Inside Sam Newman and Nicky Winmar’s emotional showdown
Friday’s mediation talks were not the first time Sam Newman and Nicky Winmar have come face-to-face to resolve a racial flare-up. In fact, their feud stretches back decades. Here’s the full story.
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Friday’s mediation talks at 333 Collins St were not the first time S am Newman and Nicky Winmar have come face-to-face to resolve a racial flare-up.
Newman famously painted his face black on The Footy Show in 1999 after the St Kilda-turned-Bulldogs star failed to front as a guest on the now defunct Channel 9 program.
In the fallout from the ill-advised blackface skit, Newman and Winmar were brought together by then host Eddie McGuire and Western Bulldogs president David Smorgon at Channel 9’s Bendigo St headquarters.
Even then Winmar felt it was a hollow apology and 21 years later he believes he has been proven right.
The last few weeks have been hell for Winmar. He felt he was back at square one and it was 1993 all over again.
We’ve all heard Newman defend his controversial comments as freedom of speech. That he was just discussing topical issues and has a right to an opinion. But this time the cut was more than skin deep.
This is the inside story on how it all went down.
Friday’s mediation began after Winmar and photographer Wayne Ludbey threatened legal action over comments by Newman, Mike Sheahan and Don Scott about the Indigenous player’s famous jumper-lifting gesture.
Sheahan quit their podcast, You Cannot Be Serious, apologising for any hurt caused by suggestions that Winmar’s defiant gesture as he pointed to his black skin at Victoria Park in 1993 was not “black pride” in defeating Collingwood but simply winning on “guts”.
Things moved quickly, with former AFL lawyer and Channel 9 executive Jeffery Browne becoming involved.
Browne, a long-time friend of Newman and Sheahan, quickly put together a legal team including hot-shot media and defamation lawyer Justin Quill.
The general consensus was that going to court was bad for everyone, including Winmar.
And there was a fear the “white-privileged” trio, as they were being called, would become poster boys for redneck racists out with their pitchforks in this current climate.
Winmar and Ludbey, who photographed the now iconic image, quickly employed the services of Leon Zwier, the man known in corporate Australia as Mr Fix-it.
Zwier has worked on everything from Gillon McLachlan’s “Nannygate” crisis over political influence in bringing an au pair into the country, to the Westgate Tunnel litigation.
Zwier quickly assembled his own team, calling on Matt Collins QC, considered one of the country’s most experienced defamation barristers.
Legal letters were quickly sent under defamation and racial vilification laws.
Zwier and Quill are cut from the same legal cloth, with sharp minds, good judgment and acute strategy.
By Sunday, Winmar’s legal team had agreed to sit down in an attempt to resolve the highly-emotive issue.
The hope was the lawyers wouldn’t be the ones laughing all the way to the bank. A $1 million defamation lawsuit usually finishes by lining the lawyers’ pockets.
But this time, the lawyers are working on a pro bono basis; that all changes if things go to court.
Arriving on Friday at Collins St top-end law firm Arnold Bloch Leiber ahead of the 1pm mediation hearing, Winmar was with Ludbey.
He described the action as being important for Indigenous people. “I am black and I’m proud,” Winmar said. “I want to thank the rest of Australia for supporting this.
“It’s good for our people. I was very disappointed. It’s been a very emotional few weeks.”
Word was that Carlton Indigenous champion Eddie Betts was to attend the mediation as support for Winmar.
Betts wasn’t required in the end but Winmar, a former St Kilda and Western Bulldogs champion has others in his corner.
Winmar’s manager Peter Jess said his man has felt everything from anger, hurt and extreme frustration as he let the comments of the “white-privileged three men” as he describes them, to sink in.
Indigenous athlete-turned-politician Nova Peris called to give him support. Indigenous Sydney Swans champions Michael O’Loughlin and Adam Goodes were also on the phone.
O’Loughlin and Goodes had also made calls to Sheahan.
Speaking in his final podcast with Newman and Scott on Tuesday, Sheahan said the call from Goodes was the final straw for him.
The fact the Indigenous footy great declared he would actively avoid him in public from now on was devastating.
Betts, fresh from calling out the racially-motivated attacks directed at him during his decorated career, was solace that Winmar badly needed.
Brothers and sisters united, they all encouraged him to “stick with it.”
Winmar didn’t want another eye-rolling apology from Newman. He didn’t want money. He wanted a resolution to have meaning.
High-profile Indigenous broadcaster Stan Grant was called in to join retired Federal Court judge and Ray Finkelstein QC.
“Nicky doesn’t want to go in and get some apology that’s about as sincere as a mother-in-law kiss,” said Jess.
“He has been angry through this whole process. People don’t get it. It’s so entrenched. Without Stan he felt he was just going into a room with more white-privilege men telling a blackfella what to do.”
Newman and Scott arrived together for the hearing, dressed in suits and donning masks and gloves as they walked into the Collins St offices.
When asked if he wanted the issue to be resolved, Newman’s enigmatic response was, “What do you reckon?”
Sheahan, a former Herald Sun chief football writer, arrived separately to Newman and Scott, walking straight into the Collins St premises without comment.
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