Australia news live: federal court to hear Bruce Lehrmann appeal; Labor to tweak pension and welfare calculations
Date: 2025-08-19T20:37:32.000Z
Title: Federal court to hear Bruce Lehrmann appeal
Content: Bruce Lehrmann's appeal against the federal court ruling that he was not defamed by Network 10 and Lisa Wilkinson is due to be heard today.
In April last year, Justice Michael Lee found that on the balance of probabilities Lehrmann raped former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in Canberra in 2019, and that Lehrmann was therefore not defamed when Wilkinson interviewed Higgins about the case on The Project.
Lehrmann is appealing on grounds including that the sexual assault described by Lee was 'substantially inconsistent' with the violent rape portrayed on The Project, according to submissions to the appeal filed with the court in March.
Lehrmann's legal team say he was denied procedural fairness because the case which was found to be true was not put to him in cross-examination.
The appeal against that finding will be heard over three days in Sydney before the full court of justices – Michael Wigney, Craig Colvin, and Wendy Abraham.
The hearing starts at 10.15am and we will be blogging updates here.
Read more about the appeal here:
Update:
Date: 2025-08-19T20:34:35.000Z
Title: Welcome
Content: Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I'm Martin Farrer with the best of the overnight stories and then Nick Visser will take the wheel.
The opposition leader, Sussan Ley, has accused Anthony Albanese of 'mismanaging' Australia's relationship with Israel after Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out overnight, calling him a 'weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia's Jews'. More in a moment.
Labor will end the Morrison-era freeze on deeming rates in a move that will see people claiming Centrelink payments pay more in tax on their financial assets. Social services minister, Tanya Plibersek, said incremental rises would take place from next month. More shortly.
A man was shot dead in western Sydney last night in the latest shooting to hit the city. Witnesses told police the man was targeted while in a car in Winston Hills. It follows an attack in Forest Lodge on Sunday in which one man was killed and another injured. More details coming up.
And today sees the start of Bruce Lehrmann's appeal against last year's loss in his defamation case against Network 10 and Lisa Wilkinson. We'll bring you lots more on that during the day, once it gets going.
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