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 Government. And the mere fact he had such a motive does not mean what is being said by his girlfriend was anything other than true. But it is important context, and a journalist acting reasonably would recognise this motivation and scrutinise what was being conveyed cognisant of it.

796 It does appear that prior to the meeting, Mr Llewellyn did conduct an internet search and knew Mr Sharaz had "married a political staffer" and sent it to Ms Wilkinson. Ms Wilkinson (who had seen the same details), in response, described Mr Sharaz, like Ms Higgins, as "two birds with broken wings who have seen the inside of Canberra and don't like what they see" – a zoomorphism with which Mr Llewellyn expressed his agreement (Ex R186; Ex R187). It does not appear anything changed, and they continued to believe this was an appropriate characterisation.

797 What we know is that insufficient recognition of motive did not only fail to cause increased care, but Mr Llewellyn and Ms Wilkinson expressed a willingness to assist in the political use of the serious charges they were supposedly interrogating and assessing with independent minds, as is evident from the following (Ex 36 (at 1:14:09–1:53:34)):

Mr Sharaz:

And for your reference, we'll get down to this later, but the reason we've chosen the timeline we've had is because it's a sitting week when we want the story to come out. A break and then – Ms Wilkinson:

That's what we wanted to know. Why March?

Mr Sharaz:

And then the Senate goes to in March and that's when I'm going to talk to, I've got a friend in Labour, Katie Gallagher on the Labour side, who will probe and continue it going. So sitting week, story comes out, they have to answer questions at question time, it's a mess for them. March, Senate estimates. Hopefully we can try and get the footage, that sort of stuff, for Britt's clarity, and then he's going to call an election in whenever he calls it.

Ms Higgins:

Soon.

Mr Sharaz:

That's why Britt's picked that timeline.

Mr Llewellyn:

Ok.

Lehrmann v Network Ten Pty Limited (Trial Judgment) [2024] FCA 369