and it’s time for Brittany to regain hers!

It’s now unofficial! Electors in the upcoming federal by-election for Aston in Melbourne’s outer-east can now cast their votes knowing that the Liberals plan to campaign against The Voice in the referendum towards year’s end.

That’s if The Voice is of any major concern to them as they tackle soaring living costs and think hard about who to blame for that. The Voice should be on their minds too, though, if they do not take kindly to being treated like mugs.

The Spud with Dead Eyes had apparently decided to wait until after the Aston poll before declaring the Liberals’ hand on recognition of first nations people in the Constitution and providing them with an advisory body to speak to parliament on matters that affect them.

But Dutton couldn’t help himself and let the cat out of the bag yesterday. He thinks the referendum will fail and why does he think that? Because it’s as sure as the fact that he’s going to wake up tomorrow morning bald that the Liberals will join their coalition partners, the Nationals, in making sure the vote is lost. Not enough detail, they’ll say. We’ll need much more detail to muddy the waters and confuse people! It’s racist, they’ll scream, because it “gives the Abos something white people aren’t being offered”. White lives matter too! Right, Pauline? Right, Barnaby?

Were I Anthony Albanese and knowing the result of referendums that don’t have the support of both sides of politics, I’d therefore scrap the vote – save taxpayers many millions of dollars – and let the states carry on with their own legislation to give First Nations people their say in matters affecting them in those states. Labor’s Chris Minns will be in a position in just under five weeks to do likewise in NSW.

I’d let the Spud with Dead Eyes luxuriate in whatever political gain he thinks he’s going to get from getting one over Albanese. Good luck there. And were I Albanese, I’d just simply explain the referendum for a Voice to the federal parliament will be back on track once the Liberals shunt Dutton for someone passably likeable and who might even want to try to rebuild the Liberals so they are more fit for 21st-Century purpose.

And now for a comment I meant to make some time ago when Brittany Higgins declared she was ready and willing to give evidence at any civil trial where her accused rapist Bruce Lehrmann is seeking damages for defamation.

I’m truly glad she’s up to that but all I can do is plead with her to write to the ACT prosecutions branch requesting that Lehrman’s rape retrial can now go ahead because she’s confident she can better handle some days in the witness box a second time round.

I appreciate that the combative nature of our criminal justice system knocked her around a bit but I would argue that it was her decision to go public with her version of events at Parliament House back in 2019 and countless women and plenty of men put her on a deserved pedestal for her bravery in speaking out. She became a beacon of hope for women everywhere aware of the risks facing women who come forward with accusations of sexual assault and mindful of the pitiful track record of success if they do.

Were I Higgins, I’d be a little sad – a bit embarrassed maybe? – that I wasn’t as brave and as resilient as I thought I’d be. Memo to self: I can do better.

And if I’m right that she’s making a pretty good recovery from the horrors of that first trial, I cannot think of any greater incentive to writing to the ACT prosecutor than to read what a certain fat cow is saying in The Australian, in a disgraceful piece by Janet Albrechtsen and some other creative fiction writer that has no other purpose than to damage her reputation.

Were I Higgins and if she really is as disgusted as she deservedly appears to be that private diary matters/materials given to police but not used in the first Lehrmann trial have made their way into The Australian’s grubby, unethical, ethics-free, cookered hands, I’d be searching for that prosecutor’s number or email right now.

Telling the truth again – as I believe Brittany Higgins did in that first trial – shouldn’t be too stressful the second time round now that she knows what to expect.

Don Gordon-Brown