The pattern

In Australian politics, reputation is currency, and the writ and the smear are its transactions. Who can afford to bring one, or to fight one off, decides more than any court likes to admit.

Four recent legal matters show the machine at work: an attorney-general who sued a broadcaster over an untested allegation and lost his career to how the fight was funded, not to the allegation itself; a man who sued to clear his name and had a court find the opposite, on the civil standard; a satirist a court found had committed racist hate speech, not protected satire; and a senator smeared on the floor of Parliament who used the same law to be vindicated. This article sets out each case, the court, the standard of proof, and every denial and acquittal on the record.

01An old machine

Defamation law and the smear share a currency: reputation. One side spends money and standing to protect it or to attack it; the other pays, sometimes in damages, sometimes in a career, sometimes in nothing at all.

The four cases that follow run from 2018 to 2024, from a federal minister to a satirist to a crossbench senator. Between them they show reputation used as both weapon and shield, and show that the outcome does not always run the way power would predict.

Correction, 7 October 2026. This section said the four cases run from 2019 to 2024. It now says 2018 to 2024: the earliest event in the survey, David Leyonhjelm’s remark in the Senate, was in June 2018, as the article’s own source records. ⁷

02The minister who sued the broadcaster

In February 2021, the ABC reported that a letter sent to the Prime Minister contained a historical allegation of rape, dating to 1988, against a serving senior cabinet minister. The story did not name him. Christian Porter, then Attorney-General, publicly identified himself as the minister and sued the ABC and reporter Louise Milligan for defamation. ¹

Porter has always denied the allegation, and it was never tested in court. The woman who made it had died in 2020, before the ABC’s story ran. ¹

On Monday 31 May 2021, Porter discontinued the action. No damages were paid, and the ABC did not retract or apologise; it stood by the importance of the article and added an editor’s note. ¹

Porter updated his register of interests to reveal that a blind trust, the “Legal Services Trust”, had made a part contribution to his legal costs, and he resigned from the ministry on 19 September 2021; he did not recontest his seat and left politics. ³⁴

Porter’s case ended on how the fight was funded, not on the allegation itself, which was never tested and remains denied.

03The man who came back for his hat

Bruce Lehrmann sued Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson over a 2021 broadcast, an interview with Brittany Higgins on The Project, about an alleged rape at Parliament House in 2019. ⁵

On 15 April 2024, in Lehrmann v Network Ten [2024] FCA 369, Justice Michael Lee found, on the balance of probabilities, the civil standard, that Lehrmann raped Higgins. Ten’s substantial-truth defence succeeded, and the defamation claim failed.

Lehrmann had earlier faced a criminal trial that was aborted because of juror misconduct; it ended with no verdict, and he was not convicted. He maintains his innocence. ⁵

The judgment did not spare him on the way out the door.

Having escaped the lion’s den, Mr Lehrmann made the mistake of coming back for his hat.

A man sued to clear his name, and the court found the opposite, on the civil standard. The writ boomeranged.

04The deputy premier and the satirist

John Barilaro, then NSW Deputy Premier, brought defamation proceedings over two YouTube videos, ‘bruz’ and ‘Secret Dictatorship’, published in late 2020 by Jordan Shanks, the satirist known as friendlyjordies. ⁶

On 6 June 2022, Justice Steven Rares in the Federal Court ordered Google to pay Barilaro A$715,000. The judge found the videos were “a relentless and vicious campaign against Mr Barilaro” and “nothing less than racist hate speech”; the material was not protected as mere satire. ⁶

Shanks had earlier settled a parallel case in November 2021, apologising and editing the videos; reports put his payment at A$100,000. ⁸

Barilaro had resigned as Deputy Premier in October 2021 and left politics, citing a “traumatic” final period in office. ⁶⁸

This case is this survey’s honest complication. Here it was the politician who sued the satirist, and the court did not find protected satire; it found genuine defamation, and it named the material racist hate speech. Satire is often the plea when reputation is under fire; a court has already tested that plea once, in this case, and it did not hold. The lesson is not that satire is always a smear, or always protected. It is that the ground is contested, and the powerful can reach for the writ from either side of it.

05The senator who was vindicated

During a Senate debate in June 2018, David Leyonhjelm told Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young to “stop shagging men”, and repeated the remark in the media. ⁷

The Federal Court found he had defamed her, finding the remark imputed she was a misandrist and a hypocrite, and awarded her A$120,000 in damages. Leyonhjelm’s appeal was dismissed in March 2021, and the High Court refused him leave to appeal. He paid the damages and costs. ⁷⁹

This is defamation as a shield, not a weapon. A woman senator, smeared on the floor of Parliament, used the same law that ministers and premiers use to attack, and was vindicated by it. It balances the survey: the law that the powerful wield can also protect the smeared, when they can reach it.

06The reading

This is the desk’s reading, not a finding from any of the four courts above: reputation is currency in Australian politics, and the writ and the smear are its transactions. Who can afford to bring one, or to fight one off, decides more than any court ever quite admits.

Set the four side by side. Porter’s career ended not on the allegation, which was never tested, but on how the fight against it was funded. Lehrmann sued to clear his name and a court found, on the civil standard, that the opposite was true. Barilaro sued a satirist and won, on a finding of racist hate speech, not satire. Hanson-Young was smeared on the floor of Parliament and used the same law to be vindicated. Four cases, one currency, and it cuts more than one way.

Four cases, one currency: reputation. Who can afford the writ decides who is destroyed and who is vindicated.

If it’s a rort, we cover it.