KJK suing Australian Liberals for defamation

[fromorbit]

UK women’s rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen has issued John Pesutto and his entire leadership team with defamation concerns notices
UK women’s rights activist Kellie-Jay Keen has issued John Pesutto’s entire Victorian Liberal leadership team with defamation concerns notices, giving them 28 days to apologise and pay compensation for making “grossly misconceived, wilfully vexatious, and wretchedly false” claims, or face federal court action.

In her legal letter sent to the Liberal leader, his deputy David Southwick, upper house leader Georgie Crozier and her deputy Matt Bach on Monday, Ms Keen claims their conduct has seen her become the target of “extreme hate, abuse, harassment, and stalking”, and culminated in her “being physically attacked” and “placed in life threatening danger” at a Let Women Speak rally in New Zealand.

Archive of full report from The Australian:
https://archive.is/lWNTN#selection-255.5-255.135

Brilliant move as it will really help Moira Deeming's case against her party. Also further reveals the crazy sexism going on in Australia.

NB Reminder Australian Liberals are actually politically somewhat like UK Tories.

This is hugely important. Hopefully it will put an end to the slurs ‘fascist’ and ‘nazi’ being hurled left right and centre at women speaking up.

Those terms have done a hell of a lot of work to dehumanise women speaking up for women, and once we are dehumanised, anything goes. As seen in New Zealand, and to a lesser extend at Let Women Speak events in this (and other) countries.

Gosh! Now you put it like that I'm convinced.
Convinced that you'll use any old disingenuous crap to smear KJK. If her evidence is as scant as you suggest, she'd risk making a fool of herself in court and no qualified legal professional would touch the case, but, surprise surprise, somebody more qualified than you thinks that she does have a case!
Even if you were right, it's all excuses and disappointing, why do you care? If a nazi barbie terf wastes money on a frivolous legal case that makes her look foolish and gets laughed out of court, why interrupt your enemy while they are making a mistake? Unless you're worried that she might win?
BTW, The nazi barbie explanation has been in the public sphere for ages and being "shocked" by it seems a bit pearl clutching for people who are happy to wave away concerns about male rapists in female prisons.

Sorry can you explain what you expect from Kellie Jay please?

Did you expect her to deny that she did a video where she was interviewed by someone who has been reported to have some views on nationalism and Nazis? Is that what you were expecting? Her to lie?

She did do an interview with the person and upon finding out she told the world how she felt about those views. However, do you have anything to say about what she said in that video that you disagree with? Please tell us all what she said that you disagree with in that video interview and let’s discuss it?

Your comment about the selfie is also lazy. Do you think anyone having a selfie after they have just delivered a conference session or just won a completion or are well known or any reason should check the personal opinions of the person before they agree?

Where do you draw that line? Should Albanese not have a photo taken with a leader of a country that has human rights atrocities even though he is attempting on working with them to stop kore atrocities?

Should actors never agree to a selfie? If you had written a thoughtful article as a journalist and someone wanted their photo taken with you, should you refuse?

Should Kellie Jay Keen have lied and said the selfie didn’t happen?

And did you want her to lie about why she did 3 & 4?

You really would have to be without critical thinking to believe she would put something like that Barbie up as a serious representation of her views after she had made it clear previously that she thought those supporting nazi ideas were abhorrent. In fact, I would have to say it would take some determined ignoring of fact to try to make any accusation that this was a representation of her views stick. And if some people want to state how abhorrent the joke was, fine, go for it.

Do that as well as targeting every person and news outlet that has called any women rights campaigners nazis, or made false allegions of them being ‘far right wing’. Because they have also leveraged an absolutely horrific historical suffering of people for their own political agenda.

KJK may be innocent, but it seems to be the wrong sort of innocent.

Goodness, just noticed the typos in my post. Apologies.

Competition not completion
and ‘kore‘ = more.

I summarised the letter the OP linked and, yes her defence is weak if it is all that is stated in the letter. Is there more to her defence that you are aware of? If so can you link me to it?

(btw, I’m not sure why you are being so hostile, I haven’t implied she has no case, or that she will lose, Im just not seeing how the link put in the OP is so blistering and praise worthy)

@BillaBongGirl
People have literally gone to prison for online Nazi jokes
In which country and can you link to the articles, including the sentencing please. It seems rather extreme.

@Helleofabore
so many questions! I am sorry I can’t stick around, but have done my best. Hope to catch up later.

Sorry can you explain what you expect from Kellie Jay please?
I dont really have any expectations for KJK other than she be her usual forthright and truthful self. After reading the comments, did expect the link to the Australian news piece to have a bit more meat to it where they quoted from her lawyers letter in her defence though. What was there from her lawyers was just a bit disappointing.

Did you expect her to deny that she did a video where she was interviewed by someone who has been reported to have some views on nationalism and Nazis? Is that what you were expecting? Her to lie? No, no, and no!

She did do an interview with the person and upon finding out she told the world how she felt about those views. However, do you have anything to say about what she said in that video that you disagree with? No. Please tell us all what she said that you disagree with in that video interview and let’s discuss it? Not applicable

Your comment about the selfie is also lazy. It was a summary of KJKs lawyers response, I agree it is also lazy.

Do you think anyone having a selfie after they have just delivered a conference session or just won a completion or are well known or any reason should check the personal opinions of the person before they agree? No

Where do you draw that line? Not applicable as said no above.
Should Albanese not have a photo taken with a leader of a country that has human rights atrocities even though he is attempting on working with them to stop kore atrocities? Who?

Should actors never agree to a selfie? What? Why?
If you had written a thoughtful article as a journalist and someone wanted their photo taken with you, should you refuse? Don’t know

Should Kellie Jay Keen have lied and said the selfie didn’t happen? No

And did you want her to lie about why she did 3 & 4? No

You really would have to be without critical thinking to believe she would put something like that Barbie up as a serious representation of her views after she had made it clear previously that she thought those supporting nazi ideas were abhorrent. In fact, I would have to say it would take some determined ignoring of fact to try to make any accusation that this was a representation of her views stick. And if some people want to state how abhorrent the joke was, fine, go for it. She and her lawyers said as much in the link, but in the past that line of argument has proven to not be very favourably viewed. Magistrates don’t really think that anti-Semitic jokes are funny even if the source has a proven track record of not being anti-Semitic. Please understand, I’m not accusing KJK, and I categorically don’t agree with the accusations. She has had these allegations published about her which have clearly damaged her public reputation, caused her distress, stalking and even to be assaulted and is now taking legal action for defamation. It is clear she has suffered damages, but what will be considered is to what degree she brought this on herself and making anti-Semitic jokes like she has is a factor that isn’t in her favour. I’m sorry, I know that’s not good news, and I was hoping there was a better defence for how that happened. I didn’t even know until I saw the screen shots that she’d had that Nazi Barbie profile up for several months. I had thought it was a yeah I changed my profile during a heated exchange when I was called a Barbie nazi and then changed it back the next day sort of thing from how she had related it in the past. But in the dossier there’s a post from June with it and then another post from October with it.

Do that as well as targeting every person and news outlet that has called any women rights campaigners nazis, or made false allegions of them being ‘far right wing’. Because they have also leveraged an absolutely horrific historical suffering of people for their own political agenda. Yes, it is despicable to appropriate the Holocaust for a political agenda so it’s absolutely disgusting to have called KJK a Nazi in the first place. However, by making a joke of the Holocaust, KJK has made a strategic error and even though I get the frustration at the idiocy that likely drove her to it, they’re not going to go easy on her. The legal system isn’t really by women and for women.

Righto.

I think she has enough to prove that she has been defamed though. So that is what matters ultimately.

The first two accusations are reliant on guilt by association and no actual association between those people and KJK can be shown other than the weak examples given. Because there is no association.

The second two could potentially be leveled at a number of comedians and still not pass a reasonable expectation of being true test. It was always ludicrous to use them as examples.

If this is the new normal for social media presence, then I suggest that the world is stuffed. Because now any person answering a question that is being recorded in any way could be in this position too. Panels hosting diverse perspectives will become a thing of the past, only aligned views on all issues will allow access to a panel discussion.

I cannot see how a Federal Court judge will give credibility to the claims. This will be tried in Federal Court not the local magistrates court.

And KJK posted these in the UK so Victoria’s laws about displaying swastikas in public won’t apply either.

The issue is this is one of Australia’s two major parties and this is the dossier they came up with. That is fucking pitiful. And that party, at state level used that to expel an MP.

With regards to Albanese, no worries. Although, I am surprised that a person with the user name with billabong in the name doesn’t know the name of the Australian prime minister it doesn’t matter all that much. Just change it to Sunak or Biden or any European world leader and the question stays the same.

As your answer stays just as relevant, the name doesn’t matter.

Exactly right. The published allegation by John Pesutto in his motion was pure guilt by association. He didn’t put in print that KJK is far right or a neo Nazi herself but that Ms Keen was known to be publicly associated with far right-wing extremist groups including neo-Nazi activists which then led to various keyboard warriors jumping to then calling her far right and a neo-nazi- the reputational damages, distress, stalking, assault and so on. Which wasn’t the first time she’d been attacked in such a way on social media. It really is so toxic what she has faced over the years.

So his defence lawyers only have to prove that what Pesutto wrote was substantially true in that she was publicly associated with them at the time of publication. That even without his dossier, the keyboard warriors (do they count as the public?) had already or would still have linked KJK and far right or neo Nazi together as associates of some sort. That’s much easier to defend. Especially as I don’t have much faith in a justice system that is by men and for men, women and women’s rights are grist to the mill.

Oh, I know KJK is going to Federal Court, but I was thinking of hate speech cases re Nazi/Holocaust jokes that were in local magistrate courts when I made that observation.

Oh, I know who Albanese is, I just thought you were referencing some real life world leader with a horrible human rights record that he had taken a selfie with even though he is working to stop more human atrocities and so asked “who?” As in who’d he have his picture with? So I could get a bit of context to give an informed answer. As it seems that was a hypothetical question, I’d have to answer “it depends and not really comparable” as KJK isn’t a world leader so shouldn’t be held to the same standard and I’m sure Albanese has advisors in his entourage for that sort of thing, which KJK doesn’t have the benefit of.

Sorry, my memory isn’t the best Alison was the only recent one I could remember. Her defence was that her music was art and the lyrics were “satire”.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-56616838

And there is absolutely no evidence of 'associating' with them other than a selfie for one, and an interview which she denounced.

Perhaps I have more confidence in the Federal law court judges than you do. It is a very dangerous precedence for them to be setting if they took these particularly weak examples as 'associating' with because it really then opens up any politician or any celebrity or anyone to being defamed in this way.

Oh. I see. I think it doesn't take much to think of a leader of a country who has an appalling human rights record. A PM would be considered doing their role by meeting someone that may be considered 'unsavoury' by the Australian press or the opposition. They would not be allowed to make the same accusations of guilt by association as has happened based on simply having a photo taken with a person.

She is a known activist and was even then. And she was doing her role as an activist at the time. Do you think that a judge is going to decide that an activist getting the message out using the available media, even if it is considered not mainstream, is going to be held as having 'an association'? So, I do think it is 'comparable' in the practice of the weak 'guilt by association' that the Pessutto team has attempted to use - using an activist doing an interview as 'guilt by association' of the activist with the interviewer.

It would mean that every journo who interviewed someone would need to be deeply vetted on every single thing they believed before anyone would consider doing an interview again with them.

Do you have experience in defamation cases that makes you doubt so much?

Do we know who is representing her? Surely they wouldn't take this on if there was going to be a greater chance of losing than winning? It is a high profile case and losing it because it was weak would not be in their interest at all.

This is the UK not Australia.

Do you have any Australian examples?

BillaBongGirl · Today 13:38

I summarised the letter the OP linked and, yes her defence is weak if it is all that is stated in the letter.

I'd have to disagree, as she's been smeared as being associated with Nazis. If the Hells Angels gate-crashed your birthday party and tore things up, would you think it was fair to be described as an associate of yours?

No. I pulling a blank, it’s so hard to remember who wins on appeal and so on.

Here we go. 🙄

@Helleofabore
”And there is absolutely no evidence of 'associating' with them other than a selfie for one, and an interview which she denounced.” That’s all that’s in the published dossier. I just hope there’s nothing else we don’t know about that will blindside. The dossier does have the catch all of “far right groups” so they’d probably be trawling for her association with Tommy Robinson and anyone questionable from her US tour to defend their case. They can sling tons and tons of mud in the hopes that enough will stick.

“A PM would be considered doing their role by meeting someone that may be considered 'unsavoury' by the Australian press or the opposition.” That’s why it’s not really comparable though as world leaders have less choice in who they meet and negotiate with. Their meetings are also heavily scripted and witnessed.

“So, I do think it is 'comparable' in the practice of the weak 'guilt by association' that the Pessutto team has attempted to use - using an activist doing an interview as 'guilt by association' of the activist with the interviewer.
Guilt by association is the idea that an individual is guilty of a crime because he or she associates with the person who actually committed it. The dossier isn’t saying she is guilty by association, but that she associates with the guilty ifykwim? I agree can’t do that on the basis of a selfie or an interview or even both, there’d need to be more, a lot more.

No idea who is representing her, just have my fingers crossed at this point.

Ok, well I’m glad someone is confident 😅
Im a bit anxious.

The dossier does have the catch all of “far right groups” so they’d probably be trawling for her association with Tommy Robinson and anyone questionable from her US tour to defend their case. They can sling tons and tons of mud in the hopes that enough will stick.

Proud Boys leader (local chapter) Chris Barcenas speaking at her Miami event could prove problematic.

Ok, well I’m glad someone is confident 😅Im a bit anxious.

KJK passed through immigration in Australia and New Zealand, both of which can deny entry for bad character, or associating with bad characters. In NZ, public notables insisted that she was and tried to persuade immigration of that.

It didn't work, because it's a load of rubbish. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that court officials will also look at the evidence and conclude that it's crap.

I doubt the Australian Liberal Party will apologise or offer any damages. They might prefer a court case. Lots of publicity and they would hope to bask in the martyrdom. And anyway KJK is a Pom.

But regardless of the outcome , their hypocrisy and disregard for the rights of women or the welfare of children will be exposed. Sometimes KJK can be annoying. But she is ' as game as Ned Kelly'.

I doubt Chris Barcenas speaking at an open mic event will be evidence. Have you got any proof that there is any ‘association’ apart from that? No.

Again, a Federal Court Judge would be risking their career on one uninvited speaker out of how many hundreds, if not now entering thousands of speakers at events that Kellie Jay Keen has facilitated.

Plus the judge would also then look at what Barcenas actually said at that event and consider whether that was ‘far right propaganda’ or whether that was reasonable in the context.

To put it into context, Australian’s have political freedom. Just being a member of a group legally expressing their legitimate opinion is not about to be legitimised as some kind of crime.

I expect that a Sovereign citizen (is that what they are called?) person could turn up to any open mic rally and say something that is relevant to that rally and not be considered to be ‘associated’ with the organiser. I expect a law abiding sovereign citizen sitting on a panel at a conference discussing extremism or something relevant would not mean the organiser is considered ‘associating’ with the ‘far right’.

That really does show disconnected thinking. A Federal court judge is not about to decree that legal interactions, and one off events that are completely disconnected and not even logically held up as ‘interactions’ because it would then move up to appeal and be overturned. No judge would want legal precedence to be set for this very shallow disconnected evidence.

It really is strange how many new posters mention Barcenas though.

“The dossier does have the catch all of “far right groups” so they’d probably be trawling for her association with Tommy Robinson and anyone questionable from her US tour to defend their case. They can sling tons and tons of mud in the hopes that enough will stick.”

The* *judges will look at how many rallies Kellie Jay Keen has held, the nature of the events, the wide range of people that speak at the events. By the way, you seem very focused on amplifying people from approaching ‘far left’s’ view of who is ‘far right’ as well. Have you noticed that?

Is there any proof of a connection with Robinson?

What ‘association’ do you speak about? The two people who filmed and uploaded the Brighton event from some group no one has heard about until people used it as a tool to build a fake ‘association’? One of them apparently knew Robinson, does Kellie Jay?

There has been not one mention of that group since either. And to put it in context, the rallies are also recorded and uploaded by a wide range of people for different purposes. What connection do the two people who did this at Brighton have to all the other people doing it?

Who is ‘questionable’ from her US tour? Apart from Barcenas, anyone else? How many speakers has she had from the far left? Do you think the federal court judge will look at those speakers too? If they consider just how many speakers she has had from the wide range of political views, what conclusion do you expect a Federal Court judge to draw?

How about that Kellie Jay Keen holds open mic rallies where anyone who is female can speak, even trans rights activists? And that occasionally a person who has right wing views speaks but is usually it is people speaking where their political views are not even mentioned.

It would be a very biased judge to put their career on the line over making such conclusions while the all other very public interactions Kellie Jay Keen has is not with extremists.

Has the whole ‘dossier’ been published? Can you link it up please?

“That’s why it’s not really comparable though as world leaders have less choice in who they meet and negotiate with. Their meetings are also heavily scripted and witnessed”

Kellie Jay Keen is an activist, a women’s rights campaigner. Her interactions are usually live streamed and are available to all on the internet.

Saying a world leader has less choice is correct, however, they DO have a choice. You are missing the point in any case.

The point is that an activist who is determined to get their message to as many people as possible and not just to those they consider ‘worthy’ of their message, or those politically aligned with themselves. They will appear on media they don’t agree with, they will attend conferences as panelists where they are opposed to the organisers of the conference, or attend to listen to the speakers at the conference even those they abhor. And if they hold open mic rallies, they will abide by their own rules if they are also free speech advocates, and let even people who have opinions they don’t like speak.

A politician may also do this as they are effectively campaigning, similar to an activist, and will attend public meetings where other people speaking have opposing views, some of who have abhorrent views to some people (maybe even many people).

It doesn’t mean in any reasonable person’s view that they are ‘associated’ with that person.

You seem to be minimising Kellie Jay’s public activist / facilitator role which the Judges will be very well aware of. No doubt the team defending her will start to bring out numbers of speakers who are not ‘far right’ and make mention of some of their names. Names that seem to be continually forgotten in the rush to associate her with a few people believed to have these far right alignments.

And I say ‘far right’ but despite asking repeatedly for a list of what makes a political party ‘far right’ and proof that individual people are ‘far right’, there never has been that evidence provided.

I sure hope that is one of the things that KJK’s defense team get out there. Because we all too often see those, generally, repeating the accusations of who is ‘far right’ as not having proof the people they are labelling as ‘far right’ are ‘far right’ at all. And far out that is a whole heap of ‘far rights’!

Yes, I recall they did try to get NZ to bar her from entry. This article says they also argued the public safety angle as well as bad character:
https://theconversation.com/does-public-safety-trump-free-speech-history-suggests-there-is-a-case-for-banning-anti-trans-activist-posie-parker-from-nz-202118

As you say, the motion failed and KJK went on to NZ as she is not a bad character and she isn’t a danger to anyone, the only danger was to herself as she took great personal risk in going. As borne out by the fact that she was then assaulted and had to be speedily evacuated from a very terrifying, out of control and dangerous situation.

Again, though in terms of defamation, Pesutto didn’t put in print that KJK is a “bad character” he said she is publicly known to associate with “bad characters.”

The motion that was filed and was debated, in NZ asking to bar her entry failed because “guilt by association” is crap. But, if the public didn’t think she were associating with bad characters, then there wouldn’t have even have been a debate over her entry to NZ right? So when Pesutto put in his dossier that KJK is publicly known to associate with bad characters (far right, including neo Nazis), would not the fact that her entry was debated and her character was questioned on the basis of her publicly known associations be a possible defence he could use to say his statement was substantially true?

The Pesutto dossier and the motion to bar entry to NZ were roughly simultaneous from all I can see based on media reports- both hitting the news afternoon of 21 March 2023, but if the Dossier were released even hours before the NZ motion were filed I’d expect KJK’s lawyers to present as evidence to counter this potential defence that the NZ motion is part of the reputational damages that then led to her assault in NZ.

The timing is critical.