By Noel Towell and Kishor Napier-Raman
Adding to Bruce Lehrmann’s woes, the former Liberal staffer found by the Federal Court to have raped his then colleague Brittany Higgins is in an ongoing dispute with his unhappy former landlord.
Last year, this column revealed that Seven West Media had been paying for Lehrmann to live in a multimillion-dollar pad in Balgowlah, Sydney. The owner of that home, Gaenor Meakes, recently launched an action against Lehrmann in the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal, claiming $13,250 over alleged property damage and $6000 in unpaid rent.
Gaenor Meakes outside the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal last month, and Bruce Lehrmann in a file photo.Credit: Kate Geraghty / Dominic Lorrimer
But it’s the mysterious identity of Lehrmann’s very private legal adversary, represented by her paralegal daughter at last week’s hearing, which has CBD intrigued.
Initially, the owner of the home, also former partner of famed sailor Mark Richards, was widely referred to in media reports as “Lady Gaenor Meakes”. But that aristocratic angle to the Lehrmann story might be just a little too good to be true.
This masthead dropped the “Lady” after hearing from sceptical sources close to Meakes who suggested that the title was little more than an Instagram in-joke among friends. And while Meakes, an Australian, still goes by @ladygaenor on the app, the only additional references to her title appear in several articles in the yachting trade press documenting the time she christened cruise ship Crystal Esprit back in 2015, by smashing a bottle of Louis Roederer, Cristal Brut, 2004 (a tipple that retails for about $700) against the hull.
Gaenor Meakes and Bruce Lehrmann.Credit: Jozsef Benke
“Few are so passionately devoted to the world of yachting as Lady Gaenor,” Crystal Cruises chief executive Edie Rodriguez reportedly told the trade press at the time.
But a thorough search of peerage lists, both in Britain and from back in the day in Australia, doesn’t turn up anything that could explain the “Lady”.
Only one person could sort this out for us. But her alleged ladyship didn’t return CBD’s calls or texts. Still, we’re not the only ones getting sceptical. Last Thursday, The Guardian also removed “Lady” from its report on the recent tribunal hearing. As far as the News Corp publications are concerned, Meakes is still “Her Ladyship”.
BODY HEAT
Few Australian politicians – outside the Greens, of course – have been as vocal about the need to transition from gas to renewables as part of a zero-emissions future than Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio.
Well, until earlier this month, when she signed off on a gas extraction project near the picturesque Twelve Apostles, the first such approval in the state for 10 years.
But don’t anybody be getting notions that D’Ambrosio is going soft.
She will be giving a talk later this month for the venerable green energy campaign group Renew, which has been around for nearly 50 years in one form or another, all about “Powering the Switch: Helping Victorians to get off gas & save money faster”.
Sounds like a hoot, but CBD will most likely stay home on what might be a chilly or damp winter evening in Brunswick. Attendees have been warned to rug up on the night. “The venue will not be heated.”
Lily D’Ambrosio will need to rug up. Credit: Wayne Taylor
Renew chief executive Helen Oakey explained that the decision was not about fossil fuel puritanism, but that the pop-up venue, being provided free to the not-for-profit group, simply didn’t have heating.
Oakey wasn’t a bit worried. She reckons there will be plenty of bodies at the sellout show to keep everyone in the 120-seat venue snug.
SATURDAY SCARIES
The Saturday Paper, the publication of choice for progressive inner-city terrace owners, isn’t usually where one goes to read diverging views.
ABC news director Justin Stevens.Credit: Janie Barrett
But it appears to have upset some of the darlings among its readership with a profile published this month of ABC news director Justin Stevens.
The piece, written by freelance reporter (and occasional Age scribe) Gabriella Coslovich, included analysis by anonymous former staffers, plus some criticism from media veteran Quentin Dempster.
Since then, some of Aunty’s biggest stars have piped up to defend Stevens. Former 7.30 host Leigh Sales kicked off The Saturday Paper’s letters page last weekend to “correct incorrect slurs made anonymously” in the piece.
“The idea that Justin is merely a ‘visual thinker’ lacking an appetite for hard news and investigations is laughable,” Sales wrote.
Sales’ podcast collaborator Annabel Crabb was up next, writing that the profile was “in urgent need of additional perspectives”.
“I do not entertain doubts about the hard work, bona fides and emotional intelligence of Stevens,” she said, describing him as “one of the good guys”.
The paper didn’t run a more scathing letter from News Breakfast host Lisa Millar, who aired her grievances on Instagram instead. She questioned whether the intent of the piece was to “take cheap shots from critics too gutless to put their names to their backgrounding”. Ouch.
So while Stevens might have lost the salty backgrounders, he can rest assured that the broadcaster’s biggest stars are well and truly onside.
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