Search
This area does not yet contain any content.
Justinian News

Unread emails ... Family law barrister in Adelaide neglects to attend to emails ... Reminders to renew her ticket studiously ignored ... Unravelling chaos ... Trials invalidated ... Liability of Law Society and Conduct Commissioner ... Breach of statutory requirement ... Damages ... From our Team on the Torrens ... Read more >> 

Politics Media Law Society


An Australian Abroad ... An essay with pictures … Egypt and the Grand Museum … No end to the antiquities … Down the Nile on a dahabiya … Tombs and temples … Paris and industrial-scale tourism … The Yarts & Kulture ... Read on >> 

Free Newsletter
Justinian Columnists

Annihilation of the now ...Trump's campaign of destruction ... Fake emergencies ... Pointless and farcical executive orders ... Gangsterism ... Looting ... Corruption ... Shakedowns ... White rage ... Christian nationalism ... Roger Fitch unloads ... Read more >> 

Blow the whistle

 

News snips ...


 

South Australian lawyer practising without a ticket ... Latest developments in Law Society of SA v Betro ... As an alternative to invalidating all the family law trials involving the unlicenced barrister, the Full Court has been approached re possibility of granting a retrospective practising certificate ... The mother in relevant proceedings applied to be joined to argue against this ... Joinder granted on a limited basis to make written submissions. See also Unread emails 

Justinian's Bloggers

Letter from London ... Weather report ... Starmer sinking ... Farage rising ... Fake law firm ... Fake cases ...  NHS employee cleans up with woke case for hurt feelings ... Floyd Alexander-Hunt files from Blighty ... Read more >> 

"In its self-image, Australia has changed from a nation of tough, resilient Anzacs to a snowflake society of victims. This can be seen in the rise of identity politics, cancel culture, trigger warnings, unconscious bias, workplace Broderickism, LGBTQIA+ pleading, colonisation impacts, hidden disabilities and welfare dependency. Hurt feelings, offensive words, micro-aggressions, workload stress and anxiety now form the basis of workers compensation claims."

Mark Latham MLC - a dissenting statement in a parliamentary report on proposed changes to workers compensation law ... May 2025 ... Read more flatulence ... 


Justinian Featurettes

Zeilgeist litigation ... Matt Collins KC on live-streaming of high-profile trials ... Social media nightmare ... Abuse of barristers ... Chilling emails ... Trials as a form of public entertainment ... Courts sleepwalking into a dangerous zone ... Framework needed to balance competing interests ... Paper delivered to Australian Lawyers Alliance Conference ... Read more >> 


Justinian's archive

Justice Jeff Shaw's bingle ... Supreme Court judge's drink-drive experience ... Cars damaged in narrow Sydney street ... Touch driving ... Missing blood sample ... Equality before the law may not apply to judges ... Judges behind the wheel ... From Justinian's Archive ... November 4, 2004 ... Read more >> 


 

 

« Pineapple Pol | Main | Vic Supremes bungy jump experiment »
Tuesday
Nov052013

Operatic costume change 

Defamatorium ... Kim Williams lawyers-up against the newspaper his lawyers used to defend ... Opera House hissy fit denied ... Working both sides of Libel Street ... It's not over till the fat lady sings 

Kim Williams and Louise Herron: it's not over

CLARINET playing Kimbo Williams always looked out of place amid the oikes and mutton-heads that comprise the galley slaves in Rupe's great media ship. 

As CEO he loyally mouthed all the company ordained platitudes about freedom of the press and the beastly Finkelstein and Conroy projects. 

So, it's a tad unfortunate that someone who had the grizzly task of defending the piles of molten lava that passes for journalism switches. 

So it is with Kimbo, goggle specs and all. 

He's taking Fairfax Media to court over a mildly amusing piece by Fin Review gossip artiste Joe Aston who reported that Williams, as chairman of the Sydney Opera House Trust, had a stand-up barney with the trust's CEO, Louise Herron. 

Freedom of the press and all that only goes as far as the court door.  

The story said that Kimbo "stormed out of his final board meeting" over Herron's management of the restaurant tender that "forced Guillaume Brahimi from the building". 

Williams is alleged to have told Herron at the meeting, "I'm over you" and then tendered his resignation to Arts Minister George Souris. 

The story is still on The Sydney Morning Herald's website, accompanied by a massive grovel, in which the paper said that every material fact in the story was wrong.  

There was also this more generalised grovel to Williams published on September 4 in relation to an unrelated article by columnist Paul Sheehan.  

Joe Aston: source for Opera House story gone to ground

What has disturbed the pond is that Mark O'Brien and his team at Johnson Winter & Slattery have stepped in as Kimbo's solicitors, having six months earlier departed as Fairfax's pre-publication and litigation defence lawyers. 

Fairfax general counsel Gail Hambly asked O'Brien to remove himself from the Williams case, but the old rugger-bugger more or less said "get stuffed". 

In fact, there's been a trickle of letters from O'Brien to Fairfax on behalf of other clients complaining about his former client. 

Among the reptiles there was concern in 2008 about O'Brien's appointment as the external lawyer for Fairfax. Journalists scratched together a missive for then editor Alan Oakley objecting to the appointment: 

"He has represented many of the people about whom we have written, and he has acted to threaten or to bring defamation actions against the paper and individual journalists ... 

It would be an understatement to say this has upset many of your senior staff who work their guts out ... [etc, etc] ..." 

More here  

Journalists also found it upsetting that in November 2011, while still the external lawyer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Sun-Herald, O'Brien obtained a suppression order in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal on behalf of his client, the convicted inside trader John Joseph Hartman. 

More here  

It was inevitable that once O'Brien was outside the tent (replaced by Leanne Norman at Banki Haddock Fiora) it was pretty clear that the flow of urine now would be going back inside. 

He would have first-hand knowledge of the litigation and settlement strategy of the publisher and the way the company works internally. 

O'Brien still acts to protect that beacon of journalistic integrity, A Current Affair

Here at Justinian our position is that when it comes to the free speech jurisdiction, you're either for it or agin it. The straddle looks unattractive.  

P.S...

Crikey recently unearthed a letter to Joe Aston, the author of the allegedly defamatory piece about Kimbo. 

It came in response to some low grade sniping Aston had fired at Sydney Morning Herald columnist Mike Carlton - claiming that he was old, left-wing and irrelevant. 

"Aston

Your 'story' on Kim Williams would appear to be a perfect clusterfuck, wrong in every detail. And expensive, too. (Although, in your favour, you did spell his name correctly.)

Can't say I'm surprised. As I have said before, you can't write. You are not funny. You are an unmitigated pissant, a polyp on the arse-end  of journalism.

Normally I wouldn’t bother to write to a posturing little twerp like you, but in this case I wanted you to know how much I am enjoying your public humiliation.

Now go fuck yourself.

Sincerely

Mike Carlton" 

Joe - ring O'Brien. 

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.
Editor Permission Required
You must have editing permission for this entry in order to post comments.