Barrister Charles Waterstreet looking forward to #MeToo talk on Q&A panel

COLOURFUL barrister Charles Waterstreet has candidly revealed why he will be a panellist on a controversial ABC Q&A special to discuss sexual harassment and the #MeToo campaign

Charles Waterstreet will appear in a Q&A special to discuss sexual harassment.

COLOURFUL barrister Charles Waterstreet has candidly revealed why he will be a panellist on a controversial ABC Q&A special to discuss sexual harassment and the #MeToo campaign.

“I was invited,” said the Sydney legal eccentric, who recently denied claims he made sexually inappropriate comments to a 21-year-old paralegal.

His inclusion on the live Q&A discussion scheduled for next month has been slammed as “deeply inappropriate” as it will discuss the social media campaign in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the subsequent avalanche of sexual assault and harassment claims made against other celebrities including the gardening guru Don Burke.

Charles Waterstreet says he was invited to appear on Q&A by ABC. Picture: John Grainger

Outraged ABC viewers took to Twitter with some stating that no men should be on the panel.

Mr Waterstreet said he was looking forward to a lively debate on February 15 when the show is aired.

“I have a vague look at social media and people are linking me with Weinstein,” Mr Waterstreet, who currently has a photograph of a naked woman holding a gun on his Twitter page, said.

“The only thing we have in common is that we are both filmmakers.

“I abhor his conduct.”

The criminal barrister, who claims his life inspired the hit TV series Rake, said he does not think he had been invited on the panel to be “punching bag” and thought he would be treated fairly.

“I expect the usual fair go,” he said.

“I am looking forward to a lively debate.”

Stranger than fiction: Richard Roxburgh as Rake’s Cleaver Greene, a character Waterstreet claims was based on him.

Late last year he explained away a law student Tina Huang’s complaints of being shown pictures of naked women and a man being masturbated during her job interview as being linked to work he was doing for clients and articles he was preparing for the magazine Penthouse.

He was also accused by former paralegal Genevieve Wilks, 26, of continually making sexually inappropriate comments when she worked for him between September 2014 and June 2015.

“I deny that I routinely sexualised situations, and other colleagues in the office will deny these allegations,” he said last November.

Tina Huang, who claimed Waterstreet showed her sexually explicit material during a job interview.

Mr Waterstreet is expected to be sitting alongside actor Rachel Griffiths, social commentator and Macquarie University media professor Catharine Lumby and Professor of Media in the Department of Media, Music, Communication and Cultural Studies at Macquarie University and Melbourne employment lawyer Josh Bornstein.

An ABC spokeswoman said the Q&A panel “will represent a variety of perspectives and experiences, exposing Australian citizens to a range of views and ideas they may oppose, as well as those they support.”

Mr Bornstein said through a spokeswoman yesterday that he had no comment about sharing the panel with Mr Waterstreet. Ms Lumby and Ms Griffiths could not be contacted.