Lisa Wilkinson’s Logies speech bombshell revealed in affidavit
Lisa Wilkinson has told a court that the boss of Channel 10 checked her controversial Logies speech for “red flags” before she delivered it.
Lisa Wilkinson has told the Federal Court that 10 Network CEO Beverley McGarvey checked her controversial Logies speech for “red flags” and declared it was “beautiful” just hours before it was delivered.
Ms Wilkinson, who is locked in a dispute with 10 over her $700,000 plus legal costs for Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation trial, has outlined new details surrounding the circumstances of her speech in an affidavit.
She says that on June 19, 2022, a senior producer asked her for a copy of the prepared speech “for the purposes of showing to Beverly McGarvey, Network 10 CEO, and Cat Donovan, Network 10 Head of PR.”
“She told me Ms McGarvey wanted to see the speech in case there were ‘any red flags’,” Ms Wilkinson said.
She was then told that Ms McGarvey and Ms Donovan had seen the speech and had no issue with its contents.
“Sarah Thornton (head of The Project) also informed me that afternoon that Tasha Smithies (Network 10 senior litigation counsel) had reviewed the speech. I understood from my communications with Ms Thornton that Network 10 had given full approval for me to give the prepared speech,” Ms Wilkinson said.
In her affidavit, Ms Wilkinson says that after she gave the speech she received praise from 10 bosses.
“Shortly after I gave the speech on 19 June 2022 at 11:07pm, I received a message from Ms McGarvey that stated “Beautiful speech,” she said.
The televised address subsequently prompted a judge to delay Bruce Lehrmann’s criminal trial.
ACT Supreme Court Chief Justice Lucy McCallum referred to the speech as one of the main factors driving her decision why to order a delay in the criminal trial through “gritted teeth”, warning the line between guilt and innocence had been “obliterated”.
Network 10 CEO Beverly McGarvey then issued a grovelling apology to the ACT Supreme Court.
“Neither Ms Wilkinson nor the Network 10 Senior Legal Counsel present at the conference with the DPP on June 15, 2022, understood that they had been cautioned that Ms Wilkinson giving an acceptance speech at the Logie Awards could result in an application being made to the court to vacate the trial date,” the letter read.
“Had they understood that a specific warning had been given, Ms Wilkinson would not have given that speech.”
But the letter was never read out in court or addressed to the ACT Supreme Court. It was later leaked to media outlets.
In the wake of the Logies speech controversy, President of the Australian Bar Association Dr Matthew Collins KC appeared on Sunrise arguing the speech was “ill advised”.
Network 10 promptly hired him to represent the media company, a role that ultimately led to him leading 10’s case in the defamation trial.
However, Lisa Wilkinson then hired her own counsel, barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC.
This week, Justice Michael Lee said the Logies speech advice was an issue “concerning credit” of Lisa Wilkinson.
“That is an issue concerning credit with your client,” Justice Lee said.
It was, he suggested, “entirely fantastic that any lawyer acting competently could have given advice that that speech was anything other than inappropriate”.
“And how do you factor that into the notion that someone’s telling you ‘well, I followed legal advice’ if you think the legal advice is self-evidently absurd and could never have been given by any lawyer to (a) Crown witness eight days before a trial can effectively get up to the Commonwealth of Australia and say the man is guilty?”
‘F**k a goat claim’
The revelations regarding Ms McGarvey follow a string of shock legal claims this year involving another former Project host Peter van Onselen who told a court in a separate matter he only agreed to quit 10 after jokingly asking bosses if he could still write about the channel “if the CEO “f**ks a goat’”.
Van Onselen was accused of breaching a non-disparagement clause in the redundancy terms he signed when he left the TV station in March.
The former political edit told the court he only agreed to quit 10 after he proposed a joking hypothetical that he could write about the channel if the CEO had sex with a goat.
“I said that if the CEO f**ks a goat and everyone was piling on 10, surely I can pile on too?,” he said under cross examination by 10’s barrister Arthur Moses.
Mr McDonald was said to have replied: “Of course mate, that sounds fair.”
In cross-examination by defence barrister Sue Chrysanthou, Mr McDonald denied the conversation took place.