Moira Deeming defamation trial - Thread 2 from Australia

[TheSandgroper]

Thread 1 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5167282-in-australia-moira-deeming-defamation-trial-now-on?page=40&reply=138525746

Tribunal Tweets Substack https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/moira-deeming-v-john-pesutto-a-case?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share. Thanks to @BezMills

Thanks to everyone on thread 1. I am pleased it generated such interest and conversations. I have learnt a lot from many very bright women.

SC: "But you apologised to Mrs Keen, and that Statement is still up on your website, that you don't think she is a sympathiser to neo-Nazis"

JP says that his public apology/statement was worded very carefully and he only apologises to KJK for being a Nazi, not a Nazi sympathiser

I mean bloody hell you might as well say, look all politicians absolute weasels, okay.

SC now reads out Pesutto's public apology which says that he "accepts KJK and Angela Jones share my belief that Nazism is odious and contemptful"

"How is someone who shares your belief that 'Nazism is odious and contemptful' also a Nazi sympathiser"

Yeah, but no, but yeah....

wahoo! Found a threadreader version of Vaxatious's morning tweets. soz bout the length

Moira Deeming v John Pesutto, Day 9

#DeemingvPesutto
SC asking Pesutto about "THAT tweet" (i.e Angie Jones' tweet).

Pesutto describes it as "an odious statement consistent w/ what the Nazis displayed on the Steps of Parliament"
SC asks JP whether he knew that Angie Jones had publicly condemned Nazism.

JP says that was not relevant: "the issue at the heart of the matter was equating the views of the LWS Rally w/ the views of Nazis, I wanted that distanced from the party"
SC puts to JP that no-one had even mentioned Angie Jones until JP did

JP says he was certain that at some point very soon there would be a link drawn btw "that tweet", Mrs Deeming and the Liberal Party
SC: "That question required a yes or no answer, can you please answer my questions without giving a speech"
SC: "You were the person who drew in Ms Jones and made a connection btw her and Mrs Deeming, didnt you"

JP: "That may be the case but I was concerned it may become an issue...". He makes another 'speech'
SC: "You had no interest in finding a pathway out of the situation that was not suspension or expulsion"

Pesutto denies this
SC: "You had no interest in an option that included Mrs Deeming issuing a public statement"

JP: "I hadn't ruled anything out, though I thought the circ's were pointing to a resignation or an expulsion"
A few mins before Mrs Deeming arrived at the 19 March Liberal Party Meeting, JP had a draft of his Media Statement that said JP was accepting Deeming's resignation

JP: "That was an expression of a scenario I was contemplating during the day"
SC: "Well you didn't change the draft Statement did you"

JP: "I don't believe I did"
SC: "How much footage of the Rally had you actually watched by 5pm [when the Liberal Party met w/ Deeming]"

JP says he saw various clips circulating on Twitter, as well as the Champagne Video
SC asks JP whether he saw the footage from the LWS Rally of Moira Deeming speaking

Pesutto says he can't recall

SC is now playing the video of Deeming's speech from the Rally
SC: "So you didn't understand prior to your Media Statement that Mrs Deeming's role at the Rally was effectively reading out a message from a Muslim immigrant woman"

Pesutto says he doesn't agree w/ that characterisation
SC is again accusing Pesutto of avoiding answering the question, he's continuing giving speeches she says. She sounds quite annoyed and says that his evidence won't finish today if he continues to be non-responsive to questions
Judge: "After all of that I can't remember what the question was"

HAHA
SC rephrases her question - "do you agree that the substance of what Deeming said at the Rally was to read out a message from a Muslim immigrant woman"

Pesutto accepts this
SC says it was irresponsible of Pesutto not to have taken the time to understand what Deeming's role at the Rally was

Pesutto says he rejects that
SC now showing Pesutto a social media post from the Australian Jewish Association, posted on 19 March which says the Nazis crashed the Rally

SC: "Wasn't it significant to you that the AJA had information that caused it to issue this statement?"
Pesutto says he doesn't consider the Australian Jewish Association a credible voice and in any event, their view wasn't relevant to him
SC: "Do you recall, after 20 March and days after, receiving email after email from women who actually attended the Rally?"

Pesutto says he was aware there was a lively debate about the circ's of the Rally, but can't recall reading the emails
SC: "Didn't you think it was important for you to understand the accounts of the Rally?"

JP: "Issues in opposition to what I was proposing would be ventilated during the week and at the Party meeting that was to take place on the 27 March 2023"
SC: "In the course of looking for relevant info to put in your dossier, didn't you think it was important to look into the accounts of women at the Rally that had been emailed to you?"

JP says his staff monitor his emails
SC: "Did you direct your staff in the preparation of the dossier to find out what had actually happened at the Rally?"

JP: "I assumed that's what they were doing"
SC: "Did you notice there was in fact very little information about what had occured at the Rally in the dossier?"

JP: "I don't accept that"
SC now accusing Pesutto of mischaracterising Moira Deeming's demeanor at the Liberal Party meeting on 19 March

Pesutto concedes Deeming was not flippant like he previously said, but doesn't accept her demeanor was very "concerned"
Pesutto concedes Deeming was prepared to condemn the presence of Nazis at the rally, but says Deeming was not prepared to call out the conduct referable to Angie Jones and Kellie Jay Keen
Pesutto says his understanding was that Deeming was prepared to give a general denunciation but not prepared to name the specific conduct referable to Jones or Keen
SC: "That's just not honest evidence is it"

JP: "I reject that your Honour"
SC puts to JP that he misrepresented to other MPs and the public the 19 March 2023 meeting

JP rejects that

SC also puts to JP that he also misrepresented what occurred in the meeting to the Court, in his affidavit
SC says the reason Pesutto didn't immediately ask Southwick for a copy of the record of the meeting on 19 March 2023 is because "you had been lying for over a year about what happened at that meeting"

Pesutto denies this
SC says that Pesutto's approach to suspending Deeming was irrational and unreasonable, a more rational approach would be to wait and see how the Rally and Deeming's link with it played out in the media before taking any action

SC says Pesutto actually had copies of exculpatory material, but disregarded it because he wanted Deeming out of the party and in fact deliberately released material that would malign her w/ the MSM '

Pesutto denies this
SC now taking Pesutto through the transcript of the 19 March meeting. Pesutto says to Deeming in that meeting: "In the interests of candour I came into this meeting thinking there were 2 outcomes - either you resign or I look at a process under the Parliamentary rules"

SC: "You understood didn't you that there was an option to present Deeming with a statement for her to read publicly, that would've accomodated what you wanted"

JP says he didn't think that was an option. He formed the view that Deeming wouldn't do what was necessary
SC: "A week later, a form of words was put in front of her and she agreed to it"

Pesutto points out that Deeming then put out a social media post saying Jones and Keen didn't do anything wrong

SC now asking JP more questions about his understanding of the 19 March meeting & his understanding of what Deeming had said
The transcript shows that Deeming asked Pesutto for clarification about what the issue was and what exactly Pesutto expected Deeming to do to address the issue.

"The transgender thing is separate to the Nazi thing, right?", Deeming said at the time
In the meeting Deeming also said: "I don't want to set a standard where just bc I agree w/ someone on one thing, doesn't mean I agree w/ them on everything"

SC: "You accept that's a wholly rational response?"

JP: "No I don't accept that"
SC: "You did not have any credible information at the time of this meeting to warrant the condemnation as people of Ms Jones and Ms Keen, did you?"

Pesutto: "That is wrong"
SC: "For you to require Mrs Deeming to condemn [Jones and Keen] as people based on the material you had at the [19 March] meeting was despicable, wasn't it?"

Pesutto: "No your Honour"
SC: "You had no material at the meeting that Katherine Deves was Nazi associated did you?"

Pesutto doesn't believe he did, but says that in the Fed 22 election she drew a lot of media attention

SC: "What has that got to do w/ Nazism?"
As an FYI folks, these questions from Chrysanthou SC are all going to aspects of some of Pesutto's defences of which "reasonableness" is an element that Pesutto needs to prove

SC trying to show JP did not act reasonably & therefore these defences should fail
SC: "You've sought to mischaracterize the 19 March meeting by claiming that Deeming's expulsion had nothing to do w/ sex based rights & the reason you did that is b/c you knew Deeming's advocacy on 'sex based rights' is freedom of speech that is acceptable in the Liberal Party"
Pesutto denies this
SC asking more q's about the 19 March meeting. "You understood that Deeming was shocked about the allegations regarding Keen and Jones. She said 'I thought we were here to talk about the Men in Black'".

Pesutto accepts this
Pesutto saying that he was looking for Deeming to say at the 19 March meeting: "I see what you mean that the Party is exposed here, and I will do whatever is necessary to fix this".

Pesutto says Deeming did not do this
Pesutto's answers are very much the answers of a politician, he's still avoiding answering the question, eg. "I accept that's what's in the transcript". SC: "I am not asking you that, I am asking what YOU understood Deeming's response to be"
SC now asking Pesutto about what occurred during the 20 min break of the 19 March meeting

JP: "We spent that time talking about what the best course for the party would be"
SC asks Pesutto whether Southwick taped the 20 minute break, because he taped the rest of the meeting.

SC: "Did you ask Southwick whether he taped the break?"

Pesutto: "No"
After the 20 minute break, it was conveyed to Deeming that a Statement wouldn't work because "the damage was too deep"

SC puts to Pesutto that he'd already made that decision before the meeting
SC puts to Pesutto that the expulsion of Deeming would not ameliorate the damage that she'd allegedly done bc she'd still be a member of the Liberal Party (albeit not part of the Parliamentary Party) Pesutto denies this, says it would then be left to the "organisational side"
SC asks whether Pesutto contacted the "organisational side" of the Liberal Party to seek her expulsion from the party

Pesutto concedes he didn't do this
SC: "It was a political move for you - to remove from your Parliamentary Party room a woman who you considered was conservative & did not advocate on issues the political msg you wished to pursue. In doing so you committed a v direct breach of the Liberal Party Constitution"
Pesutto rejects this

Court adjourned for 10 minutes whilst his Honour attends to another matter

Ah, a welcome break for my tired fingers! 😀
And we're back!
SC asks Pesutto about a final draft of his Press Release that changes the original draft from "resignation" to "expulsion"

Pesutto says the drafts were an expression of a "possible scenario" he was contemplating during the day
So the first draft of the Press Release referred to "resignation" and the next draft referred to an "expulsion". SC points out to Pesutto there was no other draft version which referred to a 3rd option - Moira Deeming condemning Nazis/issuing her own Press Release
Nick Johnson, the Comms Manager of the Liberal Party drafted the Press Release. Pesutto gave instructions to Johnston that the Press Release needed to mention that Pesutto would be moving an expulsion motion
After speaking w/ Johnson, Pesutto called other MPs to inform them what was happening (he'd be moving an expulsion motion). SC puts to Pesutto that he didn't call them to seek their views, he called them to tell them what was happening

Pesutto accepts this
SC puts to Pesutto that in order to garner support for his motion, he told MPs that Deeming had organised the Nazis to attend the Rally. "You needed a serious reason to justify expulsion, didn't you".
SC now asking Pesutto what he knew about Jean Paul Gariepy (far right extremist). A video of Gariepy & Kellie Jay Keen was featured in Pesutto's expulsion dossier.

Pesutto admits he didn't watch the full video despite relying on the video to issue his Press Release
SC: "It was unreasonable of you to rely on that video [as the basis for expulsion] when you hadn't even watched it, wasn't it"

JP says he relied on his staff
Pesutto admits that he didn't watch the Soldiers of Christ video (another video included in the expulsion dossier)
Pesutto also admits that Kellie Jay Keen had previously said she doesn't check who she gives interviews to, she gives interviews to basically anyone

SC: "You had no reasonable basis to disbelieve Ms Keen's statements that she would give interviews to anyone"
Pesutto says he found it hard to believe/found it strange Ms Keen didn't check who she was giving interviews with

SC: "Do you agree with every interviewer you've ever given an interview with?"

Pesutto: "Of course not"
SC: "It's not always the purpose of an interview asking & answering questions where they famously get along? Nor is it always the purpose of an interview for the interviewer to give the interviewee a platform to express views the interviewer agrees with?"

Pesutto accepts this
There are a couple of Moira Deeming supporters sitting in the court room gallery. I can see one wearing a "Let Women Speak" t-shirt
Oh yay! I was struggling to hear Chrysanthou as she was standing too far away from the microphone. A court staffer has just moved the microphone closer!
SC now asking Pesutto about other MP's involvement w/ the LWS movement such as Jacinta Price. SC puts to Pesutto that he deliberately didn't look into this "to avoid coming across any exculpatory material"

Pesutto rejects this
SC now showing Pesutto a draft copy of the expulsion dossier. The information in para 2 was sourced from Wikipedia.

SC: "Much of what was set out in the first 5 dot points (except for a few words) is what Mr Pintos Lopez read out to Deeming during the meeting".
SC points out to Pesutto that the following sentence was NOT read out to Deeming during the meeting:

"Keen denied prior knowledge of the interviewer's far right affiliations"

SC asks JP whether he noticed this, JP says no
This sentence was not in the final version of the dossier

SC puts to JP that the sentence was deliberately removed by him to avoid the inclusion of any exculpatory material in the dossier

JP denies this
SC puts to JP that the sentence was a relevant matter. JP says it might be, it was "convenient for Ms Keen to assert this, [but didn't explain Ms Keen's regular appearance w/ far right figures"]

SC: "Not including Keen's denial in the dossier was very unfair"
SC: "Had you ever been interviewed by a person who had interviews you strongly disagree with?"

Pesutto isn't sure

SC says JP has been interviewed by the ABC who also interview members of the Greens Party, w/ whom JP has had serious disagreements on various matters
SC: "You accept don't you that someone wouldn't associate you with the other interviewees and to do so would be irrational, wouldn't it"

Pesutto accepts this
SC now shows Pesutto article about Keen's interview w/ a white nationalist YouTuber. SC: "You understood that Keen sought to debate ppl who did not agree with her views and who she did not agree with"

Pesutto accepts Keen did interviews w/ ppl to contest their views
Pesutto says that his concern was w/ someone who choses to go onto far-right platforms but concedes that Keen did say she sought to debate ppl who's views she disagreed w/
To clarify: SC has shown Pesutto an article about Keen's decision to do an interview with Jean Paul Garipie, in the article Keen says she did interview to debate someone who's views she disagreed with. The article discusses the merits of doing this.
This article was included in the dossier, but was cut-off, so the parts of the article where Keen says she did interviews w/ ppl she disagreed w/ was not included

Pesutto says he included a link, he expected MPs to go to the source material
SC: "Cutting off this article was a very misleading thing to do"

Pesutto: "No, all the information was there"
In the article, Keen says she makes it her business to avoid researching the entire spectrum of someone's views

This is not included in the dossier

Pesutto says Keen just wanted plausible deniability
SC: "Didn't you think you were obliged, having relied on this article, [to include the quotes from Ms Keen]"

Pesutto says that the dossier included a link to the whole article
SC: "You were telling ppl on 20 March that Kellie Jay Keen associated w/ Nazis, and you did so knowing that she had said 'white supremacy and the racism that fuels it has no place in a civilised society'".

Pesutto agrees that Keen said that
SC: "You KNEW Keen had made those statements"

Pesutto says he wasn't convinced by it
SC: "You KNEW she had said that. You had no information to rationally form a view that she wasn't telling the truth"

Pesutto says he had other information from other sources

SC: "You had information from wikipedia"
SC: "So all you had was Wikipedia and 3 other articles (Pink News, National and News dot com) as at Sunday 19 March"

Pesutto believes this is correct
SC: "That was a wholly insufficient basis to rationally form the view that Ms Keen was lying when she denounced white supremacy in the article"

Pesutto denies this

SC: "You're not telling the truth are you"
SC: "Do you accept that not including the whole article was unfair to Ms Keen and also unfair to my client"

Pesutto doesn't accept this
Pesutto also caused the dossier to be distributed to the press

SC: "Do you accept this was dishonest of you"

JP: "No your Honour"
SC now asking Pesutto about the Press Release that went out on 19 March 2023. What was deleted from that Press Release was a statement that Deeming had assured Pesutto she had no involvement w/ Nazis & Pesutto accepted that
Pesutto says that the sentence was drafted before the Liberal Party meeting earlier that evening. Pesutto says he still had lots of questions about the Rally. But he accepts Deeming was not involved in the Nazi protest.

SC: "There was no reason for you to not include (cont)
those words in the Media Release"

Pesutto: "Well I didn't draft the Media Release, but I approved it to go out"
SC: "You should have included those words in the Media Release"

JP: "I thought the Media Release served the purpose I needed it to achieve"

SC: "The purpose you were seeking to achieve was to associate my client with Nazis"
Pesutto doesn't accept that
Court is adjourned till 2.15pm

What a cross examination!

I will start a new thread at 2.15pm

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1839096057202094229.html

Here is the link for anyone who wants it.

@Helleofabore

In saying that, he has always been completely upfront that his entry into politics was about disruption. He is a political disrupter and I cannot see this as a negative thing. People should have choice in a democracy.

It would seem that many of the more conservative people are funding Deeming (Palmer, Steve Baxter, Mundine, Hilton Grugeon who I mentioned earlier). This isn't surprising. Whether Clive or Anna Palmer made the donation makes little difference - it's the same source.

Are you really saying that you consider Anna Palmer to have no agency of her own, that she should be considered as simply the extension of her husband's political agenda? And that any money she donates is his anyway, so no one should consider it hers and that she is making a conscious decison to support a woman who is campaigning for women's rights?

Have I understood you correctly? Please feel free to correct any misinterpretation here.

Why did John Pesutto say that the Australian Jewish Association (AJA) weren’t a credible source?

'SC: "It was a political move for you - to remove from your Parliamentary Party room a woman who you considered was conservative & did not advocate on issues the political msg you wished to pursue. In doing so you committed a v direct breach of the Liberal Party Constitution"'

And there it is!

Just in case people were wondering why I was interested in understanding where accusations came from of Moira Deeming having 'views that fell outside' what was acceptable in the Liberal Party, it is because she didn't and that is significant. And unless it was decreed at federal party level, which we can only assume it was not because no evidence came about of that when asked, the Leadership team's actions of expulsion really do have to be considered.

He seems to be at the denigrate anyone who doesn't fit his Moira is colluding with Nazis viewpoint!

Pesutto also admits that Kellie Jay Keen had previously said she doesn't check who she gives interviews to, she gives interviews to basically anyone

SC: "You had no reasonable basis to disbelieve Ms Keen's statements that she would give interviews to anyone"

Pesutto says he found it hard to believe/found it strange Ms Keen didn't check who she was giving interviews with

SC: "Do you agree with every interviewer you've ever given an interview with?"

Pesutto: "Of course not"

SC: "It's not always the purpose of an interview asking & answering questions where they famously get along? Nor is it always the purpose of an interview for the interviewer to give the interviewee a platform to express views the interviewer agrees with?"

Pesutto accepts this

Gosh.... who would have thought?

It very much seems like Pesutto is getting his cheeks clapped, and not in a fun way.

Adding this as it is relevant:

SC: "Much of what was set out in the first 5 dot points (except for a few words) is what Mr Pintos Lopez read out to Deeming during the meeting".

SC points out to Pesutto that the following sentence was NOT read out to Deeming during the meeting:

"Keen denied prior knowledge of the interviewer's far right affiliations"

SC asks JP whether he noticed this, JP says no
This sentence was not in the final version of the dossier

SC puts to JP that the sentence was deliberately removed by him to avoid the inclusion of any exculpatory material in the dossier

It was not in the final dossier which was released to the public, but Pesutto and his staff had prior knowledge.

Pesutto is obviously someone who believes he can simply dismiss other people's stated motivations. Funny that....

Sorry, coming back to add this too so when I search for it again, it is all together.

SC now shows Pesutto article about Keen's interview w/ a white nationalist YouTuber. SC: "You understood that Keen sought to debate ppl who did not agree with her views and who she did not agree with"

Pesutto accepts Keen did interviews w/ ppl to contest their views

Pesutto says that his concern was w/ someone who choses to go onto far-right platforms but concedes that Keen did say she sought to debate ppl who's views she disagreed w/

To clarify: SC has shown Pesutto an article about Keen's decision to do an interview with Jean Paul Garipie, in the article Keen says she did interview to debate someone who's views she disagreed with. The article discusses the merits of doing this.

This article was included in the dossier, but was cut-off, so the parts of the article where Keen says she did interviews w/ ppl she disagreed w/ was not included

Pesutto says he included a link, he expected MPs to go to the source material

SC: "Cutting off this article was a very misleading thing to do"

Pesutto: "No, all the information was there"

In the article, Keen says she makes it her business to avoid researching the entire spectrum of someone's views

This is not included in the dossier

Pesutto says Keen just wanted plausible deniability

SC: "Didn't you think you were obliged, having relied on this article, [to include the quotes from Ms Keen]"

Pesutto says that the dossier included a link to the whole article

SC: "You were telling ppl on 20 March that Kellie Jay Keen associated w/ Nazis, and you did so knowing that she had said 'white supremacy and the racism that fuels it has no place in a civilised society'".

Pesutto agrees that Keen said that

SC: "You KNEW Keen had made those statements"

Pesutto says he wasn't convinced by it

SC: "You KNEW she had said that. You had no information to rationally form a view that she wasn't telling the truth"

Pesutto says he had other information from other sources

SC: "You had information from wikipedia"

SC: "So all you had was Wikipedia and 3 other articles (Pink News, National and News dot com) as at Sunday 19 March"

Pesutto believes this is correct

SC: "That was a wholly insufficient basis to rationally form the view that Ms Keen was lying when she denounced white supremacy in the article"

Pesutto denies this

SC: "You're not telling the truth are you"

SC: "Do you accept that not including the whole article was unfair to Ms Keen and also unfair to my client"

Pesutto doesn't accept this
Pesutto also caused the dossier to be distributed to the press

SC: "Do you accept this was dishonest of you"

JP: "No your Honour"

This surely has to work against Pesutto here.

@Helleofabore

Are you really saying that you consider Anna Palmer to have no agency of her own, that she should be considered as simply the extension of her husband's political agenda? And that any money she donates is his anyway, so no one should consider it hers and that she is making a conscious decison to support a woman who is campaigning for women's rights?

Are you really saying you can't even consider, for one moment, that this is really Clive Palmer donating and not Anna? Of course Anna Palmer has her own agency. I also wouldn't project my own notions onto her reasons for donating, either.

Gosh. Carving up that dossier to leave everything out that would exonerate deeming, looks like framing to me.

Those transcripts and summaries are amazing. Hats off to those who have the ability to transcribe and type them.

My opinion of Clive Palmer is that he’s a self serving, dishonest, money grubbing, POS. He’s made his money from the mining industry. His fucking yellow billboards, yellow flyers in the mail, yellow tv ads and yellow corflutes at polling places. Ugh. I already don’t like yellow and that just made it even more so.

Fun fact: he attempted to sue an Australian YouTuber for defamation because he was called Fatty McFuckhead. YouTuber was one I mentioned earlier: Friendly Jordies. He even made yellow Fatty McFuckhead t-shirts, and of course a few videos about him.

@Cailleach1 Pretty sure it was just Pesutto’s opinion about the AJA. Probably just because they supported AJ.

Thanks, FeralWoman.

"Are you really saying you can't even consider, for one moment, that this is really Clive Palmer donating and not Anna?"

No. I don't consider this is really Clive Palmer donating and unless you have some evidence to show that it is.

I believe that Anna Palmer has her own agency to make her own decisions completely separately to her husband when it comes to issues relating to women's rights and those of children. I will support that until I see a pattern of behaviour that would lead me to believe that she donated money for reasons that are not her very own.

I also have said, that if Clive Palmer wanted to donate funds to someone as an act of disruption, he would do it up front. The converse of that is that if he wanted to do it on the sly, fuck, he has enough staff and capability to do that.

So, where is the logic that he needed Anna to do this at all?

She can donate the money for whatever the fuck reasons that she wishes to. The point is, it was HER name on the list.

That is the only fact that is known, yet you did not post that.

You posted MessinaBloom · Today 02:39:

I wonder if it will be damaging to Deeming that CPAC Australia have revealed on their website today that KJK will be a speaker along with her ( they have been teasing 'a worldwide phenomenon').

And speaking of funding, apparently Deeming is funded by big-pocketed Conservatives such as Clive Palmer and Warren Mundine. Sue Chrysanthou SC isn't cheap by any means. I'm an admirer of hers after following another recent high-profile case she was involved with.

I merely posted a link to an article stating that it was Anna Palmer making the donation so that readers can see what has been published.

Again, this is no personal attack to you, I am doing this to clarify my posts and my answers. Please rest assured again, that I have no personal interest in you whatsoever. I was posting a clarifying link for the information given. Feel free to report my posts for whatever reason if you wish.

However, everyone can read the information and either go find more, or draw their own conclusions.

I think there are many people who agree with your opinion of Clive Palmer. Me for one. Hard to find a Queenslander outside of that Brisi-GC sector that doesn't know someone's life made harder. And not because of his 'disruptor' politics.

In saying that, he has a political party and if people want to vote for him, they should feel absolutely free to.

And if his wife wants to donate to legal fund, she can.

Pretty sure that people in Gladstone hate him after he screwed them over. He used to be a big LNP donor.

Terrifying thought: Palmer and Bob Katter. I wonder if they get along?

For those who have never heard of Bob Katter: Google him. I can’t explain him. The videos of his weird interviews and stunts deserve to be watched. He’s a politician and he wears a big hat. His son, Rob Katter, is now in politics too. Western FNQ seem to love the Katter brand of politics.

And not just Gladstone either.

Interestingly though, and this might be the very point you are making, Bob Katter is actually Bob Katter Jnr in politics. HIS father was an MP too. I remember him very well even though I was just a kid.

Thanks for the transcripts, commentary, history and context, all!

Can be quite hard to.follow and it's great to have knowledgeable posters adding notes.

hear hear! Much appreciated, thanks all

Can anyone tell me how Moira came into possession of the recording of the meeting?
I watched some of the proceedings and imo Presutto comes across even worse in that than he does in the transcripts.
I don't see how he can ever regain any sort of credibility after his performance.

Bore, I don't believe she knew about them.

Pesutto says he first found out about the recordings early 2024, and he kept quiet about them. He finally disclosed that they existed a few weeks ago. I think it was on the other thread.

Moira found out about them when he disclosed a few weeks ago, I believe.

Ah, thanks @Helleofabore. Do we know what forced him to disclose, because I'm guessing that he would have preferred that their existence remained secret.

I am refreshing my memory Bore by reading the other thread. Sorry, I may or may not come back with the answer. It is on the other thread though.