By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
Men’s rights activist Bettina Arndt’s ”presumption of innocence” conference held in Sydney on the weekend fizzled after the star attraction, colourful lawyer Zali Burrows, who’s representing Bruce Lehrmann in his defamation appeal, failed to show.
Arndt, best known for publicly defending the man jailed for raping former Australian of the Year Grace Tame, initially booked Lehrmann as a speaker, before the former Liberal staffer pulled out after Federal Court judge Michael Lee found, on the balance of probabilities, that he’d raped former colleague Brittany Higgins.
Despite being added to the program, Burrows – a one-time United Australia Party candidate better known for a colourful criminal defence client list that includes convicted fraudster Salim Mehajer and various underworld identities – was nowhere to be seen at Rushcutters Bay on Saturday.
Zali Burrows arrives at the Federal Court in Sydney on Thursday for the hearing on Bruce Lehrmann’s appeal.Credit: Kate Geraghty
Arndt told attendees Burrows was being intimidated by “the witches, the mad feminists on social media”.
And on Tuesday, the solicitor said she’d “regrettably” pulled out of the conference after being “bullied, intimidated and threatened”.
“I have put up with a lot in the past from nut jobs and stalkers, I thought better to stay home to paint my nails than to compromise my safety,” she told CBD in a statement, adding she was concerned about jeopardising her work for Lehrmann by getting involved in a controversial conference.
“Further I am mindful of the harassment and criticism I am receiving for representing Bruce Lehrmann in his defamation appeal, which he is arguably the most hated man in Australia,” she said.
“I did not want to compromise any position of advocacy,” she told CBD.
But attendees did hear from a special “mystery speaker” – Vanessa Scammell, partner of actor Craig McLachlan who dropped a defamation case against this masthead, the ABC and former co-star Christie Whelan Browne over allegations of sexual harassment during a production of the Rocky Horror Show 10 days into the trial.
That didn’t stop Scammell accusing journalists who reported allegations against McLachlan of engaging in a “vicious public lynching” against the actor, whose career rehabilitation is being helped along by celebrity agent Max Markson, Seven West Media and some random ABBA tribute gig.
“As a tall poppy Craig was an easy target when the requirement was to find a poster boy for the #MeToo movement in Australia,” she claimed.
McLachlan was acquitted of criminal charges related to his alleged behaviour on the Rocky Horror Show, and while Scammell spent much time criticising that prosecution, she had less to say about his defamation backdown.
But Scammell did claim, despite Australia’s reputation as a plaintiff’s paradise, that McLachlan’s was a “David versus Goliath” lawsuit, only dropped after learning the jury weren’t permitted to know about his criminal acquittal.
“It wasn’t until we were well and truly embedded in the ugly, slippery slope of defamation law, that we realised that defending yourself against massive media behemoths is thoroughly ruinous, both fiscally and emotionally,” she said.
She’s right about one thing: for McLachlan, who paid about $1.2 million in costs to this masthead and the ABC, going to court was indeed a fiscally ruinous decision.
REVISIONIST HISTORY
The 2005 Cronulla riots are widely remembered as one of the most shameful moments in this country’s recent past, a repugnant explosion of White Australian racism.
The authors of a new book on the riots seem to think otherwise.
“While the riots are often cited in discussions of Australian racism, the authors challenge the notion that they were solely driven by Caucasian xenophobia,” reads the blurb to The Cronulla Riots: The Inside Story, to be released this month by conservative publisher Connor Court. Right then.
So who are the authors in question? None other than former NSW politician Carl Scully, police minister during the riots, and the state’s then assistant police commissioner Mark Goodwin.
To say the pair have skin in the game would be an understatement. Scully was sacked by premier Morris Iemma in 2006 after admitting he’d twice misled parliament over a report into the riots. Goodwin too was criticised in the report written by former assistant commissioner Norm Hazzard, and subsequently went on extended stress leave before leaving the force.
Naturally, that report will be canvassed in the book. As will the loathsome interventions of shock jock Alan Jones, found by the NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal to have incited hatred, serious contempt and severe ridicule of Lebanese Muslims during the time of the riots. But we hear Jones wasn’t interviewed for the project.
Scully didn’t want to discuss the tome until its release, so we’ll just have to wait a few weeks to read about why two white guys reckon the Cronulla riots weren’t the racists’ fault.
ABBOTT BACKS BADENOCH
Despite lasting less than two years in The Lodge, former prime minister Tony Abbott remains a bit of a hero to some in the global right.
We’ve seen Tony hanging out with Hungary’s hairy-chested conservative leader Viktor Orban, and chumming it with rage-baiting Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson. Now, British Conservative Party leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch has added Abbott as one of her endorsers.
“Tony is someone I greatly admire both as a thinker and a leader of his party,” Badenoch wrote on X, adding he was one of those “shaping the future of global conservatism”.
Abbott praised Badenoch, who is of Nigerian descent, for her commitment to “meritocracy” and “freedom”.
“It thrilled me that the conservative party in government had the world’s most multi-ethnic cabinet,” Abbott said. “Proving, I think, that Britain is amongst the least racist and most colourblind countries in the world”.
Badenoch is one of six candidates battling to replace former prime minister Rishi Sunak as leader of the Tories, who were battered by Labour in June’s general election.
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correction
An earlier version of this story said that Zali Burrows is a barrister. She is a solicitor.