens

Clare Sibthorpe - December 22, 2023

1/2

The Australian Federal Police have revealed they’re targeting sovereign citizen groups who pose a risk of violence, while experts on anti-government extremists warn the threat must be balanced with the sensitive handling of mental health.

Sovereign citizens generally believe every human is born “free”, the government is illegitimate or corrupt, and they do not have to follow laws unless they sign a contract. There are fears some have become increasingly radicalised due to spending more time online since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Acting Assistant Commissioner of the AFP’s Counter Terrorism and Special Investigations Command, Stephen Nutt, told the Herald the movement has recently been seen to “co-opt or overlap with patriot movements, conspiracy theories, anti-authoritarian and ethno-nationalist perspectives and the far-right”.

He said the pandemic led to people spending more time online and showing “increasing susceptibility to conspiracy theories due to the time of crisis and hardening of consensus ‘radical’ perspectives”.

Nutt said the AFP, alongside its domestic and international partners, were focused on “groups that may seek to breach legislation and move towards violence in support of any ideation”, adding the AFP’s Joint Counter Terrorism Team members were required to undergo training to understand and combat the threats of sovereign citizens.

The AFP’s Counter Terrorism Command and subsequent Joint Counter Terrorism teams were set up in 2002 in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and 2002 Bali Bombings.

Two academics echoed Nutts’ concerns, fearing a perfect storm of isolated people, heavy social media use, an aggrievement towards society and underlying mental health issues could lead to more sovereign citizens harming themselves or others.

But they warned heavy-handed law enforcement was often deployed when it was too late – and there should be a stronger focus on preventing the radicalisation of people with mental health issues.

While sovereign citizens are far from new, Law Professor Harry Hobbs from the University of Technology Sydney said the pandemic accelerated their influence as they learnt how to integrate their anti-government ideologies into the topic of the day.

“Lately, they’ve shifted their focus away from anti-vax (sentiment) towards the referendum and how the Voice was apparently a backdoor for the UN (United Nations) to come in and steal Australian land,” Hobbs said.

“A lot of them claim they’re non-violent and peaceful, but obviously, they advocate for a lot of hate and division. They’ve internalised the view that they’re allowed to do whatever they want, which can be a trigger for violent behaviours.”

High-profile sovereign citizens have publicly called for politicians and health workers to be hanged for their work during the pandemic, such as former SAS soldier turned right-wing extremist, Riccardo Bosi.

Bosi led the unregistered AustraliaOne Party (A1) when he unsuccessfully stood in the western Sydney seat of Greenway at the 2022 federal election. Several of his claims have been debunked by AAP FactCheck, including over the legality of the Australian election, COVID-19 vaccines, former prime minister Scott Morrison and the war in Ukraine.

Fellow conspiracy theorist, Darren Bergwerf, has also run for the A1 party. Bergwerf founded the anti-vax group, MyPlace, and spoke on the ABC’s 7.30 program of a plan of MyPlace members to take “control of council decisions”.

The Herald does not suggest Bosi or Bergwerf are linked to the groups police are monitoring.

According to Hobbs, a collective bid to overthrow or attack law enforcement was not the “real risk” – he was more concerned with an increase in “individual acts of violence” from people being radicalised online.

“There are echo chambers, rabbit holes and nebulous algorithms where people get increasingly promoted by extreme positions,” he said.

“They’re frustrated and isolated, may have underlying mental health challenges, and there’s perhaps something that triggers them. They can become violent, and they can do real damage to themselves and to people around them, particularly police”.

(continued)

>>20114699

2/2

Where mental health was a concern, Hobbs said police should not go in “all guns blazing” to a distressed sovereign citizen making threats.

But he acknowledged that “when someone has an axe or gun in the back of their house, it can be hard to send in mental health people”.

“People don’t go from zero to 100 in one day, right? They get put on a path, and they’re gradually radicalised,” he said.

“There are earlier stages where mental health support programs can be helpful to get people off that path, much earlier than when they’re armed.”

Independent researcher into far-right extremism and conspiracy theories, Dr Kaz Ross, said any group refusing to acknowledge the law could be dangerous.

But, like Prof Hobbs, she feared the threat was not from groups “roaming around wearing sheriff badges and talking about citizen arrests”, but was from people “finding these movements online who may have mental health issues” and access to weapons.

How to combat these threats sensitively was a challenge, Ross said.

Through her research, she found the “over-policing” of certain sieges had contributed to deaths or serious injury.

“I think that’s another danger. People just hear the word ‘sovereign citizen’ and think, ‘Oh my God, that nut job with a gun’, and immediately go for them with full force,” she said.

Recent cases with sovereign citizen links

While statistics around deadly tragedies linked to sovereign citizens are scarce, there have been several troubling incidents in NSW alone this year.

In July, 29-year-old Daniel Whelan had suspected links to the sovereign citizen movement when he fired a gun at heavily armed police during a siege in Lithgow, before turning the weapon on himself.

Footage showed his partner surrendering in front of a flag bearing imagery from anti-government fringe political movements as the stand-off came to a grim end.

Two months later, Newcastle woman Krista Kach referenced herself as a “sovereign being” in a livestream video as she barricaded herself inside her house while armed with an axe. She died after being Tasered and shot with bean bag rounds by police.

Kach had significant mental health issues at the time, and the Herald revealed a specialised program which sees mental health experts help NSW Police manage people in distress only operates 9am-5pm and does not run in Newcastle, where Ms Kach lived.

Kach’s family said she was not a dangerous person and that she was distressed as a result of being told she was to be evicted from her home.

One of the most notable incidents outside the state was in December last year, when two police officers were murdered, and a third injured, at a shooting involving Nathaniel Train, Gareth Train, and his wife Stacey (also Nathaniel’s ex-wife) in a premeditated attack on their remote Queensland property, before posting a chilling YouTube Video. Police believe they were connected to the sovereign citizen movement.

A wide spectrum of people are linked to the movement and the Herald does not suggest they are all dangerous or violent.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/moving-towards-violence-authorities-alert-to-radicalised-sovereign-citizens-20231116-p5ekh0.html

>>20092945

David Sharaz: the witness who never appeared

Where was Sharaz when Lisa Wilkinson was fighting for her professional life in court? The evidence of the man dubbed ‘puppet master’ by Bruce Lehrmann would have been relevant.

STEPHEN RICE - December 23, 2023

1/3

As we take stock of the Lehrmann defamation trial, it’s worth casting an eye over the performance of the key players whose role will be central to Justice Michael Lee’s decision – with sharpest focus on the witness who never appeared.

Where was David Sharaz when Lisa Wilkinson was fighting for her professional life these past few weeks? Not in court, that’s for sure. Outside, yes: arriving every morning with his fiancee, Brittany Higgins, when she was giving evidence, deferentially a step behind but always in shot for the waiting photographers.

Then, gone from the building. But not from the narrative that slowly emerged in Lee’s courtroom: of a man who wasn’t in Higgins’s life when she allegedly was raped by Bruce Lehrmann in 2019 but who quickly become a central character in the events that followed.

Perhaps gone for good now, jetted off with Higgins on Monday to start a new life in the house she has bought in the south of France, just a year after her $2.4m payout from the Albanese government.

Lee, now considering his verdict in the defamation case Lehrmann brought against Wilkinson and Network Ten, clearly was irked that Sharaz – whose shadow loomed ever larger over the trial as it progressed – would not be giving evidence.

Ten told Lee it wouldn’t be calling Sharaz because he and Higgins met more than a year after the alleged rape. That might have been fair enough if the defamation case had been entirely about the events of that night, and not about Higgins’s much later claims to have been mistreated by her Liberal Party bosses. But those allegations – which seemed to coincide with Sharaz’s arrival on the scene – are central to the case.

The evidence of the man Lehrmann calls “the puppet master” would have been particularly relevant because he is the nexus between two very different alleged political conspiracies that have swirled in the undercurrent of the trial.

One was the claim aggressively pushed by Sharaz, that Higgins’s alleged rape was covered up by Liberal minister Linda Reynolds and her chief of staff Fiona Brown for their own political convenience, in the run-up to a tight federal election.

That was also the clear suggestion made in The Project interview and by Wilkinson and her producer Angus Llewellyn giving evidence in the defamation case – despite furious attempts by both their counsel to backtrack from it late in the proceedings.

The conspiracy theory was completely debunked by the Sofronoff inquiry, queried by Lee himself in a series of acerbic questions to Wilkinson and Llewellyn, and finally withdrawn by Wilkinson’s counsel, Sue Chrysanthou SC, from submission in the defamation trial.

The other allegation of political interference that has hovered on the edges of the defamation trial involves evidence that it was Sharaz himself who introduced Higgins to the then Labor opposition in a bid to weaponise her rape allegations against the Morrison government.

There’s hard proof of that, some of it revealed by The Australian in leaked text exchanges that show Sharaz’s close involvement in negotiating the public airing of Higgins’s story on The Project.

Sharaz was there when Higgins decided to tell her story in the media before telling it to the police, offering the scoop to Wilkinson, whom he’d met as the work experience kid at the Today show.

Sharaz was there when Higgins gave her first recorded police interview in March 2021, entering the room during a rest break according to senior Australian Federal Police constable Emma Frizzell in the Sofronoff inquiry. Sharaz then “without concern for Ms Higgins’ welfare, commenced showing and discussing media coverage to Ms Higgins”.

“I believe the level of media involvement did affect the conduct of the investigation of Ms Higgins’ complaint,” Frizzell said. “I believe it was a tool driven by Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz, which is evident by the first engagement I had with them, whereby Ms Higgins advised she wished to see how the media played out prior to providing a statement.”

(continued)

>>20119265

2/3

Sharaz was on the phone to the AFP again later to let them know if they didn’t charge Lehrmann soon, Higgins would be going straight back to the media. That worked a charm – Lehrmann was charged within hours.

Sharaz was there at a five-hour meeting between Higgins, Wilkinson and Llewellyn in 2021 workshopping which “friendly” Labor politicians would push the story and put the Morrison government under pressure.

Sharaz was there in the vast tranche of previously unseen text messages, revealed by The Australian, boasting of his close relationship with Labor senator Katy Gallagher, now Finance Minister, as well as his moves to set up meetings between Higgins and Anthony Albanese, Tanya Plibersek and Malcolm Turnbull as well as other “Brittany Higgins fans” in Canberra.

But Sharaz was nowhere to be seen at the defamation trial after each morning’s photo op.

“You’re not calling him?” Lee asked sharply, with no attempt to hide his annoyance about the absence of the man whose fingerprints could be found on almost every suggestion of a cover-up of the alleged rape.

Now that those claims have been discredited or withdrawn – some of them thanks to well-aimed questions by Lee himself – the judge is entitled to be disappointed he didn’t get the chance to elicit an explanation from the man himself. And he is entitled to draw inferences about how Sharaz’s evidence might have affected the case. Not to mention the influence Sharaz exerted over Higgins.

“Would you accept that you have to be especially careful that people in a state of vulnerability are not being manipulated?” Lee asked Wilkinson.

When the TV presenter agreed, Lee reminded her that her producer, Llewellyn, had been using Sharaz as a conduit to communicate with Higgins.

“Do you think it was a good idea to use someone like Mr Sharaz as a conduit rather than deal with Ms Higgins directly?” he asked.

“My preference was for Ms Higgins to be the main conduit,” Wilkinson replied.

Lee asked Wilkinson if she considered herself a good friend of Sharaz, noting he had signed off an email with “much love, David”. Wilkinson said she hadn’t noticed at the time but indeed thought it was “odd” – and wouldn’t describe Sharaz as “a good friend”.

By the end of her two days in the witness box Wilkinson appeared so keen to disassociate herself from Sharaz she ignored orders from her own counsel to be quiet.

Wilkinson: Can I just add a significant fact?

Chrysanthou: No.

Wilkinson: Yes.

Chrysanthou: No. Thank you, your honour.

Wilkinson: You will be happy with this.

Chrysanthou: No.

Lee: Thank you … ?

Wilkinson: … I had only ever met him …

Chrysanthou: No, no, no. No, no, no, Ms … no.

Lee: Ms Wilkinson … ?

Wilkinson: … once in my life.

Now Ten has hit full reverse-thrust on any suggestion that The Project alleged a cover-up, despite its multiple claims that Reynolds and Brown had failed to help a young staffer who had just told them she’d been raped in the minister’s office, a remarkable back-flip that raised Lee’s eyebrows.

“(Llewellyn) is receiving information on background which is highly material to a serious allegation made against a minister of the crown … that on any view would amount to a criminal cover-up of a rape allegation, wouldn’t it?” Lee asked.

“I know Ms Wilkinson gave evidence that it was her subjective belief but the program says nothing of the sort,” replied Ten’s counsel, Matthew Collins SC.

Lee pointed out that The Project had claimed Reynolds and Brown “were engaged in requiring a woman to choose between her career and the pursuit of justice”, which “means that they were putting up, to use the words of the program, putting up a roadblock between someone seeking to vindicate their proper ability to seek justice”.

Collins argued that neither Brown nor Reynolds were mentioned in that opening sequence. Lee will make of that response what he will. He spent much time with Higgins trying to separate her “feelings” about her interactions with Brown and Reynolds from what they actually said that might have constituted untoward pressure or a threat.

He did the same with Wilkinson, trying to understand where her “intuition” finished and actual evidence of roadblocks began.

(continued)

>>20119272

3/3

This week, Chrysanthou conceded that despite the oft-repeated claims of her client during the trial, she would not be making any submission that Brown was “a knowing partipant in a systemic cover-up of rape”. She argued that Wilkinson had a “very limited” role as a decision-maker in The Project interview.

Lee pointed out that it was Wilkinson who had “immediately characterised” the story “through the prism of the obstruction allegation”.

Chrysanthou: “My client had very strong views and beliefs as to what should be included. And she had strong beliefs about the conduct of certain players in the affair. But ultimately it looks at what was actually published, not what was said in text messages.

“The word cover-up is not there. Systemic cover-up is not there,” she added.

Lee: “I just really do find that a very difficult construction of what went to air … when it’s introduced in the way it’s introduced, the reference to roadblocks, the whole piece is pregnant with the notion that there were people … who engaged in a course of conduct to prevent her from reporting this allegation to police.”

Lee made it clear during closing submissions this week that he thought both Higgins and Lehrmann had “real credit issues” and that parts of their evidence could not be accepted. That won’t come as a surprise to any of the tens of thousands of people who’ve watched the case unfold on the court’s live stream of the case.

Whatever conclusion Lee comes to over the truth or otherwise of the claim that Lehrmann raped Higgins, this trial could mark a significant step in the path back to rational thinking by government, the courts and the media.

The arc of stupidity that is the Higgins-Lehrmann saga reached its zenith early in the piece when Scott Morrison rose to his feet in parliament and issued an apology – on behalf of us all – to Higgins for a crime that had not yet been proven. We can quibble about this, of course. The saga could equally be argued to have hit peak lunacy late last year with the decision of the Albanese government to award Higgins $2.4m in compensation for a crime that had still not been proven – on evidence provided solely by the complainant.

However, in either case it was the nation’s leaders who through cowardice or connivance allowed a serious allegation that required a level-headed investigation to be sacrificed to base political considerations.

Morrison, under intense pressure from Labor and the nascent #MeToo movement to act on Higgins’s rape claims, lamented “the terrible things that took place here” – throwing his own ministerial colleagues and staff under the bus and instantly fanning the flames of the wildfire he hoped to extinguish.

We don’t yet know the circumstance in which the Labor government – the same crowd that weaponised Higgins’s claims for its own benefit in opposition – threw such a huge amount of taxpayer money at her.

An investigation of the payout by the National Anti-Corruption Commission – if a referral by Reynolds is accepted – might shed light on the one-day mediation that preceded the payout, excluding all contrary evidence. It would signal a return to the kind of clear-eyed decision-making about matters of public importance that we once expected of all our institutions of state. And, ideally, it would hear from all the key witnesses – especially the ones in the shadows.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/david-sharaz-the-witness-who-never-appeared/news-story/15e1eb96694814f9e67649efe05a46c3

>>20108504

Usman Khawaja denied permission by ICC to display humanitarian logo at Boxing Day Test

PETER LALOR - DECEMBER 24, 2023

Usman Khawaja has been denied permission to place a peace symbol and reference to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on his bat for the Boxing Day Test but wore the sticker at training on Sunday.

The opener who was banned from wearing the words “freedom is a human right” and “all lives are equal” on his bat in the Perth match after his plans were revealed by The Australian is understood to be frustrated that attempts at a compromise have been rejected.

Khawaja had multiple meetings with his bosses at Cricket Australia to find a wording that would be appropriate to the local and international cricket authorities.

He compromised and came up with a dove peace symbol and reference to the first article of the UDHR after being told his initial words were inflammatory.

Khawaja had the sticker on his bat at training at the MCG on Sunday but has been told he cannot use it in the Test.

Article One of the UDHR states: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”.

Khawaja has already been sanctioned for wearing a black armband in the Perth Test.

Khawaja said he went to great lengths to keep religion out of the statements on his shoes and emphasised his despair at watching the number of children killed in the conflict.

“I don’t have any agendas other than trying to shine a light on what I feel really passionately, really strongly about. I’m trying to do it in the most respectful way as possible,” Khawaja said.

“What I wrote on my shoes I thought about carefully, I made sure that I didn’t want to segregate different parts of the population, religious beliefs, communities. Hence why I’ve kept religion out of this. I want it to be really broad over my speaking because I am talking about humanitarian issues.

“I’m talking about Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That is literally the crux of it.

“The reason I’m doing it is because it hit me hard. I told Nick (Hockley) this morning that when I’m looking at my Instagram and I’m seeing kids, innocent kids, videos of them dying, passing away, that’s what’s hit me the hardest. I just imagine my young daughter in my arms and the same thing. I get emotional talking about it right now again. And for me that’s the reason I’m doing this, I don’t have any agendas. I don’t get anything out of this I just feel it is my responsibility to speak up on this.”

Khawaja argued that other players, including Marnus Labuschagne who has a biblical reference, and Indian players who have Hindu symbols on their bats are in breach of regulations but the ICC turns a blind eye.

Michael Holding, one of the game’s great bowlers and most respected commentators, found his voice during the Black Lives Matter protests and won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year prize for his book Why We Kneel How We Rise.

The West Indian great is scathing of cricket’s hand-wringing over the Khawaja issue which he is monitoring from his home.

“I’ve been following the Khawaja fiasco and I cannot say I’m surprised by the ICC stance,” he told The Weekend Australian. “If had been most other organisations that showed some semblance of consistency with their attitude and behaviour on issues I could claim surprise, but not them.

“Once again they show their hypocrisy and lack of moral standing as an organisation.

“The ICC regulations say re messaging ‘Approval shall not be granted for messages which relate to political, religious or racial activities or causes’. So how the f..k people were allowed to take the knee for BLM and stumps were covered with LGBTQ colours???”

Khawaja has had the full support of his teammates during the wrestle with cricket authorities with captain Pat Cummins asking how people could be offended by the sentiments on his shoes.

“His shoes had ‘all lives are equal’, I don’t think that’s very divisive, I don’t think anyone can have too many complaints to that,” he said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/cricket/usman-khawaja-denied-by-icc-to-continue-human-rights-message/news-story/a79c9c1516461fd601daa175a2fa1106

https://twitter.com/Uz_Khawaja/status/1736680713657999851

>>20098526

>>20103721

>>20108499

Pro-Palestine activists target ABC office amid Antoinette Lattouf sacking

TILEAH DOBSON - DECEMBER 24, 2023

The ABC Radio’s office in Perth has been the target of vandalism by pro-Palestinian supporters, in response to the national broadcaster’s decision to fire Antoinette Lattouf earlier this week.

Ms Lattouf was meant to be a fill-in host for one of the network’s most coveted radio spots on ABC Sydney, but was axed after three shows for her anti-Israel social media posts.

A slew of complaints about Ms Lattouf’s content from the Jewish community had reached ABC chairwoman Ita Buttrose.

Lattouf has repeatedly refuted the legitimacy of the “gas the Jews” footage from Sydney’s Opera House and posted numerous video on her social media accounts including X, formerly Twitter, Instagram and TikTok about this. She has also accused Israeli forces of committing rape.

It was reported on Friday she had lodged a Fair Work application claiming she was unlawfully terminated from her employment.

In the video obtained by The Australian, its message calls out the ABC’s actions as “censorship” and that it’s “an affront to the very idea of journalistic integrity”.

“Direct action was taken against the ABC Radio office in Boorloo/Perth to protest [the] unjust firing of Antoinette Lattouf over her factual reporting of the Israeli genocide against the people of Palestine.”

“This act of censorship by the ABC management is an affront to the very idea of journalistic integrity. While the ABC cower in the face of external pressure, 100 journalists have been killed while reporting on the genocide being committed by the state of Israel.”

In the video, an individual covered in a white scarf covers over the ABC Radio logo and proceeds to graffiti the words ‘Boycott’, ‘Justice for Antoinette’ and ‘Free Palestine’.

When contacted, WA Police confirmed the incident had not yet been reported.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/propalestine-activists-target-abc-office-amid-antoinette-lattouf-sacking/news-story/bb22e0ebc62065b4a09c1bba03b00c6b

>>20098526

Jessica Westcott Tweet

Free Palestine Activists at #carolsbycandlelight in Melbourne

https://twitter.com/JessicaWestcot8/status/1738852950888571362

>>20098526

>>20123786

Carols by Candlelight interrupted by pro-Palestine protesters in Melbourne

AISLING BRENNAN and ELI GREEN - DECEMBER 25, 2023

The actions of a pro-Palestine protester who disrupted Carols by Candle light in Melbourne have been condemned by Jewish leaders who are concerned that “guerilla type tactics” will be used at New Years celebrations.

Victoria Police have arrested the 21-year-old Brunswick woman and issued her with an infringement notice for carrying a controlled weapon while a second person was moved on by police.

On Christmas Eve, children performing at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl stage were rushed to safety after several protesters carrying Palestine flags descended out of nowhere to interrupt the show.

The Channel 9 cameras were filming hosts David Campbell and Sarah Abo when the incident unfolded during the live broadcast.

The protest was an attempt to “destroy our sense of security” according to Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dr Dvir Abramovich.

“These guerrilla type tactics are spiralling out of control and I’m sure that a most Victorians would have been rattled and shocked to the core to see these tactics of intimidation unfolding in front of children and parents,” he said.

“Carols by Candlelight was once a safe place for families to celebrate the beauty Christmas , but no more, as this tornado of prejudice is destroying our sense of security.”

The crowd was heard applauding as the kids returned to the stage and the show continued.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin condemned the disruption on Sunday.

“You can always count on anti-Israel extremists to make everything about them and to appall decent, ordinary people,” Mr Ryvchin said.

“The chorus of boos tells them loud and clear they’re not wanted.”

Another two protesters were denied entry to the event according to a statement from Victoria Police.

One protester even tried to grab the microphone from Mr Campbell, managing to say “while you’re carolling, kids are dying in Gaza” before the audio was cut.

Mr Campbell interrupted his scripted dialogue when he realised the commotion on stage wasn’t part of the show.

“Hang on one second,” he said.

“Nice and easy.”

The singer tried to keep the crowd calm and informed as security guards removed the protesters from the stage.

“It’s all good, thank you everybody, everyone’s allowed to have their moment,” Mr Campbell said.

“The kids are safe, and they’re going to come back out.

“It’s important to come together on a night like this too when there’s a lot of pain out there and a lot of people are experiencing it.”

His co-host thanked the crew for their quick action in removing the protesters safely.

“It is the climate, we are in Melbourne,” Ms Abo said.

“Incredible work here by the team as well.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/carols-by-candlelight-interrupted-by-propalestine-protesters-in-melbourne/news-story/f092a804f06002e4cf65864d1278c829

>>20098526

>>20123786

Security to be reviewed after pro-Palestinian protesters interrupt Carols by Candlelight

Shelby Garlick and Alex Crowe - December 25, 2023

Security at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl will be reviewed after pro-Palestinian protesters stormed the stage during a live broadcast of Carols by Candlelight on Sunday night.

Children were rushed off the stage as two protesters ran across it waving Palestinian flags about 8pm.

A 21-year-old woman from Brunswick was arrested and police moved on a second person following the Christmas Eve demonstration.

An Arts Centre Melbourne spokesperson said on Monday that everyone had the right to protest peacefully “but not at the expense of the safety of others”.

The spokesperson said the incident was being managed by police and it would be inappropriate to comment further. However, it is standard practice to review arrangements after a security breach.

Police said the arrested Brunswick woman had been issued with an infringement notice for possession of a controlled weapon. They did not provide details on the type of weapon the woman allegedly took to the carols.

Security guards quickly removed one protester as the other tried to grab the microphone from host David Campbell, managing to say “kids are dying in Gaza” before they were also taken away by security.

After both were removed, Campbell appealed for calm and assured people the children about to perform were safe.

“They’re allowed to have their moment, they’re allowed to have their time in the sun, but we did have kids here, so we wanted to make sure those kids are safe, they’re gonna be back out in a second,” Campbell said as he attempted to reassure the crowd.

“It’s a very hard time in this world, it’s a hard time for us all to come together on a night like this when there’s a lot of pain out there. We’re going to just settle things down for a moment, and we’re all going to be fine.”

The children returned to the stage shortly after the disruption.

Another two protesters were denied entry at the gates, police said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called for a harmonious Christmas following the demonstration, telling reporters at a lunch in Sydney on Monday the holiday was a time for all people to come together.

“I have a very firm view that Australia’s social cohesion is absolutely critical and we need to bear that in mind in all of our actions,” he said.

Albanese served lunch to the homeless at the Exodus Foundation in Sydney’s west on Monday, joined by NSW Premier Chris Minns.

“This is a time in which we come together as a nation … where people have come, from different faiths, from different parts of the world to make Australia their home,” Albanese said.

“It’s important that be cherished and nourished and that we don’t seek to divide.”

Paul Kelly, G Flip and Casey Donovan were among the performers who lit up the stage for the annual Christmas concert on Sunday night.

They were joined by the cast of musicals Grease and Wicked, as well as carols regulars Denis Walter, Marina Prior and Silvie Paladino.

The event raises money for Vision Australia’s children’s services, with all proceeds supporting families and children who are blind or have low vision.

Carols by Candlelight, which is broadcast live by Channel Nine, the owner of this masthead, has been held on Christmas Eve in Melbourne since 1938.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/pro-palestine-protesters-interrupt-melbourne-s-carols-by-candlelight-20231224-p5etjp.html

>>20098526

>>20123786

Woman arrested after pro-Palestine protesters disrupt Carols by Candlelight

TRICIA RIVERA and ALEXI DEMETRIADI - DECEMBER 25, 2023

1/2

Jewish leaders warn new year’s eve and Australia Day ­celebrations will be subject to “guerrilla-type tactics” by pro-Palestine activists, after two protesters who hijacked a Carols in Candlelight show while children were on stage faced no charges.

Police arrested a 21-year-old woman who rushed the stage of the annual Christmas Eve event at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl over the concealment of a “controlled weapon”. But neither the woman nor her fellow protester was charged over the storming of the stage.

The 21-year-old was only handed a minor infringement notice over the weapon, which police refused to describe.

The incident unfolded in front of tens of thousands of people at the family-friendly event and tens of thousands more watching the broadcast live from home.

A woman holding a Palestinian flag ran around the stage before attempting to wrestle a microphone off hosts David Campbell and Sarah Abo.

“While you’re carolling, kids are dying in Gaza,” the woman screamed.

The protesters then disrupted child entertainers Emma Memma and Elvin Melvin’s performance at 8.30pm as children on stage were escorted to safety.

The event’s hosts reassured the booing crowd as security ­ushered the pair of protesters quickly off stage.

“They’re allowed to have their moment … But we did have kids here so we want to make sure those kids are safe, they’re going to come back out in a second,” Mr Campbell said. “It is a very hard time in this world. It’s a hard time for all of us to come together on a night like this too when there’s a lot of pain out there a lot of people are experiencing.”

A Victoria Police spokeswoman said the Brunswick woman was arrested and issued with an infringement notice for possession of a controlled weapon. The second protester was moved on by officers and a further two activists were denied entry at the event’s gates.

Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich called the onstage protest “ugly” and said it sought to “destroy the spirit of Christmas”.

“These agents of division want to spread their hateful ideology of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel agenda everywhere,” he said.

“They are changing our city, once a tolerant haven, into a cesspool of propaganda. Carols by Candlelight was once a safe place for families to celebrate the beauty of Christmas.”

(continued)

>>20128008

2/2

Dr Abramovich said he was “very concerned” about “guerrilla-type protest tactics” being deployed in similar instances across new year’s eve and Australia Day.

“No one should be in fear in their own city, but this is sadly where we are heading to,” he said.

“I trust that law enforcement will identify those responsible for such vile actions and prosecute them to the full extent of the law. We have all had enough of this menace.”

Zionism Victoria executive director Zeddy Lawrence said new year and Australia Day celebrations were not the time to protest.

“However misguided or ­misinformed your views, we live in an incredibly tolerant society that by and large allows you to espouse them in public,” Mr Lawrence said.

“But there’s a time and a place for protesting and a family-friendly carol concert is neither – nor are new year’s eve or Australia Day celebrations, occasions that are meant to unite us.

“Disrupting such events does nothing to advance the prospects of peace in the Middle East and only serves to further fracture our already fragmented multicultural society.”

Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council executive director Colin Rubenstein called the onstage activism “self-indulgent, inconsiderate and arrogant”.

“The protest and the attempt to hijack another culture’s celebration shows total disrespect and disregard,” Dr Rubenstein said.

“It is time those who are calling for further protests brought their agitators into line and denounced without reservation this premeditated Christmas Eve act.”

He said he was concerned the protest would not be an isolated incident, with fears similar stances could be seen on new year’s eve and Australia Day.

Anthony Albanese, when asked about the protest, said social cohesion was “absolutely critical”.

“This is a time in which we come together as a nation,” the Prime Minister said. And it’s important that be cherished and nourished and that we don’t seek to divide.”

Peter Dutton said the act was disappointing for the performers and children on stage at an “event that unites Australians”.

“I’m pleased it was resolved satisfactorily, but people should be respectful – and this protest was not,” the Opposition Leader said. “It was out of line and it should be condemned.”

Liberal senator Andrew Bragg said attempts to disrupt the festive season would be “dimly viewed” by ordinary Australians. “I think most Australians are cognisant of the existential battle Israel is facing,” Senator Bragg said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/woman-arrested-after-propalestine-protesters-disrupt-carols-by-candlelight/news-story/6b414ba8a5bcb36dcb3178cae3b14883

>>20027549 (pb)

>>20098526

Agony of an ally: Anthony Albanese’s ‘Gaza contradictions’

ALEXI DEMETRIADI - DECEMBER 25, 2023

1/2

Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon has accused Anthony Albanese of contradictory messages over the war with Hamas, declared the Jewish homeland’s fight against terrorism has been held to a different standard from Australia’s own operations in Afghanistan, and lamented that his citizens did not feel secure in this country.

Amid another weekend of nationwide pro-Palestine stunts including the televised hijacking of Carols by Candlelight in Melbourne, Mr Maimon said Israel had a responsibility to toughen travel warnings on Australia and said Israelis did not feel secure in “your beautiful country.”

Following Labor’s U-turn to support a ceasefire at the UN ­general assembly this month, Mr Maimon, in a rare interview, also questioned how the Prime Minister himself could support both a pause in the war and the ultimate removal of Hamas from Gaza.

“I find it hard to understand how a democratic nation like Australia has doubts about Israel’s right to defend itself and use all possible means to ensure Israelis aren’t living under a similar threat (against Hamas) in the future,” Mr Maimon said.

“The Prime Minister understands that Hamas cannot be part of future governance in Gaza … yet supports a ceasefire. These are contradictory messages.”

In a viral video circulating last week, Hamas senior leader Ghazi Hamad appeared to applaud Australia’s ceasefire U-turn. Mr Albanese criticised the video as “propaganda”.

Mr Maimon said Israel was being treated differently from Western nations in its pursuit of terror groups, and made direct comparisons with the war in Afghanistan.

“I wonder what the international community’s reaction would be if, instead of Israel, it was Australia, New Zealand or the UK fighting against such an evil terror organisation,” Mr Maimon said.

“I wonder if they would be under the same pressure or calls (to lay down arms)? Or under the same kind of focus on the humanitarian situation or calls about adhering to law.

“I didn’t hear it (the same calls) when Australia was part of an international force fighting in Afghanistan … Israel is measured by a different standard.”

When criticisms of Israel’s military approach were put to him – according to the Hamas-run health ministry more than 20,000 people have been killed – Mr ­Maimon stressed that “Israel was in full adherence to international ­humanitarian and conflict law”, and doing its utmost to limit the death toll in Gaza.

“While I do understand some of the concerns … Israel are the victims, we were attacked,” he said.

“The war could be over ­tomorrow if Hamas surrender, gave up its arms and released its hostages.

“The pressure should not be on Israel (but Hamas).

“Israel is using its defence systems to defend its people against Hamas. Whereas Hamas is using theirs to defend their missiles and other weapons.”

On Christmas Eve, the Hamas-run health ministry claimed an ­Israeli air strike on the Al-Maghazi refugee camp had killed at least 70 people. The Israeli Defence Force said it was looking into the strike and that it had retrieved the bodies of five Israeli hostages killed in Hamas captivity from a tunnel network in northern Gaza.

After one of the deadliest days of the conflict, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the war had come at a “very heavy price for his country” but that the Jewish state had “no choice” but to keep fighting amid reports Egypt had proposed a new ceasefire.

The Israeli ambassador’s comments came in the midst of another weekend of protests, with Melbourne’s Carols by Candlelight disrupted onstage by pro-Palestine activists on Christmas Eve. Mr Maimon said neither his embassy nor the Netanyahu government could no longer ignore a pattern of anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli sentiment and language across the nation.

“We’re not talking about isolated events; they’re frequent … Personally, I feel sad that Israelis do not feel secure in your beautiful country,” he said.

(continued)

>>20128032

2/2

The Israeli government uplifted its travel warning for Australia to “Level 2” this month, recommending Israelis take extra precautions when visiting.

Revealing his involvement in raising the travel warnings, Mr Maimon said any “responsible” government had to advise its citizens about the reality on the ground. “We had to do what every nation is doing in light of (pro-Palestine) protests and demonstrations,” he said.

The ambassador referenced scenes at the Opera House on October 9, but also pro-Palestine protesters who demonstrated at a Melbourne hotel on November 29 where relatives of Israeli hostages were staying.

“It’s not that we are advising Israelis against travelling here, but we alerted them they may encounter demonstrations and that they should be aware of it,” Mr Maimon said.

“It’s perfectly okay to support (a side), but in a respectful way, in a respectful manner.”

The ambassador – who was in Israel on October 7, and who has lost two family members in the conflict – said Israelis back home and in Australia had “never been more united than we are now”.

“I’ve been moved by the amount of events and activities led and organised by Israelis in Australia,” Mr Maimon said.

“That’s what the ‘Israeli spirit’ is all about – during a time of need, they come and show up, and that’s something very special.”

Mr Maimon said Israeli citizens had never been more disunited earlier in the year, given Israel’s domestic and political situation – something which had now been flipped on its head.

“Before October 7, there were a lot of reports on the domestic political situation, about weekly protests (in Israel) and the tension between different groups,” he said.

“But today, one of the things I’m very proud of is that – and even though people may have different views on how the government is handling the war – Israelis are all united, supportive of efforts to eradicate Hamas.”

Israeli and Arab media reported on Christmas Eve that Egypt had put forward ceasefire proposals that would be implemented in three parts.

The first phase would involve a seven to 10-day pause in which Hamas would release all civilian hostages in exchange for the release of some Palestinian prisoners, followed by a week-long second phase where Hamas would release all Israeli female soldiers in return for more prisoners and the exchange of corpses held since 7 October. In the third, month-long phase, the remaining hostages and a number of Palestinian prisoners would be released, and Israel would withdraw from the Gaza Strip and suspend all aerial activities.

Hamas’ health ministry has said more than 20,000 people have been killed during the conflict and more than 50,000 injured in Gaza. More than 1200 Israelis were killed and about 240 hostages taken during Hamas’s attacks.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/agony-of-an-ally-anthony-albaneses-gaza-contradictions/news-story/115ed903a47f26efd3c04f7db8295a4b

Indigenous voice referendum ‘not my loss’, Anthony Albanese declares

PAIGE TAYLOR and JESS MALCOLM - DECEMBER 25, 2023

Anthony Albanese’s claim that his failed referendum was not a personal loss for him has sparked anger among top figures in the Yes campaign, with one Aboriginal leader indicating the remarks were proof white Australia would take no responsibility for the voice’s rejection.

The Prime Minister said on Monday the result was not “a loss for him” because he was not Indigenous and the debate was not about politicians.

He also said in an interview on Sydney radio 2GB that Aboriginal Australians disappointed by the referendum result were “used to hardship” and Labor would continue to work to close the gap.

Leading figures in the failed push for constitutional change immediately picked up on Mr ­Albanese’s remarks, with some claiming it as confirmation he believes the defeat belongs to them and not him despite Labor’s central role in the campaign.

At the Exodus Foundation in Sydney’s inner west on Monday while he was helping to serve Christmas Day lunch to the poor, Mr Albanese was asked about his year and “some big losses” such as the defeat of the voice at the ballot box last October.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, very important to call that out. I am not Indigenous so it wasn’t a loss to me,” the Labor leader said.

“That stays exactly the same the way it is. I do think that it was disappointing for First Nations people but they’re used to you know, getting the, they’re used to hardship. It’s been the case for 200 years, and they are resilient and we will continue to do what we can to provide for closing the gap.

“But it’s one of the things about this debate, it was never about politicians, it was actually about the most disadvantaged people in our society.”

One figure in the Yes ­campaign criticised Mr Albanese for claiming no sense of personal loss after championing the referendum, ­including in his election-night victory speech in May last year.

Another called on Labor to commission a review of the ­“referendum debacle” and the ­Albanese government’s role in it.

“Blacks did the work for seven years and Labor killed it,” one said.

Indigenous leader Sean ­Gordon, who supported the voice in an alliance with constitutional conservatives, agreed with Mr ­Albanese that Indigenous ­Australians were resilient people. Mr Gordon was a member of Mr Albanese’s referendum working group.

When asked about the Prime Minister’s assertion that the voice defeat was no loss for him, Mr Gordon replied that this was the issue for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who comprised a small percentage of the population.

“It’s the challenge of our 3.7 per cent,” Mr Gordon said.

“Regardless of the issue or the outcome, the 96.3 per cent white Australia are able to comfortably move forward without any ownership, responsibility or accountability for the result.”

The proposal for an Indigenous advisory body with a constitutional guarantee predated Mr Albanese’s prime ministership by more than a decade. It was the subject of reports and inquiries and it was the option favoured by a clear majority of Indigenous people who took part in the Uluru Dialogues held around Australia in 2016 and 2017.

Polling showed Australians were in favour of the concept for some five years and remained in favour after Mr Albanese announced in May last year that he would take the voice question to a referendum.

Support for a constitutionally enshrined voice began to slide in the first half of 2023, after the Coalition parties’ formalised their opposition to it, but before the final words of the proposed amendment had been settled. Ultimately, 61 per cent of Australians voted no to the voice on referendum day.

On Monday, Peter Dutton described the voice as Mr Albanese’s project. “The PM was obsessed with the voice for the best part of 18 months,” the Opposition Leader said.

“ He told Australians they were “chicken littles” if they opposed it, and he needlessly divided Australians. It’s remarkable he’s now saying it wasn’t about him. The PM is distracted and not focused on the issues that matter.

“He should reflect on these comments about his pet project – the voice – and make life easier, not harder, for Australians. The PM was so obsessed with the voice and being overseas that he missed the opportunities in his two budgets to make decisions to relieve cost-of-living pressures. It’s really hurt Australians and they are feeling the pain Mr Albanese created.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/voice-referendum-a-loss-for-the-people-not-me-anthony-albanese/news-story/7308baf584911bfa9f1ad785468992a4

‘It feels good helping someone who helps others’: How Jess brought Christmas cheer to Maree

Najma Sambul - December 25, 2023

A free Christmas lunch has extended beyond the halls of a church in Melbourne’s north-east, as volunteers delivered meals, hampers and Christmas cheer to those in need.

One of the eight households the Diamond Creek Uniting Church volunteers visited on Monday was that of Maree Minns. Volunteer Jess shared a Christmas hug with Minns and delivered a meal of three meats and a salad.

The 69-year-old breast cancer survivor recently had a double mastectomy and said she could not shop for food to prepare for Christmas lunch for herself and a friend.

It is the second time Minns has received a Christmas lunch delivery from the Uniting Church after volunteers approached her last year. On Sunday, the volunteers delivered meals to community members in Heidelberg, Lower Plenty and Diamond Creek.

“They do a grand job and its just lovely,” Minns said.

Minns, a volunteer herself, has supported the Uniting Church with its annual Samaritan shoebox drive, where Christmas gifts like toys are put in shoeboxes and are given to children overseas. This year, more than 200 shoeboxes were collected.

She has also been a volunteer for Aussies Knitting for War Affected Kids, who make clothes and toys for children displaced by war.

“I’ve made some crotchet blankets to give to Syrian children in the past,” she said.

Her volunteer delivery driver, Jess, said it was his first time giving his time on Christmas Day to a community cause. Later in the day, he planned to volunteer at the Salvation Army Christmas Carols and Dinner in Brunswick.

“My mum and grandmother have always helped others and that’s where I get it from,” the 35-year-old builder said. “I’ve been fortunate enough to get some help myself, so it’s good to give back. It feels good helping someone who helps others.”

Back at the Uniting Church in Diamond Creek, dozens of other volunteers including families, friends, and people who came on their own, were busy cutting cheese, fruit and veggie platters, and meat for a free sit-down Christmas Day lunch for 130 attendees.

Organiser Graham Ford said it was the first time since 2019 that the in-person event was going ahead after being abruptly paused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the group did 180 meal deliveries on Christmas Day.

Throughout the day volunteers picked up 29 guests from 18 locations and prepared 153 meals.

“It really feels like Christmas when you’re giving to others,” Ford said. “I think it’s something that’s really good that the church does.”

The church has received donations from local businesses and community members to support the Christmas Day lunch.

“We asked the local chicken shop for some leftover salads from Christmas Eve, and they ended up giving us six chickens and a tub of coleslaw. It was great,” Ford said.

Vanitha, a healthcare worker from nearby Bundoora, volunteered last year and brought along her niece Kalwin this year. They don’t celebrate Christmas, but wanted to help the community on their day off.

“It’s just a good way to help everybody,” Vanitha said.

https://www.theage.com.au /national/ victoria/ it-feels-good-helping-someone-who-helps-others- how-jess-brought-christmas-cheer-to-maree -20231225 -p5etkv. html

The horror of Islamic State, then the gift of a child: My Christmas to remember

Andrew Hastie, Federal opposition spokesman for defence - December 25, 2023