Justice Michael Lee rules Lehrmann to pay trial costs

Bruce Lehrmann has been ordered to pay the vast majority of Network Ten’s multi-million dollar legal costs for his failed defamation case, but Justice Michael Lee was heavily critical of Ten.

Justice Lee found in favour of Ten in almost all respects.

Lehrmann sued Ten and its former star journalist Lisa Wilkinson over an episode of The Project that aired in February 2021. The episode interviewed former political staffer Brittany Higgins about a then-alleged rape in Parliament House in 2019.

Justice Lee found it more likely than not that Lehrmann raped Higgins that night, meaning Ten and Wilkinson won their defence of truth.

Ten did not win its separate qualified privilege defence – it had argued it acted reasonably in publishing. Justice Lee did not agree.

Ten, which must pay the majority of Wilkinson’s legal costs as well, sought indemnity costs from Lehrmann. Indemnity costs cover a substantially higher proportion of legal expenses.

“In the end, it comes down to the order for costs that does best overall justice in the circumstances,” Justice Lee said.

“On balance, the appropriate exercise of discretion is to make an award that Network Ten recover its costs against Mr Lehrmann on an indemnity basis except for costs incurred in relation to the statutory qualified privilege defence.”

Justice Michael Lee has started delivering his decision about how much Bruce Lehrmann will pay after losing his defamation case against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson.

“There are no real winners in this litigation,” he began.

Lehrmann, Justice Lee found last month, raped former colleague Brittany Higgins in a Parliament House office in March 2019.

He had sued Ten and Wilkinson over an episode of The Project that interviewed Higgins about the then-alleged rape that aired in February 2021.

Australia’s top cop Reece Kershaw has been reappointed as Australian Federal Police commissioner for another two years.

Mr Kershaw’s term as commissioner has been extended until October 2026, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has confirmed.

“Commissioner Kershaw has made an extraordinary contribution to our community with a policing career spanning more than 30 years,” Mr Dreyfus said.

“His contribution to law enforcement in Australia reflects the highest standards of the AFP values of integrity, commitment, excellence, accountability, fairness, trust and respect.”

The commissioner was first appointed to the position in 2019.

In a statement, he said his time as commissioner had been spent targeting countering cybercrime and child exploitation, a focus which was set to continue.

“I’m not going to show organised crime, cybercriminals and other high-value targets my hand but what I will say is that we have some significant operations that will build on the work that we have done over the years,” he said.

“Crime has never been more complex and transnational. It requires a tech-savvy, agile and experienced workforce to help stay ahead of those criminals who wrongly believe they are untouchable.”

The reappointment comes after he used an address at the National Press Club to say children online were being exposed to “extremist poison”, calling for greater co-operation from social media companies.

Dreyfus also reappointed federal police deputy commissioner Ian McCartney to the role.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers could be forced to shelve his signature plan to create a specialist interest rate-setting board at the Reserve Bank of Australia after a breakdown in talks with the Coalition.

The impasse means the new board will not be up and running by its planned start date of July 1 because the stalled legislation requires a three-month lead time between its passage through parliament and its implementation.

That means the new structure cannot feasibly be in place until the RBA’s September 23-24 board meeting at the earliest, assuming the reform gains Coalition support. This is unlikely unless either Chalmers or shadow treasurer Angus Taylor makes a significant concession to the other.

AFR Weekend understands there has been little in the way of formal negotiations between Chalmers and Taylor in several months, amid a dispute over which of the RBA’s six existing board members should serve on the new interest rate-setting board.

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Liberal MP Dan Tehan has accused Immigration Minister Andrew Giles of failing to keep Australians safe after it was revealed less than half of the 153 detainees released after the High Court ruled that indefinite immigration detention was illegal were wearing electronic monitoring devices.

The Australian Border Force said on Friday that only 76 of the 153 detainees released were wearing ankle bracelets, only 68 had to follow a curfew and just 38 were subject to financial reporting obligations. Seven murderers and 37 sexual offenders were among those released.

“The Albanese Labor government is failing to keep Australians safe,” Tehan said.

“We need to know the answer to why all those 153 hardened criminals have not had curfews imposed on them.”

Tehan accused Giles of “further dereliction of duty” for failing to “front up and own these decisions”.

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles says Australia’s immigration system is stronger after today’s High Court decision to dismiss a case brought by an Iranian man seeking release from immigration detention.

Giles said the court had reaffirmed the government’s position that a person found to have no right to remain in this country must co-operate with their own deportation.

“We welcome the decision on that basis but, as I’ve just said, there is more work to be done,” Giles said.

“We need to be continually working to make sure that our migration system is serving our national interest.”

The immigration minister said the government would introduce a bill next week that obliges individuals to co-operate in the event of their deportation by doing “those basic things like getting the papers”.

“Next week, Peter Dutton will have a choice to make. He’ll be able to support a bill that strengthens our ability to remove people from Australia who have no right to remain here, that gives us the tools to both strengthen our borders and our refugee protection framework,” Giles said.

“So far, though, Mr Dutton has shown that he is only interested in playing politics with this issue.”

His comments come after an Iranian man, known as ASF17, lost his case to be released from immigration detention after he refused to co-operate with his planned deportation.

The man, known as ASF17, had told the court he would be persecuted if returned to Iran because he is bisexual.

His lawyers sought his release following the 2023 High Court ruling in the case of the Rohingya man known as NZYQ.

The court ruled in November that indefinite immigration detention was unlawful for people with no reasonable prospect of deportation. That decision sparked the release of about 150 people, including some criminals who have re-offended in the community.

On Friday morning, the full bench of the High Court ruled that ASF17’s case should be dismissed.

“The High Court held that ASF17’s continuing detention under [sections] 189(1) and 196(1) of the Act does not exceed the constitutional limitation identified in NZYQ,” the court said.

Women dealing with endometriosis will soon gain access to longer subsidised specialist appointments under Medicare so patients can receive a quicker diagnosis and treatment.

The federal government will set aside $49.1 million in Tuesday’s budget to allow for women to access longer specialist consultations and increased rebates for gynaecological care.

Longer specialist appointments for conditions such as endometriosis or polycystic ovary syndrome of 45 minutes or more will be covered by Medicare from July 2025.

Endometriosis is a condition where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows in other parts of the abdomen.

Although the condition is estimated to affect at least one in nine Australian women, it takes on average seven years before a diagnosis is received.

Health Minister Mark Butler said the subsidised longer appointments would aim to allow more women to receive a quicker diagnosis.

Apple is apologising for an iPad ad that was supposed to celebrate the creative possibilities of its newest, priciest tablet. Instead, the company received vocal blowback for appearing to destroy beloved physical tools used by artists.

The ad, released after the company announced its newest iPad line-up on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST), shows a massive hydraulic press destroying a mountain of supplies used to create music, paintings, sculptures, clothing and writing. It flattens a record player, a piano, buckets of paints, journals, a camera, guitar and a human-shaped artist dummy. After about 45 seconds of destruction and one dramatic splatter, the press pulls up to reveal a tiny iPad.

The goal was to show how much the iPad is now capable of, but instead it offended many of the same creatives it was trying to sell on the device.

“Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry,” Tor Myhren, Apple’s VP of marketing communications, said in a statement to AdAge.

The eSafety Commissioner’s barrister has told a court the videos of the Wakeley stabbing that it wants to have censored globally are particularly graphic and worthy of being hidden.

Tim Begbie, KC, said the 65 uploads of the videos showed the “graphic and shocking moments of that attacker repeatedly and violently stabbing a bishop in the course of delivering his sermon”.

But he conceded the same footage is in “other videos that are available on the internet”.

Assyrian Orthodox bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was wounded in the attack, which police designated a terrorist attack. A 16-year-old youth has been charged over the attack.

Australian law lets the eSafety Commissioner demand internet companies remove illegal material, such as child sexual abuse and terrorism content, from their services.

It has argued that the stabbing videos fit that definition, and that a removal does not count unless it happens globally, to stop Australians using technical tools to fool the site into thinking they are overseas.

Begbie said those tools, known as VPNs, are used by a quarter of Australians.

“They’re not a surreptitious or fringe or marginal tool,” he said. “They’re very widely used, and indeed your Honour has seen Mr Musk has seen advocating people using VPNs to access X.”