‘I begged Ten to own up on Logies speech’, says Lisa Wilkinson

Lisa Wilkinson says she begged Ten to reveal she had acted on legal advice in giving her ill-fated Logies speech, but the lawyer who okayed it tells the court she was ‘not embarrassed’ by it.

Lisa Wilkinson, left, with barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC on Tuesday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Lisa Wilkinson has recounted how she begged Network Ten to reveal she had acted on legal advice in giving her Logies speech, as the lawyer who had given the speech the OK told the court she was “not embarrassed” by it.

Wilkinson said the media believed she made the Logies speech “off the top of her head” and she had spent months pushing Ten to publicly state that their legal team had signed off on the contents of the speech. “They had asked me to give the speech, they had been involved in legalling that speech right up until 4.37pm on the afternoon of the Logies,” Wilkinson told the Federal Court.

“That speech had also been approved by the CEO Ms (Beverly) McGarvey. It had also been approved by the head of Network communications Ms Cat Donovan; all of them had approved the speech, but I was the one that was accused … me alone, of derailing the rape case.”

The former host of The Project was giving evidence in a Federal Court hearing to determine who should cover her million-dollar legal costs in the defamation action brought by Bruce Lehrmann against her and Ten.

Ten agrees it has to cover any damages claim awarded against Wilkinson but says it is not reasonable for her to have her own silk, Sue Chrysanthou SC, when the network is already represented in the case by defamation barrister Matt Collins KC.

Wilkinson has argued that Ten was more concerned about protecting its own interests than hers, while Ten filed a submission claiming their interests were “wholly aligned”.

“I wanted them to look after my legal interests,” Wilkinson told the court on Tuesday. “That was my primary concern and it was becoming increasingly obvious to me that my concerns were different to Network Ten’s.”

In an affidavit filed with the court, Wilkinson said she was “devastated” at being taken off air in the aftermath of the Logies controversy. “I was shocked, embarrassed and deeply disappointed by Ms McGarvey’s decision to remove me from The Project.

“It signified to me that Ten had no real interest in publicly correcting any of the damage done to me and my reputation and were now only making it worse.”

The Logies speech had been described at the time as “beautiful” in a text from Ms McGarvey.

At a meeting with Ten’s most senior litigation counsel Tasha Smithies days before the Logie awards, Ms Smithies had requested Wilkinson delete a reference to a specific date in her speech but otherwise “Ms Smithies told me that she did not require any other changes”, Wilkinson said in her affidavit.

She said she later told Sarah Thornton (executive producer of The Project) to ask Ms Smithies to review it one more time and that Ms Thornton sent her a text saying “Tasha says speech all good”.

Giving evidence in court on Tuesday, Ms Smithies accepted that she twice gave Wilkinson advice that the Logies speech was “OK” but said she was “not professionally or personally embarrassed” by the advice.

Wilkinson’s lawyer, Michael Elliot SC, suggested the “last thing” Ms Smithies wanted to do was to “publicly admit the Logies speech – which was deemed so prejudicial that Mr Lehrmann’s rape trial was delayed by several months – had been given following legal advice given by herself.

Ms Smithies said she “wouldn’t have had a problem” if it was publicly known she had given Wilkinson the all clear for the speech.

Mr Elliot: “It would be a matter of very substantial and obvious personal embarrassment for you. Correct?”

Ms Smithies: “I do not accept that. I am not professionally or personally embarrassed by the advice I provided Ms Wilkinson.”

Earlier, Ten’s lawyer, Robert Dick SC, rejected an assertion that the advice was “inappropriate” but conceded that “ultimately, given the events that happened, it gave rise to a real risk of contempt, and it was unfortunate”.

Wilkinson, in cross-examination, said Ten claimed a concern that there was a risk of contempt well beyond the close of the trial.

The TV veteran said she was very unhappy that Ten had hired Dr Collins to represent both the network and herself, as he’d gone on breakfast television after the Logies speech criticising her praise of Ms Higgins as “ill-­advised”.

“This was directly after he criticised me on three national television programs,” Wilkinson told the court.

Mr Dick suggested Dr Collins had been brought on board because of his expertise in contempt of court law, and this was appropriate given the ongoing risk of contempt proceedings against both Wilkinson and the network.

Wilkinson said another lawyer, Thomson Geer’s Marlia Saunders, had spoken to ACT director of public prosecutions Shane Drumgold who had told her that he was not going to press for contempt proceedings.

Mr Dick: “Notwithstanding your memory that Mr Drumgold had said he wasn’t proposing any contempt charges, that Network Ten and yourself remain concerned that there was a risk of contempt. Do you agree with that?”

Wilkinson: “Oh, they said that for months and months and months, well beyond the close of the trial, right up to and including the … board of inquiry that they refuse to put a submission into, to clear my name and to cross-­examine Mr Drumgold.”

Ten’s legal advice to Wilkinson was never revealed during the defamation trial because the network refused to waive legal privilege, despite the clear preference of judge Michael Lee to see it.

On Tuesday, Justice Lee asked Mr Dick why Ten had not waived legal privilege despite there no longer being risk of contempt of the court, after Mr Lehrmann’s rape trial was abandoned in December 2022.

Mr Dick said: “Because Network Ten takes the view that unless there’s a very good reason, privilege ought to be maintained.”

Ms Smithies acknowledged that she had instructed Ten’s lawyers to maintain legal privilege over the advice and instructed Wilkinson to do the same.

Mr Elliot asked Ms Smithies: “You were not helping her by doing those things to defend the allegation of aggravated damages that had been made against her, were you?”

Ms Smithies: I thought we were helping her.

Mr Elliot: You thought you were helping her by not letting it be known what the actual advice was?

Ms Smithies: That’s not what I’m saying. I thought we were helping her by her being able to say that the advice had been approved by lawyers and by the network, that maintaining privilege over the content of the advice …

At that point, Justice Lee intervened and reminded Ms Smithies of the problem he had raised earlier in the trial, namely that without being able to see the advice, he had to make inferences about it, including it was “inconceivable to me that any legally qualified person could have given advice .. that a crown witness saying what they said in that Logies speech was anything other than inappropriate”.

“In light of that, didn’t you think the mere fact of disclosing the fact of advice rather than the content of the advice wasn’t necessarily helping Ms Wilkinson because I didn’t know what the advice was.”

Ms Smithies: “I would accept that, Your Honour.”

Justice Lee indicated he would rule on the Lehrmann defamation proceedings in March.