Court to rule on John Pesutto costs over Moira Deeming defamation case
Benita Kolovos
Former Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto will learn today what costs he will have to pay after losing a defamation case brought by Liberal MP Moira Deeming.
Federal court registrar Alison Legge will rule on costs during a short hearing this morning, which begins at 10.30am.
It comes after the court in December found Pesutto defamed Deeming by falsely implying she sympathised with neo-Nazis and white supremacists, and ordered he pay $300,000 in damages. According to several senior Liberal sources, he is also yet to pay hundreds of thousands to his legal team.
In an earlier hearing, Deeming’s lawyers had said they were seeking $2.4m from Pesutto, mostly to pay back a loan that the New South Wales property developer Hilton Grugeon offered the MP to cover her legal expenses.
Both parties hired top defamation barristers for the weeks-long trial, with Sue Chrysanthou SC representing Deeming and Dr Matthew Collins KC representing Pesutto.
Liberal sources say the ruling could force Pesutto to declare bankruptcy, which would disqualify him from being a member of parliament and trigger a byelection in his seat of Hawthorn, held by a slim margin of 1.74%.
They say Liberal figures have been exploring the possibility of the party or donors covering Pesutto’s costs in an effort to stave off a byelection.
Key events
Chemical probe in pipeline amid clean water pressure
Residents in a tourist hotspot are awaiting the latest in a string of investigations of cancer-causing chemicals in their water supply.
Pfas, or per and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of 15,000 highly toxic, synthetic chemicals resistant to heat, stains and grease, dubbed “forever chemicals” because of their inability to break down.
High-level contamination was detected in the drinking water catchment serving 30,000 people in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales in mid-2024.
Pfas levels were found to be about 300 times higher than Sydney’s main drinking water source but they still met Australian guidelines for safe drinking water.
A WaterNSW investigation into Blue Mountains drinking water is set to be released on Friday.
John Dee, a veteran environmental activist who started the group Stop Pfas, has urged the buck-passing between various agencies such as Sydney Water, the NSW Environmental Protection Authority and WaterNSW to stop.
It’s been shown that Sydney Water and WaterNSW have not been fully transparent with the PFAS testing of our local drinking water.
Dee has called for a single, independent statewide authority with comprehensive responsibility for overseeing Pfas contamination management and removal.
– Australian Associated Press
Luca Ittimani
Homes over $1m proliferate across country
One in three Australian homes are now worth $1m or more, a share that’s tripled over the past decade as surging demand and slow-growing supply worsen housing affordability, new data shows.
Ten years ago, just one in 10 homes around the country had broken the million-dollar threshold, but that has soared, led by the capital cities, where four in 10 are now over $1m.
In regional Australia, two in 10 have cracked that barrier, or nearly 20%, where only 0.5% had reached that level a decade ago.
Cotality’s head of research, Eliza Owen, said the data out today reflected that Australia was a wealthy nation where some could afford to spend millions on homes, but high prices had driven up household debt and priced younger generations out of home ownership. She said:
The rate of home ownership has gradually declined over time, particularly among younger, low-income households where income cannot keep pace with growth …
With values expected to continue rising on the back of rate falls in 2025, the wealth divide between homeowners and non-homeowners is also likely to expand.
We’ll get a sense of just how far interest rates will fall on Tuesday when the Reserve Bank meets and decides whether to deliver a second cut this year.
In Sydney, nearly two in three homes have surpassed $1m in value, or about six in 10. For Brisbane it’s about four in 10, Melbourne is just over three in 10, and it’s just under three in 10 in Perth and Adelaide.
At the other end of the scale, Hobart went backwards from two in 10 to one in 10, while Darwin has held steady with less than one in 50 cracking $1m.
Tom McIlroy
PM bound for Rome for papal mass and talks with world leaders
After a flying visit to Jakarta on Thursday, Anthony Albanese is on his way to Rome on Friday.
The prime minister met with Indonesia’s president, Prabowo Subianto, for the first time, part of his first international trip since his 3 May election victory. The visit to Rome for the inaugural mass of Pope Leo XVI was added on after the papal conclave wrapped up.
Despite the historic nature of events at the Vatican on Sunday, the mass might be overshadowed by planned meetings with world leaders. Albanese has flagged he intends to hold pull aside meetings, an agenda which could include talks with French president Emmanuel Macron and Canadian prime minister Mark Carney.
It appears unlikely Albanese will meet US president Donald Trump. Signals from the White House suggest the American delegation will be led by Vice-president JD Vance. That could mean the first talks between Albanese and Trump happen next month during the G7 leaders meeting in Canada.
A possible visit to the White House is also being speculated as part of that trip.
Albanese this week politely declined an offer of honorary citizenship from the Italian city of Barletta, the birthplace of his late father, over fears the gesture could conflict with Australia’s constitutional rules on foreign allegiance.
Barletta, about four hours from Rome, is not part of Albanese’s trip. His father, Carlo, lived there until his death in 2014.
Woman charged after alleged bomb threats sent to Queensland childcare centres
A 50-year-old woman has been charged over five bomb hoaxes sent to childcare centres and a primary school in Brisbane yesterday.
Queensland Police allege a series of threatening messages were sent to childcare centres and a primary school in Bayside early Thursday morning. They also allege the woman was not known to or connected with the centres or school.
On Thursday afternoon, detectives charged a Cleveland woman with “five counts of making a bomb hoax – falsely inform bomb present”.
Police investigations found there was no risk to any children or the community. The woman will appear before Cleveland magistrates court on 5 June.
Where Waters may take the Greens
One of those new party leaders is, of course, Larissa Waters, who took the mantle of Greens’ leader this week.
It’s said she was reluctant to become party leader ahead of some more high-profile names. But she is regarded by colleagues as smart, warm and friendly, and – perhaps crucially – is seen as pragmatic by Labor counterparts with whom she will have to deal if she wants to help the government be bolder.
Our chief political correspondent, Tom McIlroy, assesses where she might take the party.
What the party leadership changes could mean to Australian politics – podcast
The Liberal party elected its first female leader in Sussan Ley this week, but she’s already fighting to keep the factional sharks at bay. Same goes for the Nationals, who’ve re-elected David Littleproud in a leadership challenge that revealed deep divisions. The Greens also elected a new leader on Thursday, but will that mean a change in strategy after their stinging election loss?
Reged Ahmad talks to head of newsroom Mike Ticher, national news editor Jo Tovey and chief political correspondent Tom McIlroy about whether changes in leadership could mean a change in our politics.
Listen to the podcast here:
Court to rule on John Pesutto costs over Moira Deeming defamation case
Benita Kolovos
Former Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto will learn today what costs he will have to pay after losing a defamation case brought by Liberal MP Moira Deeming.
Federal court registrar Alison Legge will rule on costs during a short hearing this morning, which begins at 10.30am.
It comes after the court in December found Pesutto defamed Deeming by falsely implying she sympathised with neo-Nazis and white supremacists, and ordered he pay $300,000 in damages. According to several senior Liberal sources, he is also yet to pay hundreds of thousands to his legal team.
In an earlier hearing, Deeming’s lawyers had said they were seeking $2.4m from Pesutto, mostly to pay back a loan that the New South Wales property developer Hilton Grugeon offered the MP to cover her legal expenses.
Both parties hired top defamation barristers for the weeks-long trial, with Sue Chrysanthou SC representing Deeming and Dr Matthew Collins KC representing Pesutto.
Liberal sources say the ruling could force Pesutto to declare bankruptcy, which would disqualify him from being a member of parliament and trigger a byelection in his seat of Hawthorn, held by a slim margin of 1.74%.
They say Liberal figures have been exploring the possibility of the party or donors covering Pesutto’s costs in an effort to stave off a byelection.
As few as ‘30, 40, 50’ votes still to come in by midnight in some seats – AEC
Australian Electoral Commissioner Jeff Pope was speaking on ABC Radio National this morning.
Two weeks out from the federal election, there are only a few thousand votes still expected to come in by midnight tonight – that is only as few as “30, 40, 50” in some seats.
Asked about the number of informal votes, Pope said “it is looking pretty similar to previous elections for the House of Representatives”:
It’s coming in nationally I think around about sort of 5%. You’ll get some divisions a bit below that, some a bit above, a few well above, regrettably. But it’s nationally coming in around about the same as what it has for the last few federal elections.
Ley says she’ll bring ‘different approach’ than Dutton to leadership
Sussan Ley says she and former opposition leader Peter Dutton have different leadership styles and personalities.
The new opposition leader appeared on Today a short while ago and was asked if she is “partly responsible” for the Liberal’s recent election loss as Dutton’s deputy.
Ley responded:
We all have to accept responsibility and I don’t step back from that, and after every election we look at what went wrong, at what we didn’t do that we should have done, and we’ll do that in an open and transparent way – and that will of course happen.
But now is about the future, it is about the next election, it is about the team that I lead, and it is about optimism and a sense of purpose, and always remembering that we are elected … I’m elected here in my seat representing my community. My colleagues and their own individual life experiences bring tremendous passion and tremendous determination for that future that we want to provide for the Australian people. As I said, to get up every day to work for them.
Peter Dutton and I have different styles, we’re different personalities, and I will bring a different approach to my leadership.
Ley’s elevation to leadership about ‘so much more’ than being female, she says
Asked what took the Liberal party “so long to elect a female leader,” Sussan Ley said her appointment “is about so much more than that”.
The opposition leader was speaking on Today earlier this morning:
I’m incredibly humbled to have the endorsement of my party room just a few days ago to be the leader of the Liberal party, it’s an incredible honour. Now, Karl, people reflect on the female aspect and I understand that and I want to say it’s significant, but my appointment is about much more than that. We didn’t meet the expectations of the Australian people at the last election. We have to change, we have to step up, we have to have a fresh approach.
