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@voodoo said in Aussie Politics:
@booboo said in Aussie Politics:
Back to the Feds...
... Attorney General Christian Porter, who has been accused of rape, and is therefore guilty thereof in the minds of many, is suing the ABC and it's reporter who ran the story.
Essentially saying, I'm going to court and I'm happy to be judged on balance of probabilities rather than reasonable doubt.
Big call IMO.
Meanwhile the 'All men are rapists' lynch mob are marching because men.
Isn't he actually saying, "if you want to report stories of me being accused of something, when there is no open case with the police, then you'll need to prove the truth of those accusations in order to report them?
The whys and wherefores of the case NOT being open are probably the larger issue. Documents from AFP not being made available in full to NSW Police. Documents being sent to ministers that apparently weren't read - despite the fact they were accusing the AG of sexual assault.
And the discussion around the highest legal office in the land being run by someone like Porter who has had a few runs in the court of public opinion lately, particularly around his relationships and history.
I thought this writeup from David Crowe at SMH was interesting from the language of politics perspective. It really highlights the Scott Morrison say-nothing-in-a-thousand-words strategy.
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@gibbonrib said in Aussie Politics:
What did the ABC actually report? Did they actually accuse him of a crime?
And that's what I don't get - the ABC is reporting the news. How can they be sued for that?
That the news is relating to a dead woman's accusation of rape 30 years ago is neither here nor there. It happened, it is a potential issue for the government, and it is presented in a set of unusual legal circumstances where the victim can no longer speak for themselves, effectively closing the case in many ways.
Defenders of free speech should be utterly appalled at Porter's actions, strategic tho they may be.
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@nta said in Aussie Politics:
@gibbonrib said in Aussie Politics:
What did the ABC actually report? Did they actually accuse him of a crime?
And that's what I don't get - the ABC is reporting the news. How can they be sued for that?
That the news is relating to a dead woman's accusation of rape 30 years ago is neither here nor there. It happened, it is a potential issue for the government, and it is presented in a set of unusual legal circumstances where the victim can no longer speak for themselves, effectively closing the case in many ways.
Defenders of free speech should be utterly appalled at Porter's actions, strategic tho they may be.
As it has been explained to me, you can't simply report someone who is the subject of a mere accusation unless that someone has been charged - if you do report it, you can be be found guilty of defamation, unless you can prove it was truth.
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@voodoo
Wow, I did not know that. That is an astonishingly restrictive law. When you think about the stuff published in the Herald Sun I'm surprised that they're not breaking that law every day. Maybe they're just good enough with the weasel words to get around it (or they're more careful talkingabout the people who have enough money to hire a defamation lawyer).As NTA said, the free speech brigade should be outraged by both this law, and Porter's actions. The idea that it's illegal for a news organisation to report allegations of a serious crime against a senior public figure is scary.
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@voodoo said in Aussie Politics:
@nta said in Aussie Politics:
@gibbonrib said in Aussie Politics:
What did the ABC actually report? Did they actually accuse him of a crime?
And that's what I don't get - the ABC is reporting the news. How can they be sued for that?
That the news is relating to a dead woman's accusation of rape 30 years ago is neither here nor there. It happened, it is a potential issue for the government, and it is presented in a set of unusual legal circumstances where the victim can no longer speak for themselves, effectively closing the case in many ways.
Defenders of free speech should be utterly appalled at Porter's actions, strategic tho they may be.
As it has been explained to me, you can't simply report someone who is the subject of a mere accusation unless that someone has been charged - if you do report it, you can be be found guilty of defamation, unless you can prove it was truth.
That makes sense. Depends how you report it I guess.
"The alleged victim's correspondence indicates that a senior government minister sexually assaulted her in 1988, however no investigation has been opened" is significantly different from "Porter allegedly sexually assaulted the victim in 1988"
To your argument: the key part of the defamation suit is that it is based on an article in which Porter is not even named.
These are fine lines.
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@gibbonrib said in Aussie Politics:
@voodoo
Wow, I did not know that. That is an astonishingly restrictive law. When you think about the stuff published in the Herald Sun I'm surprised that they're not breaking that law every day. Maybe they're just good enough with the weasel words to get around it (or they're more careful talkingabout the people who have enough money to hire a defamation lawyer).As NTA said, the free speech brigade should be outraged by both this law, and Porter's actions. The idea that it's illegal for a news organisation to report allegations of a serious crime against a senior public figure is scary.
guess the flipside is that it's scarily easy to destroy someone's reputation by publishing an accusation like this - permanent damage to your career, your family life. That's a general statement, I'm not commenting on the validity of this case
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@nta said in Aussie Politics:
@voodoo said in Aussie Politics:
@nta said in Aussie Politics:
@gibbonrib said in Aussie Politics:
What did the ABC actually report? Did they actually accuse him of a crime?
And that's what I don't get - the ABC is reporting the news. How can they be sued for that?
That the news is relating to a dead woman's accusation of rape 30 years ago is neither here nor there. It happened, it is a potential issue for the government, and it is presented in a set of unusual legal circumstances where the victim can no longer speak for themselves, effectively closing the case in many ways.
Defenders of free speech should be utterly appalled at Porter's actions, strategic tho they may be.
As it has been explained to me, you can't simply report someone who is the subject of a mere accusation unless that someone has been charged - if you do report it, you can be be found guilty of defamation, unless you can prove it was truth.
That makes sense. Depends how you report it I guess.
"The alleged victim's correspondence indicates that a senior government minister sexually assaulted her in 1988, however no investigation has been opened" is significantly different from "Porter allegedly sexually assaulted the victim in 1988"
To your argument: the key part of the defamation suit is that it is based on an article in which Porter is not even named.
These are fine lines.
Yeah, really fine. I think Porter's statement made lots of reference to how easily he could be identified as the person in question, but I have no idea how a judge forms a view on that!
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These freeze peach warriors really get under my skin. The sheer bloody hypocrisy of it all - free speech only applies to people who say things they agree with - and the just the plain dumb inability to understand that freedom of speech isn't the same thing as having no consequences or accountability. Generalising a bit, but these are pretty common themes.
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@voodoo said in Aussie Politics:
@gibbonrib said in Aussie Politics:
@voodoo
Wow, I did not know that. That is an astonishingly restrictive law. When you think about the stuff published in the Herald Sun I'm surprised that they're not breaking that law every day. Maybe they're just good enough with the weasel words to get around it (or they're more careful talkingabout the people who have enough money to hire a defamation lawyer).As NTA said, the free speech brigade should be outraged by both this law, and Porter's actions. The idea that it's illegal for a news organisation to report allegations of a serious crime against a senior public figure is scary.
guess the flipside is that it's scarily easy to destroy someone's reputation by publishing an accusation like this - permanent damage to your career, your family life. That's a general statement, I'm not commenting on the validity of this case
Yeah, I can see the positive intention of a law like that. This just seems so restrictive that it would make it impossible for the press to hold the powerful to account (at least the way you've described the law - no doubt it is a lot more complex, I'm sure the lawyers would have taken 5000 words to define what could be said in 20)
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@nta said in Aussie Politics:
@gibbonrib said in Aussie Politics:
What did the ABC actually report? Did they actually accuse him of a crime?
And that's what I don't get - the ABC is reporting the news. How can they be sued for that?
That the news is relating to a dead woman's accusation of rape 30 years ago is neither here nor there. It happened, it is a potential issue for the government, and it is presented in a set of unusual legal circumstances where the victim can no longer speak for themselves, effectively closing the case in many ways.
Defenders of free speech should be utterly appalled at Porter's actions, strategic tho they may be.
Utterly the opposite. There's no charge, no witness and no record of interview, so the accusation can never be tested. So why should an agency get to air the accusation? Replace the accused with a family member you care for and see what you think of the circumstances in that light.
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@antipodean said in Aussie Politics:
@nta said in Aussie Politics:
@gibbonrib said in Aussie Politics:
What did the ABC actually report? Did they actually accuse him of a crime?
And that's what I don't get - the ABC is reporting the news. How can they be sued for that?
That the news is relating to a dead woman's accusation of rape 30 years ago is neither here nor there. It happened, it is a potential issue for the government, and it is presented in a set of unusual legal circumstances where the victim can no longer speak for themselves, effectively closing the case in many ways.
Defenders of free speech should be utterly appalled at Porter's actions, strategic tho they may be.
Utterly the opposite. There's no charge, no witness and no record of interview, so the accusation can never be tested. So why should an agency get to air the accusation? Replace the accused with a family member you care for and see what you think of the circumstances in that light.
Or replace the accuser with a family member you care for, and you might think of it very differently.
It's a really difficult situation. It's wrong to assume his guilt, but it's also wrong to just pretend the allegations didn't happen.
What is not grey is that any hint of a cover up or mistakes made in the investigation should be thoroughly investigated.
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@antipodean said in Aussie Politics:
Replace the accused with a family member you care for and see what you think of the circumstances in that light.
A family member who was not even named in an article, but came out with a tearful denial of all wrongdoing shortly thereafter, on the basis that people might be able to identify them. First thought is that family member had something to hide, which is neither here nor there. EDIT: it would depend on the family member, of course.
The ABC weren't stupid enough to name him. He named himself. How that meets the bar for defamation I'm not precisely sure.
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It is certainly a very difficult, complex, murky situation. There is a balance to be struck between the public interest of a very serious allegation against a very senior and powerful individual, and his right to a presumption of innocence.
We don't want innocent people to have their careers and families destroyed by false accusations, but equally we don't want people to get away with raping and abusing women with impunity.
Which of those two things do you think is a bigger problem at the moment?
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It's such a horrible binary situation.
Either he did it or he did not. If he did, then he should be cast from public life and face the consequences of his actions, but that can't happen.
But if he didn't, then he's being strung up on false allegations which will follow him for the rest of his days, without a chance to ever properly clear his name.
It's a classic 'no winners' situation.
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@nta said in Aussie Politics:
@antipodean said in Aussie Politics:
Replace the accused with a family member you care for and see what you think of the circumstances in that light.
A family member who was not even named in an article, but came out with a tearful denial of all wrongdoing shortly thereafter, on the basis that people might be able to identify them. First thought is that family member had something to hide, which is neither here nor there. EDIT: it would depend on the family member, of course.
The ABC weren't stupid enough to name him. He named himself. How that meets the bar for defamation I'm not precisely sure.
It doesn't matter if they actually name him if they provide enough detail for people to easily make the imputation that it's him. I don't need to say Nick if I say bald Australian who loves Tesla and routinely writes on a NZ sports forum...
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I haven't read the article in question - guessing it might have been pulled from the internet by the lawyers.
But from what I understand, Porter would need to prove that the article:
1 - gave enough info to identify him, and
2 - accused him of a crime (or said there were stronger grounds for suspicion of guilty than there really were?)Is that right? Or can he sue them just for reporting that an allegation was made even if they don't imply that it is true / likely to be true?
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@gibbonrib said in Aussie Politics:
It is certainly a very difficult, complex, murky situation. There is a balance to be struck between the public interest of a very serious allegation against a very senior and powerful individual, and his right to a presumption of innocence.
We don't want innocent people to have their careers and families destroyed by false accusations, but equally we don't want people to get away with raping and abusing women with impunity.
Which of those two things do you think is a bigger problem at the moment?
Well part of the problem as I understand the reporting is that she consented to a sex act and then others were performed. The law at the time didn't account for recklessness (https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/html/inforce/1991-03-17/act-1900-040#sec.61R), so the accused has to know in 1988 that consent has been withdrawn. So evidence would need to be provided that was the case. We can't ask the accuser who withdrew the complaint, we can't look at the non-existent record of interview so what do we have other than the printed accusation?
The mere idea that you can be strung up like this in the modern era and be subjected to a trial by media is repugnant to the concept of rule by law.
Aussie Politics