The company that makes a lot of the voting machines used in the recent US election is suing a number of individuals, groups and companies that manufactured and promoted the lie that the US election was rigged in part due to the algorithms used in the voting machines. The company’s allegation is that the individuals, groups and companies didn’t tell the truth, because they were claiming that the Democrats (Joe Biden) hadn’t received more votes than the Republicans (Donald Trump) in the 2020 US Presidential election.
As reported in
The Guardian, Dominion is a Canadian company that manufactures voting machines that are commonly used in the USA. Their case is the claims made by Trump and his supporters are factually wrong — and therefore libellous. After filing a $1.3 billion lawsuit against a number of Trump’s supporters including lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, Dominion’s lawyers filed a $1.6 billion lawsuit against News Corp’s
Fox News in March,
“The truth matters,” Dominion’s lawyers wrote in the complaint. “Lies have consequences. Fox sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring Dominion in the process. If this case does not rise to the level of defamation by a broadcaster, then nothing does.”
The suit argues that Fox hosts and guests “took a small flame and turned it into a forest fire” by broadcasting wild assertions that Dominion systems changed votes and ignoring repeated efforts by the company to set the record straight.
“Radioactive falsehoods” spread by Fox News will cost Dominion $600m over the next eight years, according to the lawsuit, and have resulted in Dominion employees being harassed and the company losing major contracts in Georgia and Louisiana.
Unsurprisingly,
Fox News denies the claim. Another voting machine manufacturer, Smartmatic has also filed a similar claim against
Fox News seeking $2.7 billion in restitution.
Trump’s lawyer (for a very short time) Sidney Powell asked for the lawsuit against her to be thrown out,
claiming
the defamation lawsuit Dominion Voting Systems filed against her earlier this year should be dismissed because “no reasonable person” would believe that her well-publicised comments about an international plot against former President Donald Trump were “statements of fact.”
Dominion’s and Smartmatic’s move to sue those who have assisted in Trump’s ‘
big lie’ is attempting to make them accountable for their actions, not through the political system but through the legal system. The idea is conceptually sound. The 1930’s Chicago gangster Al Capone was finally jailed for
tax evasion, not the multitude of crimes he is alleged to have committed or sanctioned. Capone was only jailed because a US court ruled income received from illegal sources was still taxable!
The Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison Government also has an issue with truth and living with the consequences of their actions. While they aren’t being sued for libel by voting machine manufacturers, you might remember Morrison blustering in Parliament late last year that the CEO of Australia Post, Christine Holgate, must go as she arranged for the purchase of Cartier watches for some of her executive team who had renegotiated the ‘
Bank@Post’ contract for Australia Post and its franchisee ‘shop’ owners, producing a favourable outcome. As Dennis Atkins reports in
The New Daily,
He was clearly loving himself, riding his elevated steed.
“I was appalled,” he snarked when asked what he thought of Holgate’s performance gifts to four executives who had saved small post offices from parlous times.
“It is disgraceful and it’s not on.”
Morrison turned his blokey anger on Holgate: “If the chief executive wishes to stand aside, well not wishes to stand aside, she’s been instructed to stand aside and if she doesn’t wish to do that, Mr Speaker, she can go.”
Holgate has since been exonerated by Australia Post — she acted appropriately and within the rules and has apparently engaged a large legal firm to represent her. Some leading conservative ‘opinion leaders’ such as Alan Jones and Terry McCann are saying that Morrison bullied Holgate. From Atkins’ report
In a column this week, McCann doubled down on his prediction for Morrison’s electoral fate: “There is no way, no way, the federal government is going to win the next election. What ‘won it for ScoMo’ in 2019 was not his inherent brilliance or doggedness but Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer, with a little help from Bill Shorten.”
It has long been the case that the states were the real managers of the COVID19 response in Australia. Morrison’s attempt to ‘sell’ the concept that the COVID19 vaccine rollout had been hamstrung by supply difficulties (which rapidly turned into a tit for tat argument with the
European Union over the supply of Astra Zeneca’s COVID 19 vaccine) was a cover for his earlier ‘world class rollout’ that had been shown to be anything but ‘
world class’. It certainly didn’t help when the ‘we’ll put all our eggs in the one basket process’ promoted by Morrison fell apart because of apparently rare but serious contra-indications from the Astra Zeneca vaccine causing blood clots in people’s brains. The promise of ‘everyone who wants vaccination will have it by October’ now looks as believable as former PM Abbott’s promise to increase ABC funding or Turnbull promising to address climate change. As Paul Bongiorno suggests in
The New Daily
Gladys Berejiklian and Annastacia Palaszcuk made it very clear the states were responsible for 30 per cent of the distribution, the Commonwealth for the rest — and completely responsible for the supply of the vaccine.
The states ignored Morrison’s pressure to curb lockdowns and keep borders open, and that saved the health of the nation and contributed in no small way to the incipient economic recovery.
But on the vaccine planning and delivery, the emperor in Canberra has no clothes and the nation will pay dearly for longer.
Queensland’s Treasurer, who was Health Minister six years ago claims he called for an additional vaccine manufacturing facility in Australia at the time, but was ‘
laughed at’ by the Coalition Government. While retrospectivity is always 100% accurate, if the claim is true the Coalition Government on past form won’t see the wood for the trees and will attempt to ‘market’ themselves out of trouble rather than admit they ‘got one wrong.’ The Victorian Government is currently investigating the possibility of building a vaccine manufacturing facility.
There is another way. The tradition in Rotary Clubs is that members who are either business owners or managers and all members subscribe to a simple test to do business, called the
4 Way Test
The Four-Way Test is a nonpartisan and nonsectarian ethical guide for Rotarians to use for their personal and professional relationships. The test has been translated into more than 100 languages, and Rotarians recite it at club meetings: Of the things we think, say or do
- Is it the TRUTH?
- Is it FAIR to all concerned?
- Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
- Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
These principles have been developed over the years to provide Rotarians with a strong, common purpose and direction. They serve as a foundation for our relationships with each other and the action we take in the world.
While there are probably ‘hour a week’ Rotarians in a similar way to ‘hour a week’ Christians — who follow the teachings of their particular brand of Christianity for the hour each week they are on the church premises before reverting to the type of people that lock up refugees for years with no due process or victimise groups within society for political ends — a lot of Rotarians evidently consider and benefit from the 4 Way Test in their daily life.
Consideration of the tenets of truth, fairness, goodwill and beneficial to all concerned would be a nice change in Australian politics and who knows, may renew trust in governments generally. We all know it’s needed!!!
What do you think?
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