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.

I think SOCO was intended to be a “far right” example for the dossier, not a neo-nazi one. They are “religious right” though as far as I know, but really who cares? Wasn’t the lady just a random participating audience member at a SFW rally? Is there any evidence KJK personally invited her to speak? Not that I know of…so that shouldn’t even be included as it is. It’s deceptive.

The Age and others like the ABC and Guardian now say the Nazis gate crashed, but they didn’t say that with their original reporting. They were happy to let the lie circulate before subtly changing their reporting.

I was under the impression that yes they gatecrashed, but it was because of the TRA presence. Hence the pedo signs. I don't think they even knew what KJK was doing or who she was.

If the TRAs weren't showing up to shut the women down, would the neo Nazis even have been there?

Honestly, all these thuggy arseholes either pissing on women, or pissing on each other, and it's KJK who gets the blame.

With all these extra idiot men, politicians and broadcasters, egging them all on and lying through their teeth.

I hope she wipes the floor with them.

Exactly.

First rule of misogyny init, if men do something wrong, blame the women

The ABC is still calling KJK an “anti-trans” activist, though.

I saw that Diabolical, out of interest is anyone complaining about that in Oz. It’s quite a statement from the state broadcaster.

And, with it being from the left-wing press, presumably quite a punch in the face for a Liberal Party leader.

Brave....

Just caught up with the thread, late to it as usual. Thank you @helleofabore for the very informative posts. You obviously worked really hard. Much appreciated.

Calling the Tras 'pridestapo' is a silly joke too to be fair. And calling her abusers " left wing feminists ' is just batshit.

Pity KJ couldn't source a different German uniform - a Stasi one perhaps.

Take a look at the dossier. “Pridestapo” plus the Nazi imagery posted under her publicly admitted via her lawyers Nazi Barbie profile makes the post an Anti-Semitic joke. Id do a screen shot of it for you, but it would result in an immediate ban. The dossier has been linked in this thread.

I can’t agree it is merely “silly” when taken in its full context. It doesn’t make a KJK a neo-nazi but it’s an offensive Anti- Semitic joke all the same as are any jokes that appropriate and minimise the Holocaust for any political agenda or activism no matter how just your cause.

No worries serotina.

It was mostly (apart from the transcript) all there in threads. As I said but required combing through page after page to pull out the info and put into some sensible way people could read compared to simply reading the threads and taking in the information organically. It is the filtering that takes time and a fuck ton of effort.

I have missed some because I notice I left some links to tweets etc from where the neo-Nazis declared they are certainly not in agreeance with feminists etc which came out a day or so after the rally. And I missed linking up KJK’s statement about the neo Nazis that she made after the ridiculous accusations.

Again, there is plenty of that type of evidence in the many threads of the past. It really has been discussed in depth here, hasn’t it?

What is interesting is how many of the usual accusations were not in that dossier. For instance, the Mot dag conference, maybe people realise that again was false reporting or the Liberal Party aides understood that as supporters of free speech, that would be a very dangerous accusation for the Liberal Party to make against Mot Dag. Mot Dag seem to be all about Free Speech and that particular conference had speakers from left wing backgrounds. However, I think they just missed it.

Very similarly, no mention of CPAC which gets thrown around on these boards. Forgetting that it was CPAC Australia that contributed not CPAC USA. I am quite sure the Liberal Party aides understood that making that accusation, the one that gets fired off on FWR would be detrimental to the party. I cannot imagine how attacking a group that Warren Mundine as chairman and ex Australian Labour Party chairman and indigenous advisor would play out in the Australian media. Or. Maybe they didn’t see it because it probably hadn’t reached Wikipedia yet.

Again, that dossier was an abysmal effort for a state opposition leader to use as the basis for such accusations. The bits they left out was probably just incompetence rather than understanding how that would potentially back fire on the Australian Liberal Party.

Yes thank you @Helleofabore , I have to admit after reading everything you posted late last night I do feel reassured and woke up this morning thinking that KJKs chances are better than I thought at first.

I remember Spero, Sarah Philimore, dealing with the non-crime record on her police record from when they investigated her joke about her dog. Which resulted in the finding that no law had been broken but it was still on her record.

https://sarahphillimore.substack.com/p/the-absurdity-of-hate-crime

To be clear, this has no bearing on what is and isn’t considered a hate crime in Australia. This is illustrating the point that nazi jokes are not always what they seem.

And again, with reference to my last post, I also point out that an action in the UK where it is not considered a hate crime, would unlikely to be considered as substantive in an Australian Court. It may go to context, but then so too would the background of why that action eventuated.

I doubt a legal team would allow it to not be fully and completely explained in court.

While some people may doubt the Australian law system, again I believe enough in people’s egos to think they wouldn’t take on cases they cannot win when they are this high profile. And I have enough confidence that enough of our Federal level judges are wise enough to understand where their decisions could be used in precedence in the future.

I am happy to be proven wrong if the result goes against KJK. And I will be ashamed for believing in the legal system.

I asked yesterday what will be the outcome if KJK’s legal action fails?

Anyone want to pose any thoughts on what they think will happen that hasn’t already?

Oh, you won’t need to be ashamed! Or think yourself wrong. No one can predict the future.

As far as I know, no lawyer can guarantee to a client that they will definitely win when they take on a case. I think KJKs lawyer has offered mediation/settle out of court as well? I don’t know if that is standard in defamation or reluctance to actually test the case in court or a show of good faith? So this may never get to court.

If KJK lost, she wouldn’t be able to use her “I never lose” catchphrase anymore. Beyond that, it depends on why. If she lost because the judge ruled that she actually was a Nazi (a bit like the original judgement on Maya Forstater’s views. It being WORIADS), that would be damaging. If she lost because “honest opinion” meant she wasn’t defamed, she still wins in a way but gender activist will claim otherwise.

IANAL, so I don’t know what other grounds Pesutto might have as a defence.

Settling out of court offers are standard practice, I believe.

Personally chokka, I wouldn’t miss the ‘I never lose’ mantra. I understand why she does it but I generally give it a miss and always have. Not that I listen to live streams unless I am transcripting because someone has made another bad faith misrepresentation.

I do think it unlikely a judge would rule her to be a Nazi. But it could be that the team (as it is not just Pesutto) could be said that they are ‘honest opinions’ being expressed.

If it is ‘honest opinion’ though, does that then mean that hate crime in Victoria gets significantly weakened because expressing an honest opinion about men not being women can be viewed through the same lens?

I mean the precedent set also would effectively mean defamation will be a free for all in Australia for any politician, journo, anyone. But that is beside the point for the outcome for KJK and women campaigning generally.

But yes, the honest opinion would be viewed as a win by extreme activists, and wouldn’t really change their current behaviour. It already is a situation where they use the accusations widely and loudly.

I don’t think any ruling can be made that KJK is a neo Nazi as the allegation is that she “is publicly known to associate with neo-Nazis”. So that’s the worst but I think it has to be written as an opinion, not a fact? And it’s written like a fact in the dossier.

Im browsing the legislation and interestingly either Pesutto or KJK can ask for a jury.

Holy shit, what is this note going on about immunity for parliamentary members stuff? Does this mean KJK has to prove malice? Can anyone comment on this? It’s page 24 of link https://content.legislation.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/ead76efb-5d81-39f8-9ea0-4efeffb07cde_05-75aa004%20authorised.pdf

Gonna take a break. Feeling anxious again.

In the UK things said in Parliament, when sitting, are said to be privileged. Things said outside of that narrow context such as random shitposting on twitter are not privileged, as far as I am aware. I'm not a solicitor nor a barrister, nor any kind of expert on the UK parliament.

I could say I'm a lawyer because anyone can say that, it has no legal basis.