Linda Reynold’s mother testified that it was very hard for her daughter going from “being universally loved and respected to becoming a pariah.”
Undoubtedly it would be a very hard thing when this happens to a person. Although, in the interests of clarity, I must say that I’m having trouble remembering my respect and love for the woman. I guess that must just be one of those things that happen with age when you forget someone who meant so much to you and it’s very, very distressing for them… not so much for you, because you can’t remember them and you don’t understand why they’re having heart palpitations and all those people who still remember how much they love them are worried that they may not last the night… which would be terrible because they have a speech the next day!
Anyway, notwithstanding my inability to remember the Linda Reynolds that I loved universally, I must say that I’m a little confused by much of the testimony at the trial. Perhaps wiser legal heads than mine can explain why Senator Reynolds health is of so much importance in this trial…
I should add that I seem to remember when the beloved senator failed to make it to the scheduled Press Club appointment we were told that it had nothing to do with revelations on “The Project”, but was a result of previous health condition which had coincidentally flared at inconvenient time, preventing her from fronting up for questions. Of course, we have since discovered that this is incorrect and that it was the exact opposite. It was a direct result of the revelations on said program and it flared up at a very convenient time.
Whatever, it does strike me as strange that the effect on Linda Reynolds should take up so much of the trial because, well, surely the thing in a defamation trial is whether the person was defamed and whether there’s a truth defence.
If someone were to call me a fat, old man who has no business having an opinion on anything, it would certainly be hurtful… mainly because it’s true. It therefore doesn’t follow that I should spend my defamation trial suggesting that the comment raised my blood pressure to the point that the doctor told me that there was some chance that they might lose me so the best thing would be to send me home because he thought that was a good outcome all round…
This is, of course, nothing to do with the good senator, I make the point generally. If I am upset by an accusation then surely the issue is not the fact that I’m upset but whether there is a reasonable case to be made about the comment.
I always make it a point never to comment on the likely outcome of a trial because I’m not in the courtroom so I’m only getting a filtered view and, even if I was, I don’t have the sort of qualifications that would enable me to make an informed comment. In other words, I don’t have a column in “The Australian”.
In spite of this, I must say that I found Scott Morrison’s testimony rather strange. He told us that there was no cover-up while asserting that he knew nothing about what allegedly happened. But then the whole thing was about bringing down his government because an ex-staffer, who was supported, decided that she and her boyfriend wanted to help the Labor Party to bring down his government even though he knew nothing about anything and that wasn’t because of a cover-up, it was just because people either didn’t know anything and/or thought it wasn’t worth mentioning to the PM because if they reported everything everybody did or said and every security breach then there’d be nobody left in Parliament…
I’m only repeating Morrison’s testimony from memory and – like the ex-PM – my memory can be a bit faulty on some things but crystal clear on the things that I wish to deny emphatically. For example, I don’t remember my universal love and respect for Senator Reynolds but I remember that some of the things she said contradict other things that she said but who can remember everything they’ve said under oath?
Whatever, I think we can safely say that like so many recent defamation trials, the person taking the action has failed to regain the universal love they had prior to the trial…
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That precious pink pile of dodginess, named Reynolds, has been offended, and apparently wronged. “We” all thought this gossipy rubbish was about a lady liberal party junior staffer and another male similar type. A former P M, who has never told or known the truth, is asked to tell something true, which seems over the odds, And, much money is being spent by “victims” and earned by the vultures. And, the shitprint maggots of Merde Dog Muckery know it all anyway, so why not promote them to everything relevant here?? Hey?? It is vomitous stuff, and will continue. Bankruptcies coming??
“…being universally loved…”
In the LNP and RRWNJ universe which is about 2,000 universes from ours in the multiverse. She’s Princess Precious Reynolds of the Gold, Platinum and Gem Encrusted Pedestal there. Oh, yes, P Duddy is the deposed king and has turned into a bald evil and slime encrusted troll who lives under a bridge and waylays people to tell them ad nauseam (except if they’re not quite the right shade of LNP, in which case he scuttles back to his cave) that he once ruled the great kingdom and that he was universally loved. I think there’s a petition to have the bridge nuked from orbit.
As being a trained counsellor is not a pre-requisite for empathy, I can readily empathise with the uncertainties you express in the above; I share them.
From what I’ve seen and read,this whole thing reads like an adolescent shit fight between kids that have not yet come to terms with maturity, and in Reynolds case, never will.How old is Reynolds? Thirteen? As one of the worst and most incompetent ministers in the worst government this country has ever seen,reminding us of it seems to be a seriously bad idea.Getting fuckface Morrison,who wouldn’t know truth if it beat him over the head, to testify in your defence,is laughable.
If there is any justice,Reynolds should be thrown out on her dumb,victimised arse.Did she get a note from her mother explaining her difficult childhood?
Perfectly pitched as usual.
Reynolds is trying the “it’s more hurtful to be called a racist when you make a racist remark than it is to experience racism” defence.
No, it isn’t a valid legal ploy and I can’t recall it ever working for anyone, but it’s how most of these RRWNJs see the world. Besides, it’s all she has.
Poor old Lyn Reynolds – feeling a bit down in the dumps and reaching for the tissues because she was “caught out” treating her staff, in particular Brittany Higgins, like dog poop! Reynolds’ crocodile tears are flowing for no other reason than she was CAUGHT and publicly shamed! She realised, too late, that that type of overbearing behaviour is not exactly going to endear her to the majority of compassionate, egalitarian Australians! Cry me a river, Reynolds! It’s OK for Reynolds – and other entitled, overbearing tyrants in the LNP – to defy all laws about bullying subordinates then, when discovered, do a 180° turn then “conveniently” play the victim BUT Australians have seen this type of abhorrent behaviour over and over again with a range of right-wing governments to the point that the “Bullying/Victim” scenario has almost become standard Modus Operandi within every level of the LNP! When Julie Bishop left the LNP, she advised that the alpha male bullies in the LNP took great pride in referring to THEMSELVES as a pack of “swinging dicks” who love nothing better than to strut about and throw their weight around – WOW! Sadly, it looks like the women in the LNP are every bit as intimidating and bullying as their male colleagues. Of course, none of this is at all surprising considering the appalling, callously inhumane manner in which the bullying thugs and condescending elitists in the LNP continue to torment and target the poorest, most vulnerable people in our society.
There’s no doubt about it – If there was an OLYMPIC GAMES for unconscionable bullies, callously inhumane miscreants and rusted-on misogynists, the LNP would win Gold, Silver and Bronze in EVERY event! The absolutely abominable manner in which the misogynistic thugs in the LNP/Murdoch/IPA Alliance initiated a horrific, extended campaign that openly targeted and relentlessly and remorselessly bullied and persecuted Julia Gillard for months on end was a very, very dark time in our political history. Who can EVER forget when the Mother and Father of ALL misogynistic bullies, ie Phony Tony Abbott, stood under that disgusting sign that read “Ditch the Witch”! That disgraceful, shameful behaviour by the right-wing alpha-male “swinging dicks” in the LNP justifiably received worldwide condemnation that shamed us all on the international stage!
Any egalitarian, intelligent woman who chooses to support and vote for the cowardly bullies and rusted-on misogynists in the LNP can be compared to turkeys voting for Christmas! It is almost impossible to think of a worse, more dangerously undemocratic regime to rule over us like third world autocrats than the corrupt, heartlessly cruel misogynists, condescending elitists and xenophobic racists who place their pretentious backsides on every seat in the LNP!
yes, Herbert Rule, totally perfect.
“As one of the worst and most incompetent ministers in the worst government this country has ever seen…”, but Harry, her mommy said it was her dream job, the epitome of her life’s trajectory, born to occupy the role, and so tragic that an alleged rape victim derailed her career in such a cavalier fashion, selfish person that she was to raise concerns over her post-assault treatment by her boss.
And here we are, five years on, still dealing with this debacle as the senator dives deeply into the dumpster in an endeavour to screw monies out of the woman assailed in her office by the reprehensible moron known as Lehrmann.
As GL notes, in what region of the cosmos is she universally loved? Not here, locally, that’s for certain.
Bloody Hell Rossleigh!! That is the cleverest, and and most skilfully constructed, prose I have had the pleasure of viewing in my seven decades of reading!
I’m thinking of sending it to the Honourable Justice who is refereeing the Reynolds Defamation Debacle.
A large number of Lieberal and Count ry Party MP’s are miserable, abhorrent, despicable bullies.
I remain hopeful that the poor ‘pariah’ shoots herself in both feet during this trial.
I too have been interested in this case.
I think I mentioned it somewhere a week or so ago that retraumatising a rape victim who has been given a sizeable payout but is a lying cow cannot be good, the senatoer has frozen that sum of money to be sure that she can get some of it.
The other matter of interest is that the evidence presented to date has more to do with the parliamentary proceedings rather than the social media posts alledgedly causing the dearly loved senator so much angst.
To date, it seems the senator may have some health issues and it seems a good idea to blame those on a junior staffer rather than the stressful nature of working in a highly charged political environment.
The opening staement by the senator’s lawyer mentioned something about a fairy tale, implying that the whole thing is just a story and that facts should determine the outcome.
Mmmmmm.
Still waiting.
These litigants had two opportunities to resolve their differences by mediation outside a court of law at minimal expense. The chose not to do so.
Any financial penalty by way of legal costs – I couldn’t see any scope for substantial damages – is their own fault and they will have to live with that.
We have had numerous examples of how the defamation courts are not for the faint-hearted : ask Oscar Wilde !
The suggestion by Reynolds that Labor pursued bullying tactics similar to their “treatment of Kimberly Kitching” should be more than enough to have the ridiculous case thrown out.
Recalling the plague of incompetence in the Morrison farrago of fools,I forced myself to watch the Littleproud interview this morning,where he convincingly reinforced the view that he is a fucking imbecile.With the bald headed horror veering further into the realm of right wing toxicity,this duo of self important duds are leading what’s left of their coalition over the cliff.Good job too
Skuze Me, Reynolds along with the rest of the LNP rabble are of a similar ilk; they don’t mind dishing it out, as they did never-endingly when they occupied the right-hand side of the chamber, but when the boomerang returns they squeal like stuck pigs.
Tony Abbott when Gillard was PM; a case study in misogyny and vilification. Their memories are selective to the point of farcical misrepresentation. One ought to remind them, what goes around comes around.
A classic example of how the LNP treats their own. Indeed, it’s all a sordid tail of going back to eat your own vomit. Their self-serving bigotry and bias is their supremacy – I well remember erstwhile AG George Brandis sagely declaring “people have the right to be bigots”. Wtf George, were you clearing the way for your fellow LNP members? And, of course within the parties (LNP NP and LPA), their favorite pastimes, exclusivity, bigotry, ‘elitism’, immigrant scaring, white supremacy, infighting, incompetence, grafting, bullying and last but not least, misogyny. Can’t help thinking of the departure of Sneddon, Downer, Abbott, (ex AG) Porter and Morrison, and so many others in between – rotters all, who undoubtedly had mothers who loved ’em. And they didn’t need the ALP to bring ’em down, they did it to themselves.
Reynolds of course just had to manage to fit in amongst that rabble. It seems she cultivated top brass in high places. Top brass who now in the NACC failed to take Morrison and the LNP Robodebt gang to task. Hmmmm.
The imbroglio that is the Higgins and Lehrmann matter, plus ongoing Lehrmann matters is surely a baptism by inferno into the self-combustion chamber that is the LNP. It would appear there’s many more heads to roll, including heads within the judiciary. One can only wonder whether the NACC would flake out at such a task – who’d ever now?
Of note that Reynolds would take the defamation action in WA, where the law is more friendly to the claimant than in the other (eastern) states. I suppose in WA she has a nest of annealed LNP fems there to support her. Nevertheless, so far, Reynolds’ case and testimony and that of her witnesses seems to be more of a series of desperate non-sequitur entangled bleats than can be heard from a departing live sheep ship, and the truck drivers and farmers that want nothing to do with Halal, or any other law.
Canguro. And wasn’t that “dishing it out” so evident when Reynolds, McDonald and O’Sullivan piled on the well-respected Gillian Triggs some time ago?
Reynolds has certainly got some form in playing the “bullied victim” card now.
whilst reading, my brain insisted: defecation trial ………….
It’s turned from nasty Brittany Higgins being sued for defamation into a not funny farce in entitled Everybody in the Universe Loves Saint Linda the Victim. Brittany Higgins seems to have been relegated to a walk-on role while Saint Reynolds hogs the spotlight.
Reynolds really wants that money! Now it all just smacks of plain straight revenge and greed.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/western-australia/reynolds-launches-fresh-pursuit-of-higgins-trust-as-defamation-trial-draws-to-close-20240822-p5k4gr.html
CEO of ACOSS Cassandra Goldie,
Please explain your inaction in relation to 2 illegal debt schemes I reported to your office.
Your staff members advised me to pay off debts or apply to AAT. Cassandra Goldie, please explain why AAT should review objection letters.
Services Australia kept robbing me even after I asked you to stop the abuse. Is this what I deserve?