Bruce Lehrmann lodges court application to have rape charges halted
The application, filed this week in the Toowoomba District Court, seeks a declaration that intercepted phone calls between Mr Lehrmann's lawyers and Queensland police were "illegally obtained".
The defence's application also requested that the defendant have a list of materials in the police investigation and a declaration that the Queensland Police Service "do not have the power nor the discretion to determine what is relevant to a defence case and must disclose all materials in the course of the police investigation".
Mr Lehrmann's Sydney-based lawyer Zali Burrows filed the application for a permanent stay of the proceedings and for pre-trial directions and rulings under the Criminal Code.
It follows weeks of legal wrangling between the Crown and Ms Burrows, who came on board as his legal representative after the case was committed for trial.
Mr Lehrmann faces two counts of rape, alleged to have occurred in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, in October 2021.
Following a committal hearing in the Toowoomba Magistrates Court in July 2024, Mr Lehrmann was committed to stand trial in the Toowoomba District Court.
In May this year, Ms Burrows told the District Court, during a mention of the case, that there was a "shroud of secrecy" over the police investigation into her client.
On that occasion, Ms Burrows said the defence had only received about 200 pages of a 2,200-page download from the complainant's mobile phone records.
The defence was also seeking access to all police notebooks, diary entries, emails and text messages related to the rape investigation.
A hearing of the defence application for the police notebooks and other information has been set down for July 25 in the Toowoomba District Court.
Mr Lehrmann's application for a permanent stay will be mentioned in the Ipswich District Court on Wednesday, as the Toowoomba District Court is not sitting this week.
Court documents, filed in the Toowoomba District Court, also include an affidavit from the practice manager at the Toowoomba office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Peter Blake-Segovia.
In that affidavit, Mr Blake-Segovia said that the arresting police officer, Detective Senior Constable Ashlee Ryder, had responded to him via email, setting out items in her possession that were not provided as part of the brief to the DPP, including:
Mr Blake-Segovia said the police officer had also confirmed "that there were two notebooks in her possession that were not part of the brief provided to the Director of Public Prosecutions. I have sought these items be provided for disclosure."
The officer confirmed that all signed statements had been provided but that a further addendum, from the complainant, had been drafted but not yet signed. Once signed, it would be provided, the DPP officer said.
The DPP said that once all items were received from the police officer, they would be reviewed "to ascertain whether they ought to be disclosed" prior to the hearing listed for July 25.
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ABC News
3 hours ago
- ABC News
The fight with China over the Darwin port
Sam Hawley: A decade ago, a Chinese company was given the green light to take control of a key Australian port, the Port of Darwin. Now, the Albanese government is scrambling to take it back in a move that the US has long encouraged, but China has warned against. Today, veteran defence analyst Alan Dupont on why the deal was allowed in the first place and the risks of letting it continue. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. News report: Alongside the inevitable Panda diplomacy, Albanese will likely be tough on China, albeit behind closed doors. News report: If there is one issue Australia could try to leverage with China, it is the Port of Darwin. A Chinese company called Landbridge has a 99 year lease over the port and the Albanese government wants to tear that up. News report: China's also likely to press the prime minister to ditch his election promise, something that Treasurer Jim Chalmers says won't happen. Jim Chalmers, Treasurer: We've made it very clear that we will see the Port of Darwin returned to Australian hands. That's what we committed to during the election. Sam Hawley: Alan, the Port of Darwin, it's become a big issue in our diplomatic relationship with China, although Anthony Albanese says it wasn't discussed during a meeting with the Chinese president during his trip to Beijing last week. Reporter: Did the president express any objection to your plans about bringing the Port of Darwin back into Australian hands or any potential response that China might take to that? Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister: No, it wasn't raised. Sam Hawley: Is that surprising to you, given it's a rather big issue? Alan Dupont: Well, it's not surprising to me in the sense that it's not a sort of issue that the president of China is going to discuss with the prime minister. But it's not to say it's not an insignificant issue, because it certainly was taken up by Chinese Premier Li Qiang in the follow up meeting. And he made it quite clear that China would not be happy if Australia was to take the lease back from the Landbridge company. Li Qiang, Chinese Premier: I trust that Australia will also treat Chinese enterprises fairly and also properly resolve the issues they encounter in terms of market access and investment review. Sam Hawley: All right, well, Alan, to understand what's actually going on, I think we should just step back to 2015, because that's when Landbridge, this Chinese company, signed a very long lease to control the port. Just remind me of what happened back then. Alan Dupont: Yes, well, I think the first thing to remember is just a totally different era in Australia's relations with China, when China was essentially seen as a benign trade partner. Everybody was in sort of in the China basket. More China was good. And in 2015, the Northern Territory government decided to put the lease of the port out to tender and Landbridge won the bid by a substantial margin. It bid far more than the other competitors, which is interesting in itself. And it was granted the lease. News report: A deal worth $506 million has won Chinese company Landbridge Group the bid for Darwin's 99-year lease. The government hopes the company's connections will open doors to greater territory trade in Asia, particularly China. Alan Dupont: Now, when Adam Giles, who was the Northern Territory Chief Minister at the time who made the decision, was asked whether he had consulted with the Commonwealth government, the federal government, he said, yes, we've run it past Defence and they've given it a clean bill of health, which is actually correct. Adam Giles, then-NT Chief Minister: Defence as an agency signed off on that, and we're quite happy with the approval process on that. It didn't need formal approval. Alan Dupont: So he ran it past Defence. Defence said no problems from a security point of view. And so the Northern Territory government went ahead with it. And the reason they did that is because they wanted to have the money from the lease, from the successful tenderer, which is over half a billion dollars, so that they could develop the harbour as the main gateway into Northern Australia. So it's quite an important economic sort of fillip, if you like, for the Northern Territory government. Sam Hawley: OK, and just to make clear, Darwin, of course, is a gateway to Asia. The port is the nearest port from Australia to Asia. So it is actually a really important Australian infrastructure, isn't it? Alan Dupont: No, absolutely. It was then and is now, even more so now. But you're absolutely right. It is the major port in Northern Australia. And unfortunately, at the time, it was pretty moribund. It just wasn't making money. So I think the Northern Territory government saw an opportunity here to beef up the infrastructure and they put some of the money into a shiplift, which was going to be an added attraction to the port so they could lift large ships up and repair them. So that was another offering they could get out of the actual money from the lease. Sam Hawley: All right. So Landbridge, this Chinese company, it receives a 99 year lease. Just tell me, what sort of links does this company actually have to the Chinese government? Alan Dupont: Well, Landbridge is owned by a gentleman called Ye Cheng, who is a billionaire and has very direct and specific links to the Chinese government, as most businesses do in China. And the bottom line is that if the Chinese government wants Landbridge to do something, it will have to do it, have to comply, because that's spelled out in the national security law that governs all commercial businesses in China. Sam Hawley: Well, as you say, back then the federal government at the time did agree that this should go ahead. But there were people who were raising objections, including Anthony Albanese and the then president of the United States, Barack Obama. Alan Dupont: Yes. Well, not everybody was happy with the decision even back then in 2015. News report: The US president, Barack Obama, has told Mr Turnbull his country would have appreciated being consulted about the deal before it was announced. Alan Dupont: I know that Bill Shorten, who was the leader of the Labor Party at the time, did ask for details of why the decision had been made. Bill Shorten, then-Labor leader: We would like them to explain whether or not they've done all the foreign investment review processes. We want to hear from our security and defence experts. Alan Dupont: And I think the local Labor opposition in the Northern Territory did criticise the decision at the time. So it's fair to say that Labor generally weren't particularly happy or supportive of it. But I don't think they made too big a deal about it at the time. It's only later on that it's become a controversial issue. Sam Hawley: All right. OK. So, Alan, we know this lease is now at the centre of a geopolitical storm. And ahead of the last election, Anthony Albanese pledged to return the port of Darwin to Australian hands. But what do we know when it comes to national security risks? Are there any risks to the security of the port of Darwin? Are there legitimate concerns, in your view, regarding the Chinese ownership of this port? It's not like Chinese warships can pull up to it, right? Alan Dupont: Yeah, that's correct. I mean, look, there's been a bit of hyperbole about it at both ends of the spectrum here. I do think there are national security implications, but they're not quite what people would think. I don't think the Chinese Landbridge is going to suddenly start spying on Australian Navy ships. I mean, why would it need to do that? I mean, their satellites are quite capable of monitoring what goes on in Darwin Harbour. Sam Hawley: They can do it anyway. Alan Dupont: That's right. So it's not so much that from a technical espionage point of view. It's really about the fact that you have to see the lease in terms of China's broader strategic ambitions in the region. And also, they saw it useful as making it more difficult for the US to actually beef up its capabilities in northern Australia if the US saw this as a problem and the US did see it as a problem. So China is quite happy to see that happen, because obviously it would like to decouple Australia from the US alliance if it can possibly do so. So you have to see it in terms of that broad strategic context rather than just a commercial decision. Sam Hawley: Yeah, right. And as you said, the world is a different place than it was 10 years ago. And China spent that decade building up influence in the region, right? So there is, what, more reason for concern now? Alan Dupont: Yes, I think that's right. I mean, it's a totally different environment now, obviously, than it was back in 2015. And as you're aware, now it's become a political issue here in Australia at two levels. One is that the China hawks see this as a big problem. It's a perception problem as much as a real problem. The US is not happy with it. But the other thing is it's become politicised too. Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister: What we will do is negotiate in the interests of Australian taxpayers, in the national interest. It will come back under Australian control. We would never have flogged this off. Alan Dupont: Both parties have committed to taking the lease back, preferably in commercial grounds. But if necessary, they will play the national security card through the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act, which it's set up and designed to protect Australian critical infrastructure, of which Darwin Port would be considered an important part of that. So that's where we are at the moment. Sam Hawley: What sort of influence do you think the Americans are playing in this decision, if any at all? As you've said, the Americans do not want Chinese ownership of this port, and they've been pushing for a long time for that to end. Alan Dupont: Yeah, look, I mean, the Americans have been actually tiptoeing around this rather than coming in strongly about it. I mean, clearly they're not happy to have the Chinese, a Chinese company in charge of the port. But I wouldn't overestimate the US pressure side of this. I think it's probably much more an Australian internal decision. I think there was some embarrassment on the part of Defence that this was given a clean bill of health, when later on, I think if it had gone back up to Defence two years later, there's no way that the lease would have been approved now. Sam Hawley: All right. Well, of course, as we've mentioned, the Chinese are not happy about this at all. What has the company Landbridge actually had to say in response to this? Alan Dupont: So the Australian CEO of Landbridge, Terry O'Connor, I mean, he's a straight commercial guy. And he's saying, look, you know, I'm just running a port here. Terry O'Connor, Landbridge non-executive director for Australia: What we've seen is the port continue to be used as a political football in an election cycle. We've seen a bit of hysteria around the fact that it's owned by a private Chinese individual. I call them myths and mistruths often being said around the port. One that continues to amuse me is the perception that we're somehow connected with the People's Liberation Army in China. We're not. Alan Dupont: But, you know, there are broader considerations here. And the point is that the government is now committed to doing it. And the issue is how they do it. Right. And I think I don't think the government has fully understood the complexity of this. So it's looking to engineer a commercial buyout, preferably by an Australian provider of port management. But it's going to be difficult to find one to take that on board because it's not an easy thing to do. They're not companies with the expertise. If we can't get a commercial buyout, if, for example, Landbridge doesn't sell regardless of the offer, then we only have no alternative but to play the national security card. In which case China is going to say, well, what is the legitimacy of taking this lease back? When we complied, when the Landbridge complied with all the provisions of it? In fact, the Chinese ambassador has talked about I think his term was a ethically questionable decision. So you can see that there's a lot of obstacles ahead to actually engineer this. And how Albanese does it is going to determine how China responds. Sam Hawley: Yeah. OK, well, let's then look, Alan, at how China could actually respond to this. We know it's a volatile relationship. Regardless of the way it happens, will there be a backlash from China, do you think? Alan Dupont: Yeah, well, look, they could do a number of things. They could just make a pro forma protest and let it go through to the keeper, so to speak, in the interest of the broader relationship. Or if they really wanted to go to town, they could actually do something quite serious in terms of our trade relationship, for example. So I think, you know, there's a lot of different outcomes here. It could be a relatively minor thing and easily dealt with, but I suspect it's going to be somewhere in between. And it's going to be fascinating to see how it plays out. Sam Hawley: Sure is. So will Anthony Albanese stick to his guns on this? He's not going to back out amid threats from China, is he? I mean, this could get ugly. Alan Dupont: Well, so now he's made that decision, it would be very difficult for him not to see it through. So I think he's got to now engineer an outcome where the lease is taken back from Landbridge, but not in a way that really offends China. And I'm not entirely sure how he's going to do that. Sam Hawley: Alan Dupont is the chief executive of geopolitical risk consultancy, the Cognoscenti Group, who until recently advised the Northern Territory government on boosting defence investment. This episode was produced by Sydney Pead. Audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I'm Sam Hawley. Thanks for listening.
The Australian
3 hours ago
- The Australian
Paul Hatton says wife Julie took her own life at Darreen Station; no inquest
A millionaire grazier says there is no mystery to his wife's death from a gunshot wound to the forehead, and the tragic case from almost half a century ago should never have been reopened. Paul Hatton said his first wife, Julie, had severe postnatal depression and shot herself with a rifle in despair at Queensland's Darreen Station in 1978. 'I was months, years, getting over this,' Mr Hatton said, making his first public comments on the death after a coroner formally ruled out an inquest. 'I went through hell. You wouldn't wish what happened to me on anybody.' Former Labor attorney-general Shannon Fentiman ordered a coronial investigation in April 2023 at the request of Natalie Hatton, the daughter of Julie and Mr Hatton, who was a 10-week-old baby when her mother died. Coroner Donald MacKenzie has now told Ms Hatton that a thorough police reinvestigation found no evidence to suggest the death of her 22-year-old mother was suspicious. An inquest was not in the public interest, the coroner ruled, with some records and evidence that could have shed light on the tragedy no longer available. The gun was recorded as being a Winchester .22 rifle but could not be found. Police advised the coroner that a lack of information about the gun and ammunition, and about the exact height and arm span of the deceased, meant it was not possible to do a viable re-enactment. Ms Hatton is appealing to the state coroner to overrule the refusal to hold an inquest. She has cited ongoing concerns about issues including a lack of evidence of powder or burn marks around the gunshot wound that she believes would have been expected from a shot at point-blank range. Darreen Station, near Eidsvold, remains in the hands of the Hatton family. Mr Hatton and second wife Ingrid have spent years restoring a century-old homestead there. 'Ask the attorney-general, 'what evidence did they have to open this inquiry?',' he said. 'This is an absolute tragedy turned on its head. My wife (Julie) was in a very, very bad way. She was diagnosed with … postnatal depression. She couldn't even mix the (baby) formula. That's how bad she was. But you don't realise what's going to happen.' Born and raised on the Gold Coast, the only daughter of bookmaker Kevin Clifford and wife Lillias, Julie married Mr Hatton when she was 19. Mr Hatton says she asked how to use a gun, and he showed her. 'In those days, you never locked the guns up because of snakes and crows and all that sort of thing,' he said. 'You can blame us. Maybe we should have put the gun (away). We didn't think. You don't think of those bloody things.' Until the age of 10, Ms Hatton believed her stepmother, Ingrid, was her biological mother. Mr Hatton said his parents and other elders in the family had stopped him telling his daughter sooner about her birth mother. 'I wanted to tell her from day one but nobody would let me. They all made me wait until she grew up, to make it easy on her. That's what they thought. All her life, we tried to protect her, tried to let her grow up without hurting her. All it's done is come back and bite us.' After the shooting Mr Hatton went without eating, he said, to the point his sister warned his health was in danger. 'It's the worst thing I've ever seen. I nearly took my own life,' he said. Julie 'was a lovely person' who could ride a horse, was very active and loved the property, he said. 'She didn't want to go into this state of mind. Today, they would have more help for her. They understand it today. In my day, they didn't understand it, that was the problem.' As a result of the renewed questions about his wife's death, he demonstrated to his family and police how it was possible for a person to take their own life using a similar rifle. 'It's as easy as falling off a log. I've handled guns all my life. I didn't realise how easy it was,' he said. Since the case was reopened, Ms Hatton has launched a separate civil claim seeking a declaration she is entitled to possession with her father and stepmother of one of the family properties, Delubra. As of 2019, the Hatton family ran about 20,000 head of cattle across 10 properties spanning more than 40,000 hectares. 'If I had no money, mate, this wouldn't even be happening,' Mr Hatton said, adding that he had the support of the rest of the family. Ms Hatton said her civil case was 'totally different' to her questions about her mother's death. She has been supported in her call for an inquest by a policeman who attended the death scene. When he was a young constable, John Raatz wrote in a 1978 police report that 'it would appear that the deceased was in depressed state of mind'. Now 79, Mr Raatz says a sergeant he went to the property with on the day Julie Hatton died decided not to call in detectives. 'I wanted him to follow up and get the CI (criminal investigation) branch out there. He just said, 'no way anyone's going to come here' and 'I'm handling the case' and 'no suspicious circumstances',' Mr Raatz said. 'He was out there for half an hour. Hopped in the ambulance with the now deceased, and didn't do anything. Why wouldn't there be an inquest into the … full circumstances as to what happened?' Mr Hatton angrily rejected the comments, saying they were in direct conflict with what a young policeman told him the day after the shooting. 'Is this the same copper that said to me … 'you're lucky you're still here, that you haven't been taken out, you and your baby'?,' Mr Hatton said. On the day of the shooting Mr Hatton was out riding a lawnmower. He says it's possible his wife, in a disturbed state of mind, also fired at him. 'When I was mowing, something went past my head, and it's come back a couple of times in my life. We'll never know,' he said. David Murray National Crime Correspondent David Murray is The Australian's National Crime Correspondent. He was previously Crime Editor at The Courier-Mail and prior to that was News Corp's London-based Europe Correspondent. He is behind investigative podcasts The Lighthouse and Searching for Rachel Antonio and is the author of The Murder of Allison Baden-Clay. Nation Sarah Hanson-Young has left the door open to the Greens using its numbers in the Senate to block Labor's agenda to push for stronger action, declaring voters handed the minor party the sole balance of power to act as a 'backstop'. Nation What does it take to be a Labor giant-killer and take out an opposition leader, Greens firebrands or long-serving incumbent MP? For the class of 2025 it meant hard work, grit and months on the hustings.
Daily Telegraph
5 hours ago
- Daily Telegraph
Sussan Ley's Liberal Party records historically bad result in first Newspoll since election
Don't miss out on the headlines from National. Followed categories will be added to My News. The latest Newspoll shows the Coalition's support has fallen to a four-decade low, as Anthony Albanese's Labor Party continues to enjoy a post-election bounce. The survey, conducted on behalf of The Australian, has Labor in a strong position despite the Prime Minister's weak approval rating. It's the first such poll since the election in May. Anthony Albanese. Picture: Joseph Obrycht-Palmer/NewsWire Liberal leader Sussan Ley. Picture: John Gass/NewsWire At that election earlier this year, the two-party preferred vote ended at 55 per cent for Labor and 49 per cent for the Coalition, which yielded 94 Labor seats and a mere 43 for the official opposition. That gap in the two-party preferred measure has now expanded to 57-43. Of particular concern for the Coalition is its primary vote, which now stands at 29 per cent, even lower than its worst ever mark at an election. It recorded a primary vote of 32 per cent when Australians voted in May. Mr Albanese's approval rating is still slightly underwater, with 47 per cent of voters approving of his performance. Liberal leader Sussan Ley has an approval rating of 35 per cent, though more than a fifth of voters have yet to form a firm opinion of her. According to The Australian, no lower primary vote result has been recorded for the combined Liberal and National vote since Newspoll started recording the relevant data in 1985. The results suggest Sussan Ley is in some trouble. Picture: Justin Lloyd Parliament is set to resume at last this week, for the first time since the election. Ahead of that landmark in her new role as Leader of the Opposition, Ms Ley was interviewed by The Australian Women's Weekly earlier this month. Most notably, during the interview she recalled an encounter with a stranger during a drive from Sydney to the town Thargomindah, in rural Queensland. 'The person lifted the visor on their helmet and said, 'Ah, you're here all by yourself, are you?'' she recounted. The man had arrived on a motorbike. Ms Ley, on alert, pulled out a semiautomatic rifle, which had been purchased legally. 'I'm here with my tall skinny mate,' she said. At which point the man drove away, while Ms Ley was left with her 'heart pounding'. Sussan Ley. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire Meanwhile a senior Labor minister has hit back at the opposition for criticising Mr Albanese's lengthy state visit to China, saying the relationship with Australia's biggest trading partner had 'broken down' on the Coalition's watch. The Prime Minister spent much of the last week touting Australia's tourism, trade and research offerings in Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu as part of a five-day business and diplomatic blitz. But the opposition has argued the trip did not produce any tangible outcomes, despite several agreements being signed. Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said on Sunday she found the 'criticism quite extraordinary considering that since we came to government we have removed some $20 billion of trade impediments with China'. China imposed trade restrictions during a trade war with the Morrison government. 'We now have in everything from wine to lobster, not to mention the fact that China is our single biggest trading partner,' Ms Rowland told Sky News. 'Our resources sector relies on that relationship.' She noted that Mr Albanese's visit was 'at the invitation … of China'. 'He went with a significant business delegation,' Ms Rowland. 'This is about creating jobs and extra trade opportunities for Australia, and it's important that we maintain this vital relationship.' Originally published as Sussan Ley's Liberal Party records historically bad result in first Newspoll since election
