Category: Australia

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In May, the Coalition suffered swings against it in 11 of the 12 seats in Sydney that had voted against marriage equality in 2017. It also went backwards in the three regional Queensland seats that voted no in that plebiscite. The one exception was Fowler, in Sydney’s multicultural west, where Labor’s head office candidate Kristina Keneally lost to local independent Dai Le.

Australia is no longer the fractured country it was when the last referendum was held in 1999 on the republic. Our ethnic face then was Anglo-European. The majority of the population was born here, with both parents born here as well. We were still living in the anti-incumbent shadow of the early 1990s recession, with the regions holding an electoral veto over the cities. Today we are majority migrant with a Eurasian ethnic face. More than half the population is born overseas or has one migrant parent, and the cities have just decided a federal election.

The Coalition party room appears to be divided at the moment between those who want to support the Voice and those who are emboldened by the uncompromising positions of their Indigenous colleagues Jacinta Price and Kerrynne Liddle. The Greens, for their part, are being encouraged into the No camp by their Indigenous colleague Lidia Thorpe. There is an echo here in the unholy alliance between the Tony Abbott-led opposition and the Greens on climate change in 2009.

A paradox of this debate – indeed, it is a recurring feature in relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians – is that support for reconciliation has been strongest where the two peoples are least likely to share the same postcode.

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Consider Melbourne, long-regarded as the most tolerant city in the nation. It returned the highest Yes vote at the failed 1999 referendum, with 17 of its 20 metropolitan electorates wanting a republic, while Victoria delivered the highest Yes vote at the successful 1967 referendum to count Indigenous Australians in the census. Melbourne also happens to be the only Australian capital where the local Indigenous population is outnumbered by the city’s top 10 overseas-born groups.

The latest census showed that while 69 per cent of non-Indigenous Australians lived in the capitals, 63 per cent of Indigenous Australians lived outside them.

The danger for Dutton if he reverts to the politics of obstruction is that he drives up the Yes vote in the cities, where the referendum may be decided, while splitting black and white neighbors in the regions. That is, he recreates another version of the perfect electoral storm which overwhelmed the Morrison government in the capitals on May 21.

Dutton and Albanese each have a gap in their corporate memory which carries lessons for all sides. Dutton entered parliament in 2001, after the republic referendum, while Albanese entered in 1996, in the aftermath of the Mabo native title debate three years earlier.

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The 1999 referendum failed because the monarchists were able to paint the model for a president appointed by two-thirds of the parliament as a “politician’s republic”. It helped that Howard wrote the question that was designed to fail. The Voice is not so easily diminished as an elitist concern because it explicitly empowers the most marginalized community in Australia. It could well unite “old Australians”, who have been here for three generations or longer, and First Australians on the simple idea that outsiders deserve to be heard by the parliament.

Mabo, on the other hand, was viewed by old Australians as a form of outsider queue-jumping which elevated the rights of First Australians above their own. As Paul Keating explained later, there wasn’t a vote in it for him at the 1996 election. But it was the right thing to do.

What may come as a surprise to the present generation of politicians is what happened immediately after the native title legislation was passed by the Senate in December 1993. The Coalition had voted No at every stage in the debate, and the then opposition leader, John Hewson , thought he was on safe ground when he declared the new law was “a day of shame for Australia”. But the opinion polls turned sharply in favor of the Keating government. By mid-March 1994, Labor’s primary vote was 45 per cent to the Coalition’s 42, according to Newspoll, and the Liberal Party was preparing to replace Hewson as leader. The public rewarded Keating for resolving the issue, and punished the naysayer.

Albanese believes a Voice to parliament is the right thing to do. The question for Dutton is whether he is willing to risk his leadership when the nation may not be in the mood for another white male politician who wants to defend the status quo.

Some Liberals told The Age they objected to the framing of questions being asked in the poll, which assume the state campaigns will find candidates of similar quality to Ryan and Daniel.

Yaron Gottlieb, who worked with independent candidate Daniel in her seat of Goldstein, said that while no candidates had been endorsed, there were locals interested in standing as candidates in Sandringham and Brighton.

He said there was currently “zero groundswell” for a campaign in Caulfield, expected to be a close contest between Labor and Liberal deputy leader David Southwick.

Voters in the seats of Brighton, Caulfield and Sandringham were asked who they would support if given a choice of a “candidate like Zoe Daniel” or another party. Local Liberal MPs were named. In Hawthorn and Kew, the same question was asked about Ryan and local Liberal candidates were named.

The polling found:

• In Brighton (750 respondents), 39 per cent said they would vote Liberal (a drop of six per cent from the 2018 election result), 23 per cent said they would vote Labor, 23 per cent said they would vote for an independent and seven per cent said they would vote Greens. Redbridge calculated these results would lead to a 51-49 two-party preferred win to an independent.
• In Sandringham (744 respondents), 31 per cent said they would vote Liberal (a drop of 11 per cent), 27 per cent said they would vote for Labor, 25 per cent said they would vote for an independent and seven per cent said they would vote Green. Redbridge believes this would lead to a 54-46 win to an independent.
• In Caulfield (837 respondents), 37 per cent of people said they would vote Liberal (10 per cent drop), 23 per cent said they would vote Labor, 19 per cent said they would vote for an independent and 14 per cent said they would vote Greens. Redbridge said this would result in a 56-44 win to an independent.
• In Hawthorn (979 respondents), 37 per cent said they would vote Liberal (an eight per cent drop), 22 per cent said they would vote Labor, 22 per cent said they would vote for an independent and 12 per cent said they would vote Green. Redbridge said this would result in a 55-45 independent win.
• In Kew (918 respondents), 37 per cent said they would vote Liberal (a 12 per cent drop), 24 per cent said they would back an independent, 23 per cent said they would vote Labor and seven per cent said they would vote Green . Redbridge said this would result in a 55-45 independent win.

All the polled seats are held by the Liberal Party except Hawthorn, which is held by Labor. The poll indicates support for Labor has also dropped since 2018. Both major parties believe there has been a tightening in recent months between the Coalition and Labor.

A Liberal source connected to the Hawthorn campaign said the level of support for an independent represented about half of the primary vote for Ryan in May, and was a sign of moderate Liberal candidate John Pesutto’s suitability. However, teal candidates such as Ryan and Daniel were polling in the teens three months before the federal election.

The Coalition is desperate to retain inner-city seats and win back Hawthorn to claw back the 18 seats required to form government in the 88-seat parliament. The Coalition’s recently announced suite of climate change policies was designed to secure support in inner-urban electorates.

While not included in the polling, The Age has spoken to three sources who all confirmed independent candidates would also stand in the seat of South-West Coast and Benambra.

Once represented by former Victorian premier, Denis Napthine, South-West Coast is currently held by Liberal MP Roma Roma Britnell by a margin of 3.3 per cent and is within the boundaries of the federal seat of Wannon, where former trade minister Dan Tehan suffered a six per cent swing after a strong campaign from independent candidate Alex Dyson.

The seat of Benambra, in the northeast, is held by Bill Tilley but sits entirely within the federal electorate of Indi, which has been held by an independent for almost a decade.

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He adds, “Of course, if they do succeed on truth, it will operate as a quasi-investigation into war crimes as well, which is also significant in and of itself.”

Few would wish themselves in the shoes of Besanko, who now has to sift through a mountain of evidence, elicited from more than 40 witnesses delivered over 110 days, to decide whether Roberts-Smith will forever be branded a man who murdered Afghan prisoners, bullied former comrades and struck his former lover.

nine’s newspapers, the Sydney Morning Herald and TheAge, have taken the calculated risk of mounting a truth defence. That means their legal team, headed by Nicholas Owens, SC, had to convince the judge that the war crimes and other wrongdoing alleged by star investigative reporters Nick McKenzie and Chris Masters were, on the balance of probabilities, true.

But Roberts-Smith’s legal team, headed by Arthur Moses, SC, and Matthew Richardson, SC, have urged the judge to be rigorous in applying what is known as the Briginshaw standard.

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This is an evidentiary principle derived from a 1938 divorce suit, which holds that even in a civil suit like this – with a lower standard of proof than in a criminal case – the court must take particular care in weighing the strengths and weaknesses of the evidence if there are serious consequences for those involved.

Moses ran hard on this in his summing up, saying the criminal allegations being made by the media outlets fell “at the very highest end of objective seriousness… [and] strike at the very heart of Mr Roberts-Smith’s morality and humanity”.

Underscoring this point, Moses added that “murderer” was “ordinarily a label…reserved for convicted criminals flowing from a criminal proceeding”.

He also pointed out that if the judge accepted all the evidence from the media outlets as to the five unlawful killings of unarmed prisoners that Nine alleges, this would implicate other soldiers –particularly the SAS witnesses known as Person 4 and Person 11.

Person 4 is said to have shot a prisoner at Roberts-Smith’s command at a village compound known as Whiskey 108 in April 2009, while Person 11 is alleged to have conspired with the Victoria Cross recipient to execute an unarmed man, Ali Jan, at the village of Darwin in late 2012.

Moses told the judge that in addition to branding Roberts-Smith a murderer, “Your Honor is [effectively] being asked to make a finding that Person 4 is a murderer. Your Honor is being asked to make a finding that Person 11 is a murderer.” (Person 11 has denied the alleged execution, while Person 4 declined to give evidence on the grounds of self-incrimination.)

Nine’s legal team, however, believes the war crimes case it has painstakingly built over the past year is strong enough to withstand the Briginshaw test. “Nothing left on the table,” is how one participant summed up the mood on the media outlets’ side this week.

University of Sydney professor David Rolph, a defamation law expert, said the law has “long recognized that in order to be satisfied that a fact is proven on the balance of probabilities you need to take into account the seriousness of the allegation”.

“Because the allegations are serious and hotly contested, it may be difficult for the publishers to establish truth – but not impossible.”

Moses has accused McKenzie and Masters of jumping like “salmon [onto] a hook” as soldiers within the SAS, jealous of Roberts-Smith’s military honors, peddled supposed lies and gossip to the two reporters.

But Owens, utterly rejecting this, emphasized that many of Nine’s critical witnesses had never had any contact with the journalists.

Indeed, some of the key witnesses summoned by Nine – particularly SAS troopers who were identified as Persons 24, 40, 41, 42 and 43 – were called by the mastheads’ lawyers only after they’d won access to a critical Defense department document known as a Potentially Affected Persons (PAP) notice.

The PAP had been confidentially issued to Roberts-Smith by the Inspector-General of the Defense Force in connection with a separate war crimes probe being conducted by the military.

The gaining of access to the PAP – even in its highly redacted form – was a major turning point for the newspapers in the case.

The hearings have taken a heavy toll on some of the soldiers who gave evidence, as demonstrated by the occasionally distressed state of some in the witness box. Moses branded two of Nine’s witnesses as liars and perjurers, and says others are mistaken because of mental health conditions which distorted their memory.

But Owens says the media outlets’ witnesses are honest and reliable, and by contrast, has accused Roberts-Smith’s witnesses of collusion and cover-up.

Unpicking what occurred at Whiskey 108 is particularly complex because of the large number of SAS or former SAS witnesses who were involved in the operation that day. But essentially the media outlets’ case rests on one core proposition: that two Afghan men came out of a hidden tunnel there. Nine says the two men, who were taken prisoner, were soon afterwards executed unlawfully, one by Roberts-Smith and the second at his instigation of him with a story concocted to cover the deaths.

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Roberts-Smith and his allies denied any men came out of a tunnel at all – Moses branding the Nine case a “mishmash”.

But Owens said while there may have been “differences of detail” among some of his SAS witnesses, there was “no plausible suggestion about how they might all have, as it were, come to have a collective hallucination in broadly the same terms about people. coming out of the tunnel”.

Another evidentiary tussle turned on whether the media outlets should have summoned an Afghan soldier known as Person 12 to give evidence. Person 12 was a senior Afghan officer who is said to have ordered the execution of another unarmed detainee at Chenartu, in Afghanistan, in late 2012, under pressure from Roberts-Smith.

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Citing a precedent in a case known as Jones v Dunkel, Moses said Besanko should draw an adverse inference against Nine because of its failure to call Person 12. But Owens said the officer could equally have been called by Roberts-Smith’s side.

Nine is confident it has closed its case in a strong position, thanks to the additional evidence turned up by months of patient sleuthing.

Should it fail, Bosland says a record payout could flow if the judge grants aggravated damages – imposed where a court finds “improper or unjustifiable” conduct by the respondent.

The domestic violence allegation has a separate defamatory “sting”, Roberts-Smith’s lawyers say. They’ve argued that the conduct of his ex-lover, Person 17, was overall inconsistent with his having struck her. But Nine says she is truthful, and emphasized the power imbalance between the pair.

While the Defamation Act was recently reformed across much of the country, the Roberts-Smith litigation is being fought under older laws that imposed fewer restrictions on the size of damage payouts. Under those provisions, a cap on general damages for non-economic loss – currently fixed at $443,000 – ceased to apply if aggravated damages were also awarded.

Roberts-Smith is also claiming special damages, to cover the career opportunities he said evaporated as a result of the case. (Actor Geoffrey Rush holds the current record for the highest defamation payout to a single plaintiff in Australia at $2.9 million).

The long-overdue changes to defamation law will provide investigative journalists with a new public interest defense in the future, if publishers can establish they “reasonably believed” publication of material was in the public interest. The defense remains untested.

But in facing off against the onetime war hero under the older law, Nine is having to jump a high bar.

The next few months will be a long and agonizing wait, for both sides.

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