Warning: this article contains descriptions of allegations of sexual assault.
This week’s Media Briefs brings you the latest developments in the ongoing Bruce Lehrmann defamation fight against Network 10, including the revelation that Seven Network was caught paying exorbitant amounts for its Walkley-nominated interview with him. We also pay tribute to SBS World News producer Bridget Munro, who died this week. Plus Ben Roberts-Smith loses again.
Lehrmann’s house of lies
Last week, Media Briefs reported on the first day of defamation proceedings brought by Bruce Lehrmann against Network 10, the station that broadcast an interview with Lehrmann’s former colleague Brittany Higgins in February 2021 that included the allegation that she was raped in Parliament House in 2019. Lehrmann, who denies the claim, was charged with one count of sexual intercourse without consent in relation to the matter, and pleaded not guilty. The trial was eventually abandoned after a mistrial was declared due to a juror’s misconduct, with prosecutors opting not to go ahead with a retrial due to concerns regarding Higgins’ health and wellbeing.
Over the course of the past week, Lehrmann has admitted in court to a number of lies he has told over the course of the saga.
Guardian Australia published an explainer, detailing the “six lies [Lehrmann] admitted to under cross-examination”. These included lying to his then-boss and defence minister Linda Reynolds in a “show cause” letter, telling her he had “retreated to Queensland” to visit his ailing mother, when in fact this was not the case. He also told Reynolds’ chief of staff Fiona Brown that he had gone to Parliament House on the night in question to drink whisky, but told parliamentary security he needed to pick up documents for the defence minister, and told the court he was collecting his house keys and working on political briefs.
He also admitted to lying about the rationale for that lie in a nationally televised interview with Seven’s Liam Bartlett earlier this year. Lehrmann told Bartlett on Spotlight that he was worried about an earlier, separate security incident, despite the security incident having not been raised with him at that point. Lehrmann said he lied about lying because the interview was “hastily arranged”.
The interview was later a finalist for the 68th Walkley Awards’ Scoop of the Year, despite Lehrmann’s separate revelation that Seven paid his rent on two different beachfront luxury apartments for 12 months in exchange for the interview. The first of these was a Marine Parade property in Maroubra, in Sydney’s south-east, and the second is a $2,500-per-week apartment on the city’s northern beaches.
The Walkley Foundation’s terms and conditions require disclosure of payment for interviews, and in light of these revelations the foundation has said it is considering its position. Liam Bartlett did not respond for comment.
Lehrmann’s examination was followed by a two-day appearance on the stand by Higgins, who recounted her own experience of the night in question. The visibly distressed Higgins described her state of intoxication as “very, very extreme” after a night out in Canberra with Lehrmann.
Higgins alleges she “told him no, on a loop” when she gained consciousness on a sofa in Linda Reynolds’ ministerial suite with Lehrmann assaulting her.
“I felt really waterlogged and heavy. I couldn’t move,” Higgins told the court. “I felt like it had been going on for a little while … it was very much rough and happening, it didn’t matter that I was awake.”
“I was an afterthought.”
Higgins claimed that when Lehrmann was done, “he didn’t even acknowledge it”: “I believe he finished, and I believe he finished inside of me … when it stopped it stopped, and he got off me … he got up, he looked at me, and then he left. No words spoken.”
Higgins’ evidence then detailed her experience of the next morning and the following weekend, before going into work and reporting the alleged assault to her boss, chief of staff Fiona Brown.
“I didn’t leave the house all weekend, I only emerged when I had to go to work on Monday,” she said. “I was in a depressive state.”
Higgins then described the following week back at work, having Lehrmann buy her a coffee on Monday, and watching him enter a meeting with Brown before exiting in a “huff” and “throwing things into a box”, and being “immediately” called into a meeting herself.
Higgins spoke of Brown’s “shock” and “upset” at hearing her disclosure in a “weird” meeting that made her feel “off-kilter”.
“I didn’t feel like she was being honest with what she actually knew to me,” Higgins said of Brown.
Higgins then described communications with fellow staffer and former partner Ben Dillaway, saying that despite her disclosure she still “felt [her] job was at risk”.
“I didn’t have any assurance even after the disclosure to Fiona Brown that I wasn’t still up for the sack.”
In her afternoon’s evidence, Higgins told the court that Reynolds “actively avoided” her, and that she was “rebuffed” by Brown when she asked for the CCTV footage from the night in question, saying that she took a photograph of a bruise on her thigh after losing confidence in Brown.
The case continues in the Federal Court on Thursday.
Ben Roberts-Smith costs
The other big defamation case Crikey covered last week was a costs matter involving disgraced former soldier Ben Roberts-Smith. Roberts-Smith lost a defamation action against the Nine newspapers earlier this year, which published a series of stories by Nick McKenzie and Chris Masters detailing Roberts-Smith’s war crimes in Afghanistan as a member of the special forces. Roberts-Smith has filed to appeal the decision to the full bench of the Federal Court, set down for early next year.
The fight over costs in the case concluded this week, with an order from Justice Anthony Besanko that Roberts-Smith pay indemnity costs assessed from the beginning of proceedings, which date back to August 2018. Masters has previously said it took around $30 million to defend the case, although later estimates sit around $25 million.
The courts have also made orders requiring Roberts-Smith to pay almost $1 million in security for costs before his appeal.
Vale Bridget Munro
The Australian media industry is mourning the loss of SBS World News producer Bridget Munro, who died this week after a seizure. She is survived by her husband, SBS News sport lead Adrian Arciuli, and their two young children.
Arciuli described Munro’s “beauty, her bubbling personality, her warmth, her spirit, her compassion and so many other things that made her one of the best people on this planet”.
“Our lives will never be the same and our hearts have shattered into a million pieces.”
SBS chief international correspondent Ben Lewis described Munro as “our talented, funny, caring friend — the heart of the SBS newsroom”.
Moves
- The Chaser’s Craig Reucassel will take over the breakfast slot on ABC Radio Sydney from the beginning of 2024, having not hosted a regular radio slot for nearly 20 years, when he co-hosted triple j’s drive slot with Chris Taylor. Incumbent James Valentine moves to afternoons, with Renee Krosch taking over evenings.
- After 17 years with The Age, climate and environment reporter Miki Perkins departed this week. Perkins said in a statement she hopes to “stay in journalism, and keep writing about the fossil-fuel driven climate crisis and rapid deterioration of the natural world. These existential threats are the biggest stories any of us will ever cover”.
Tweet of the week
If you or someone you know is affected by sexual assault or violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au. In an emergency, call 000.
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