Brittany Higgins’s diary exposed
Good morning and welcome to our live blog for Saturday, 18 February.
It’s shaping up to be a busy news day.
Moments ago, Brittany Higgins tweeted a complaint about the leaking of contents from her diary, which were published in the Australian this morning. The diary contents showed Higgins planning meetings with journalists in March 2021.
Higgins said she had taken a photo of an old page in her diary on 7 July 2021. She said she had provided the contents of her phone to police while they investigated her allegation of rape, but that the diary material was not tendered in court.
“Therefore, no journalist should have seen the photo of my diary,” she tweeted. “Stop publishing the private contents of my phone. I entrusted police with my private information for the sole purpose that it could aid their investigation into my sexual assault, nothing else.”
I took a photo of an old page in my diary on the 7th of July 2021.
It is now being referenced in an article in the Australian.
This is the third time private images, texts and WhatsApps from my phone have been published by this particular news outlet. (1/3)
— Brittany Higgins (@BrittHiggins_) February 17, 2023
The material was published alongside an interview with Higgins’s former boss and past defence minister Linda Reynolds. Reynolds told the Australian she was the victim of a political “hit job”, which was “less about an alleged rape, and almost exclusively about bringing down a cabinet minister, to damage the prime minister and bring down the Morrison government”.
Reynolds suggested Higgins was used by Labor and journalists for their own ends.
I think it was a terrible abuse of Brittany Higgins’ circumstances. She was clearly, in my mind, exploited for overtly political purposes, by Labor, and also a number of prominent journalists and female advocates who, in the #MeToo zeitgeist, had found their perfect vehicle to elevate the movement but also to bring down a senior minister to hurt the Morrison government.
In response, Higgins said she had already received apologies from Reynolds and had been through multiple reviews, a trial, mediation with the federal government and now an independent inquiry into the criminal trial.
The facts have been well-established. Any revisionist history offered by my former employer at this time is deeply hurtful and needlessly cruel.
Bruce Lehrmann consistently denied the allegation that he raped Higgins. His first trial was aborted due to juror misconduct and prosecutors decided not to proceed with a retrial because of the likely impact on Higgins’s mental health.
Key events
Filters BETA
It is being reported that David Warner will be ruled out of the remainder of the second cricket test between Australia and India in Delhi, to be replaced by Matthew Renshaw.
BREAKING. David Warner will be ruled out. Concussed. Matthew Renshaw to play.
— Peter Lalor (@plalor) February 18, 2023
Is the Sydney Mardi Gras putting corporations before protest?
With Mardi Gras/WorldPride commencing in Sydney this weekend, there’s a constant debate about the role of corporations in the parade. I’ve taken a look at the issue here.
I’m going to hand you back to Josh Taylor now. He’ll take you through the rest of the afternoon.
Perrottet pledges $1.5bn clean energy superpower fund if re-elected
New South Wales premier Dominic Perrottet says his government will create a $1.5bn clean energy superpower fund if re-elected, which will improve access to rooftop solar, batteries, and big grid batteries. The fund would also help fast-track access to pumped hydro. In a statement with treasurer Matt Kean, he said:
A re-elected Liberal and Nationals government will fast-track the transformation of the NSW electricity system by setting up a $1.5 billion Clean Energy Superpower Fund, comprised of the Transmission Acceleration Fund and new funding to support the delivery of renewable energy storage and grid security projects, such as pumped hydro and batteries.
The government will also invest a further $23 million to kickstart the expansion of the Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap to cover rooftop solar and small-scale batteries and to unblock local grid constraints to allow more people to produce and share energy locally.
Linda Burney calls for patience on voice to parliament
Lorena Allam
Indigenous Australians minister Linda Burney has told a packed community forum in Sydney to “be patient” about the voice to parliament, saying that she did not want to “get ahead” of the deliberations of the referendum working group on the voice.
Fielding questions about a treaty, she said that the government was committed to the sequence of the Uluṟu Statement, with the voice to come before a treaty.
She said the government has committed $5.8m to establishing a Makaratta commission to look at a process of treaty making and truth telling.
She said the government would soon announce the “first steps” to establish a Makaratta group of four senior First Nations people who will start that process.
“Treaty will be a part of this, we are very conscious of it … the commonwealth government is committed and there is an absolute commitment to that,” Burney said.
Burney, environment minister Tanya Plibersek and Senior Australian of the Year Tom Calma hosted the “historic” first event of the “national week of action” on the voice at Sydney’s UTS, with an engaged and passionate audience.
Burney told the crowd they would be “the warriors of the fight” to promote a successful yes vote.
The meeting ended with rousing applause for Redfen leader Shane Phillips, who said he did not want his children to have to stand here in the future asking for the same thing.
“Please vote yes,” Phillips said.
The meeting ended with a photo to commemorate the historic first event of the voice campaign.
Anthony Albanese due to appear at “BBQ for the voice” in Sydney’s inner-west today
The PM will be kicking off a week of action to support the yes campaign for the voice referendum.
AAP reports he will be joined by Linda Burney, minister for Indigenous Australians, who said during the “week of action” she would be travelling to Orange to meet with former Nationals MP Andrew Gee, who quit his party to sit as an independent over its opposition to the voice.
She would also travel to Melbourne for a series of forums and to Flinders Island in Tasmania with Liberal MP Bridget Archer, who has been pushing her party to back the constitutional change, she said.
There is much work being put into this and my hope is that once this bill is introduced into the parliament, that people will grasp the significance of this, not just for Aboriginal people, but for all Australians.
12-year-old boy in critical condition on Central Coast
A boy is in a critical condition in hospital after he was hit by a four-wheel drive on NSW’s Central Coast.
Emergency services were called to a Umina beach intersection just after 7pm on Friday following reports a vehicle and a pushbike had collided.
A 12-year-old boy, who was being carried on the bike’s handlebars, sustained multiple injuries and was airlifted to hospital in a critical condition.
The rider, an 11-year-old boy, was also admitted to hospital in a stable condition with leg injuries.
Neither child was wearing a helmet.
The driver of the 4WD, a 59-year-old woman, was not injured but was still taken to hospital for mandatory testing.
Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the crash.
– AAP
NSW premier says he was ‘horrified’ and ‘disgusted’ by explicit photo incident
The NSW premier, Dominic Perrottet, says he was “horrified” and “disgusted” by an explicit photo scandal that has rocked the government this week, AAP reports.
“When that situation occurred years ago, I was appalled, horrified and disgusted,” Perrottet told reporters today.
Major damage was inflicted on the Coalition government’s already stuttering campaign on Friday as the Liberal MLC Peter Poulos resigned from his parliamentary secretary role after apologising for sharing 1980s Penthouse images of a female rival during a preselection battle five years ago.
The premier says he now expects the NSW Liberal party to act on the incident, signalling the MP’s future in the party could be in doubt.
The incident caused the female MP distress at the time, Perrottet says.
I expect the highest standards amongst my parliamentary colleagues.
Peter has apologised, as he should have.
There is no place for that behaviour in any workplace. I have made that very clear.
Peter has resigned his parliamentary secretary role. That is the appropriate course of action.
I expect the NSW Liberal party to act appropriately as well.
What Birdsville can teach us about coping with global heating
The town of Birdsville, on the edge of the Simpson Desert, may just be the perfect location to test climate adaptation strategies to cope with global heating.
My colleague Joe Hinchcliffe has been in Birdsville to explore what groups like Climate Justice Observatory are doing to help ensure that people on the margins of society don’t cop the brunt of climate breakdown.
Pesutto disagrees with post-election review blaming Guy for Liberal loss
All Victorian Liberals need to take responsibility for last year’s state election loss rather than shift blame to Matthew Guy, the opposition leader, John Pesutto, says, AAP reports.
Guy was slammed in a post-election review from the party president, Greg Mirabella, who described the former opposition leader as widely disliked.
He said the public had nothing to vote for because the Coalition’s election strategy was “relentlessly negative” and too focused on Daniel Andrews, according to excerpts published in the Age.
Pesutto disagreed Guy was to blame for the November loss, instead saying all Liberals needed to take stock after the defeat.
“Any political party, in good times and in bad, must take collective responsibility and work collectively to make the most of the opportunities they have,” Pesutto told reporters on Saturday.
“There is no purpose to be served in singling people out. Matthew was leader, he was part of a team, we were all part of that team.
Food Standards issues recall alert for Inside Out oat milk
Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) has issued an alert stating that company Inside Out is recalling a popular unsweetened milk brand.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported this week that the company was recalling almond milk linked to the discovery of a toxin that can cause the serious paralysing illness of botulism and was potentially linked to a recent hospital admission in Sydney.
FSANZ’s alert said the recall was now expanding to include two types of oat milk. It said:
This product has been available at Woolworths nationally.
The recall is due to missing storage instructions. Products are not labelled with directions to ‘keep refrigerated’.
Failure to refrigerate this product may lead to microbial growth and biotoxin contamination which may cause illness/injury if consumed.
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