Judgment in Lehrmann appeal of defamation case coming this morning
Amanda Meade
The judgment in Bruce Lehrmann’s appeal of his unsuccessful defamation case against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson will be handed down in the federal court this morning.
Lehrmann is appealing against Justice Michael Lee’s April 2024 judgment, which found the former Liberal staffer was not defamed when The Project broadcast an interview with Brittany Higgins in 2021 in which she alleged she had been raped in Parliament House.
Justice Michael Wigney will deliver judgment on behalf of the full court, justices Wigney, Craig Colvin and Wendy Abraham, and will read a summary of reasons. The full judgment will be published online.
During the two-day appeal hearing in August, Lehrmann’s lawyer, Zali Burrows, apologised to the court for her client’s failure to appoint an experienced barrister and explained he could not afford one.
Lehrmann argued he was denied procedural fairness because Lee’s findings about the alleged rape differed from the one alleged by Ten and Wilkinson. Burrows said Lehrmann was not given a chance to respond to that version of the rape.
Ten’s barrister, Matt Collins KC, told the court Lehrmann’s grounds of appeal were “misconceived” and “a distraction, in our respectful submission”.
“Because, at the end of the day, this was a defamation case, not a rape case,” Collins said.
Lee awarded $2m in costs against Lehrmann for the failed defamation which were put on hold pending the appeal.
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Updated at 18.04 EST
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Wigney ends the hearing by saying his orders are that the appeal is dismissed and that Lehrmann should pay the costs of the appeal. The hearing is finished.
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Updated at 18.28 EST
Wigney is emphasising again that this is the judgment summary, and not to be substituted for the full reasons for judgment, which he is about to publish.
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Updated at 18.28 EST
It was unnecessary to consider Lehrmann’s arguments regarding damages given the failures of Lehrmann’s other grounds of appeal, Wigney says.
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Updated at 18.27 EST
Wigney recaps defamation case findings
Shortly before saying the appeal had been dismissed, Justice Michael Wigney recapped the findings of the defamation case.
He also went through the four grounds of Lehrmann’s appeal:
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That the trial was procedurally unfair to him.
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That an ordinary person viewing The Project would have thought Lehrmann committed a violent rape with lack of consent.
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That the primary judge erred in finding Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson had discharged the burden of proof in relation to the rape.
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His claim should have succeeded and damages awarded in his favour should be much more than $20,000.
All of these grounds have been dismissed.
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Updated at 18.27 EST
Lehrmann’s appeal is dismissed with costs
The primary judge was found to have not been procedurally unfair to Lehrmann, Wigney says.
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Updated at 18.29 EST
Here’s a bit of a recap of how the appeal went for Lehrmann:
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Judgment begins in Lehrmann defamation appeal
Justice Michael Wigney has started reading the appeal judgment. Justice Wigney will deliver the judgment on behalf of the full court – himself and justices Craig Colvin and Wendy Abraham – and will read a summary of reasons. The full judgment will be published online.
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Updated at 18.20 EST
Nick Visser
Nino Bucci is going to take the reins for the Lehrmann judgment.
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Updated at 18.17 EST
Patrick Commins
RBA governor speaks ahead of national accounts
Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock is at estimates this morning, where Liberal senator James Patterson is asking in a not very roundabout way whether high federal government spending is to blame for stubbornly high inflation.
This was a key Coalition attack line in the final weeks of parliament sitting.
Bullock is not really playing ball, falling back to basic economic principles, saying “all else being equal” that additional public spending can add to investment and demand, and so lead to additional inflationary pressures and higher interest rates than otherwise would be the case.
Michele Bullock. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP
She’s also pushed back on the idea that government spending is accounting for an unusually – and in the words of Paterson “unsustainably” – large portion of economic growth.
“In times when private demand is not doing very well, often, what happens is public demand comes in to fill the gap, and that’s certainly what we’ve observed over a number of periods in recent years,” Bullock said.
The governor said “we’re starting to see” the private sector take up the mantle for driving economic growth, “and our forecasts are that we will continue to see it”.
We’ll get the latest economic report card at 11:30 when the ABS releases the national accounts for the September quarter.
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Judgment in Lehrmann appeal of defamation case coming this morning
Amanda Meade
The judgment in Bruce Lehrmann’s appeal of his unsuccessful defamation case against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson will be handed down in the federal court this morning.
Lehrmann is appealing against Justice Michael Lee’s April 2024 judgment, which found the former Liberal staffer was not defamed when The Project broadcast an interview with Brittany Higgins in 2021 in which she alleged she had been raped in Parliament House.
Justice Michael Wigney will deliver judgment on behalf of the full court, justices Wigney, Craig Colvin and Wendy Abraham, and will read a summary of reasons. The full judgment will be published online.
During the two-day appeal hearing in August, Lehrmann’s lawyer, Zali Burrows, apologised to the court for her client’s failure to appoint an experienced barrister and explained he could not afford one.
Lehrmann argued he was denied procedural fairness because Lee’s findings about the alleged rape differed from the one alleged by Ten and Wilkinson. Burrows said Lehrmann was not given a chance to respond to that version of the rape.
Ten’s barrister, Matt Collins KC, told the court Lehrmann’s grounds of appeal were “misconceived” and “a distraction, in our respectful submission”.
“Because, at the end of the day, this was a defamation case, not a rape case,” Collins said.
Lee awarded $2m in costs against Lehrmann for the failed defamation which were put on hold pending the appeal.
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Updated at 18.04 EST
Victoria police to lay 775 new charges against man for alleged illegal recording in Melbourne hospitals
Victoria police will lay an additional 775 charges against a man as part of an ongoing investigation into an illegal recording device at Melbourne hospitals.
Police allege the man, 27, used a mobile phone as a recording device in staff toilets at three hospitals; Austin Hospital in Heidelberg, the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.
The new charges are linked to alleged stalking, the production of intimate images and installing an optical surveillance device.
The expected new charges are in addition to 133 that were laid in July and August this year, bringing the total to 908.
ShareKate Lyons
NDIS plans will be computer-generated, with human involvement dramatically cut under sweeping overhaul
Funding and support plans for national disability insurance scheme participants will be generated by a computer program and staff will have no discretion to amend them, under a major overhaul of the NDIS to be rolled out next year, Guardian Australia can reveal.
Under the changes, human involvement in deciding support for NDIS participants will be dramatically reduced.
Details of the sweeping changes to the way NDIS plans are made were outlined in a recent internal briefing to National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) staff, seen by Guardian Australia.
The changes, which are due to be rolled out from mid-2026 under the NDIS’s New Framework Planning model, will also significantly affect a participant’s right to appeal decisions about their funding. If NDIS participants appeal against their plans to the administrative review tribunal, the ART will no longer have the authority to alter a person’s plan or reinstate funding, according to the staff briefing.
Read more of Guardian Australia’s exclusive here:
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Nicholas Jordan
What’s the best sorbet in Australian supermarkets? We’ve got you covered
To make a bad sorbet you need to be inept or cheap. But supermarkets distribute the cheapest foods on earth and usually the range in quality is hellish to “huh! pretty good”. Excellence needs time and care that supermarkets can’t afford, except for sorbets for some reason.
We tasted 15 products, all single-flavour fruit sorbets, predominantly lemon and mango. We scored them on texture, taste and how representative they were of the fruit, though the latter criteria wasn’t included in the final score. The final score was heavily weighted towards taste.
The winner? It tastes as though it has been made with raspberries that have gone through a superheroic transformation. Cosmic rays, super serum or magic have turned normal raspberries into velvety, sweeter and more acidic versions of themselves.
Read more here:
Smell, taste and texture were important metrics for sorbet, and most were scored highly. Photograph: Rémi Chauvin/The GuardianShare
Updated at 17.49 EST
Annual level of anti-Jewish incidents remains three times higher than average, peak body says
There were 1,654 anti-Jewish incidents logged by Jewish groups and state bodies in a 12-month period ending in September, more than three times the yearly average, according to new data released today.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry said those figures include an “unprecedented” number of arson and vandalism attacks. The report says:
The total number of reported antisemitic incidents in Australia has continued at unprecedentedly high levels for a second consecutive year. Although this year’s total was somewhat less than the previous year’s, which was an all-time record, there was actually an increase in the number of arson and vandalism attacks.
The average annual number of anti-Jewish incidents between October 2014 and September 2023, before Hamas’ October 7 attacks, was 342.
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Updated at 17.47 EST
Trains suspended on Sydney’s Blue Mountains line after car falls onto tracks
Commuters along one Sydney train line will have difficulties getting to work this morning after a car fell on to the tracks, landing upturned beneath an overpass.
Photograph: NSW trainlink west
NSW TrainLink West shared photos of the accident earlier this morning, showing the grey sedan on the tracks near the suburb of Blaxland. The route is not running between Springwood and Emu Plains, but a small number of buses are running as a replacement service.
“Please delay travel if possible or allow plenty of extra travel time,” the agency wrote on social media.
NSW police said the driver of the car, a man in his 20s, was able to exit the vehicle and treated at the scene by paramedics for minor injuries. He was not taken to hospital.
Disruptions are expected to continue throughout the day, NSW TrainLink West said, “so please allow extra travel time and plan ahead”.
#BlueMountainsLine Trains are not running between Springwood and Emu Plains due to a vehicle on the tracks at Blaxland.
Limited buses are starting to run between Springwood and Penrith. Please delay travel if possible or allow plenty of extra travel time. pic.twitter.com/3k90W8j8O5
— NSW TrainLink West (@TrainLinkWest) December 2, 2025Share
Updated at 16.52 EST
YouTube will comply with under-16s social media ban but says it will ‘make kids less safe’
Josh Butler
YouTube has agreed to comply with the federal government’s under-16s social media ban, announcing its decision a week out from the 10 December start date.
However Google, the owner of the video site, has again strongly criticised the law, saying it “won’t keep teens safer online” and “fundamentally misunderstands” how children use the internet.
Rachel Lord, Google and YouTube Australia’s public policy senior manager, confirmed the video platform will comply with the legislation in a blog post on Wednesday.
She said the site will automatically sign out all users it detects to be aged under 16. However users under 16 will still be able to watch YouTube videos in a signed-out state.
Lord said not signing in would mean children lose access to “features that only work when you are signed into an account, including subscriptions, playlists and likes, and default wellbeing settings like “Take a Break” and Bedtime Reminders”.
Google also warns that parents “will lose the ability to supervise their teen or tween’s account on YouTube”, such as content settings blocking specific channels.
Photograph: Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock
Lord said “this rushed regulation misunderstands our platform and the way young Australians use it. Most importantly, this law will not fulfill its promise to make kids safer online, and will, in fact, make Australian kids less safe on YouTube”.
She said a lack of parental controls and safety filters “are the unfortunate consequences of a rushed legislative process that failed to allow for adequate consultation and consideration of the real complexities of online safety regulation.”
The law also fundamentally misunderstands why teens come to YouTube in the first place.
We are committed to finding a better path forward to keep kids safe online.
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Updated at 16.45 EST
