‘Faceless men’ behind Joe Aston’s view of Blue Sky’s Elaine Stead: court told

AFR columnist Joe Aston’s criticisms of Elaine Stead wouldn’t have been made if she was a man, her lawyer argued.

Journalist Joe Aston leaving Federal Court in the defamation trial against Elaine Stead. Picture: Jane Dempster

“Banal” social media posts were the “primary catalysts” for The Australian Financial Review articles in which columnist Joe Aston called former Blue Sky director Elaine Stead “stupid” and a “cretin”.

So it was no surprise when Dr Stead’s lawyer, Sue Chrysanthou SC — considering that had been a benchmark of the stupidity claims during her client’s defamation case against Aston – turned the tables on the journalist.

“Have you ever posted anything banal on Instagram, Mr Aston?” Ms Chrysanthou inquired, listing off “pictures of food” “selfies” images Aston posted about his feet and posts “about how hungover” he was.

“Yes, certainly not while my company was in a trading halt,” Aston quipped.

Aston continued to defend his description of Dr Stead, highlighting her use of social media while Blue Sky was in crisis, including when it was suspended from trading due to fraud allegations.

Among Dr Stead’s posts were a tweet saying she needed a hug, asking on her private Instagram account how she was going to “crowd fund” a trip to Mongolia and tweeting “that feeling when your first coffee is bad. Real bad”.

Towards the end of more than eight hours of cross-examination, Aston appeared to give a lesson in how to use social media.

Ms Chrysanthou was quizzing him about a tweet made linking to a column where he criticised South Australia’s decision to employ Dr Stead at the state Venture Capital fund and wrote it was “downright embarrassing”. In the tweet — which he refused to agree was unfair but realised it was offensive and would impact her reputation — he also included the words “WTF, Mr Premier” with South Australian Premier Steven Marshall’s handle.

Ms Chrysanthou said that phrase was “pretty extreme” and noted Aston did not use it in his original column.

“WTF Mr Premier wasn’t in the article,” Ms Chrysanthou said.

“No, evidently. You really have to compact it down with 180 characters,” Aston retorted.

Ms Chrysanthou replied: “You could have just said here’s my article about Elaine Stead’s appointment”.

“Well nobody clicks on an article saying ‘here’s my article’, I can promise you that much,” Aston said.

Earlier in cross-examination on Tuesday, Ms Chrysanthou alleged that “faceless men … lurking in the shadows” were the sources for Mr Aston forming the opinion that Dr Stead was stupid.

Aston confirmed in court that his confidential sources for a series of articles he wrote about Dr Stead and Blue Sky, which collapsed in May last year, were all men. Ms Chrysanthou argued that the sources were unreliable given they weren’t willing to go onto the record.

Aston’s barrister Sandy Dawson SC objected to the questioning, particularly the phrase used by Ms Chrysanthou that Mr Aston’s confidential sources were “lurking in the shadows”.

“That’s what they are doing,” Ms Chrysanthou said.

“(They were) faceless men sending emails, in some instances, abusive emails about my client.”

Aston rejected that because a source was anonymous it meant they were unreliable, saying if journalists “relied on people advertising their thoughts, you wouldn’t have a newspaper”.

“It’s not like I only relied on these sources, as per my affidavit I collected information in many different ways,” Aston said.

“Everyone who is giving you information has a motive for handing it to you … and you choose to keep that in mind. It’s not fair to suggest that just because someone is a confidential source that their motive has to be negative.”

Mr Dawson dropped the truth defence to the defamation allegations in October and are relying on an “honest opinion” defence — namely that Aston honestly believes that Dr Stead is stupid and a bad venture capitalist. Dr Stead’s lawyers can overcome this defence if they can prove the opinion was dishonest.

“Did it occur to you that some of the criticisms made in very direct terms to you about my client by some of these sources would not have been made by them if Dr Stead was a man?” Ms Chrysanthou asked Aston.

He replied: “I’m not sure if it occurred to me.”

Ms Chrysanthou had asked Aston to look at his affidavit where he stated that Dr Stead’s prior experience as a venture capitalist at CM Capital reflected poorly on her. Ms Chrysanthou said Aston had on Monday said Dr Stead was “stupid” and expressed some contrition over writing about CM Capital’s liquidation in his columns in a way that could reflect on Dr Stead.

“I think I thought at the time with the amount of time I put into the CM capital issue, that is what I considered at the time very, very briefly,” Aston said.

Ms Chrysanthou suggested that the fact the column remains online and unedited means Aston’s regret is “disingenuous.”

Ms Chrysanthou then noted that despite not pleading truth to the imputation that Dr Stead is stupid in his affidavit, Aston called her stupid at times yesterday, “escalating” his evidence on the topic.

“I don’t see the issue … Stupid is as stupid does. Someone who repeatedly does stupid things is by definition stupid,” Aston replied.

Dr Elaine Stead leaves the Federal Court in Sydney. Picture: Christian Gilles

Ms Chrysanthou then quizzed Aston on his exact knowledge of Blue Sky’s investment funds and the origination of capital used in different investments Blue Sky made, including in collapsed retailer Shoes of Prey.

Ms Chrysanthou asked Mr Aston if he considered other investors in Shoes of Prey like MLC, IFM, Blackbird and Atlassian co-chief executive Mike Cannon-Brooks to be “stupid”.

“Now Blue Sky invested in late 2015 — in that round Greycroft also invested … any reason to think they are stupid?” Ms Chrysanthou asked.

“No,” Aston replied.

Ms Chrysanthou noted that US retailer Nordstrom was an investor in one round: “Do you think Nordstrom knows more about the sale of women’s shoes than you do, Aston?”

“I suspect they do, yes,” Aston said.

Blue Sky fell into administration in May 2019 and was delisted from the ASX after it share price crashed following short seller Glaucus Research publishing allegations in mid 2018 that Blue Sky had overvalued its assets under management by almost $3.5bn.

Ms Chrysanthou said the Glaucus report “which includes serious representation of dishonesty”, and when those “allegations were picked up and repeated by journalists such as Aston over time” damages a company.

Aston said it was absurd to think that short sellers could criticise any company and trigger its collapse. Justice Lee interjected, citing the “efficient market hypothesis” and stated it was a common view that short sellers help a market function.

Earlier, the court heard “banal” social media posts were the “primary catalysts” for the articles in which Aston called Dr Stead “stupid” and a “cretin”.

The court heard Aston did not contact Dr Stead when writing his articles nor include details about her qualifications and awards won during her venture capitalism career.

Ms Chrysanthou said Aston made no attempt to learn of her client’s success before Blue Sky at CM Capital and the reason was “because you had no intention of putting anything positive in these articles about her”.

“I didn’t have anything at my disposal that fit that description,” Aston replied.

Ms Chrysanthou fired back: “Come now Mr Aston, are you seriously suggesting that if you had actually done research into the investments made by CM Capital you couldn’t have discovered which companies had been invested in by those funds?”

She asked if he agreed that “knowing my client’s professional history as a venture capitalist prior to Blue Sky was relevant to an assessment as to whether she was stupid as a venture capitalist”.

After a pause, Aston replied: “Ah, yes.”

But Aston maintained his description of Dr Stead was accurate, describing her actions on social media after as “Blue Sky was burning” as “stupid behaviour”.

Aston also highlighted senior Blue Sky executives requesting Dr Stead to stop using social media, with the court hearing on Friday that her tweets had become a cause for concern after allegations of impropriety were flung at the funds manager by short sellers.

“Social post media posts in both cases were the primary, I suppose, catalysts but also other commentary made by the applicant,” Aston said.

“It seemed the utter ridiculousness of these tweets … justified the deployment of that comparison in an humorous way. She was a public company director, the company was in crisis, the company was in meltdown … and she kept saying things on social media that even her own employer wished she wouldn’t.”