Once a darling of Australian progressives, Peter Van Onselen (PVO) has performed the greatest heel turn since Hulk Hogan after taking legal action against Professor Gemma Carey over a defamatory Twitter comment and photo.
The photo in question included a young Christian Porter, Nick Coatesworth, Ainslie van Onlsen and PVO. For legal reasons we are unable to replicate the offending comment, so have replaced it with a substitute caption.
“It was a surprise bukkake party. Everyone came and you should have seen the look on her face.”
It is understood that PVO took the legal action in conjunction with Queensland MP Andrew Laming and former attorney general Christian Porter, with letters being sent to Carey from the same legal firm. Despite Carey apologising and deleting the tweet, PVO stated he would continue legal proceedings, drawing inspiration from Federal MP Peter Dutton who sued refugee advocate Shane Bazzi for calling him a rape apologist and likening him to the lovechild of Mr Potatohead, Harry Potter villain Voldemort and a hairless Police Chief Clancy Wiggum.
Professor Carey, a victim of sexual abuse and grooming who is also disabled and pregnant, has since deactivated her Twitter account. Following an initial backlash, PVO initially tried to distance himself from the action, expressing surprise before tweeting that it was ok because it was important to target people who can’t fight back.
PVO was at pains to make it clear he was the victim and not someone craving attention or suffering from relevance deprivation syndrome.
In response a crowd sourced legal defence fund promoted by Australian of the Year Grace Tame has so far raised over $200,000. PVO tweeted that this would help pay for a new boat, and tried to justify his actions stating that Carey wasn’t really pregnant as she was having a child through a surrogate.
PVO denied there was any sinister motivations behind the legal action. “It’s about maintaining my position as the most successful Van Onselen, which is important for Christmas barbecue bragging rights.”
“To be fair, there isn’t much competition,” mused Van Onselen. “I think I have a cousin who runs some two bit economics blog, but no one ever reads it.”
So what’s the next target for PVO?
“I’m pretty confident I can go after Scott Morrison.”
“His election win in the 2019 really harmed my reputation, so we’re in the process of drafting a legal concerns notice now.”
“You don’t have any idea how many times that stupid image was shared.”
So is he the creepy guy on the left in the pic with his head strangely bent over? He looks like a weirdo.
Is the substitute caption basically saying the same thing as the original tweet? I’m trying to work out what this story is about.
It’s quite cryptic, innit?!
also impossible (without already knowing what happened) to tell with any certainty exactly where the larf is being had…
🤯🤯🤯🤯
See above post for the explanation…
I was hoping there’d be a bit of something for everyone. A little something for those on the left, the right, those into adult activities, and an in-joke for the ex-embeers :p
The incident itself is a simple observation of the EZFKA social dynamic. Over the last 12 months we have seen more of the rich and powerful attempting to abuse legal processes to silence criticism, and when a tipping point is reached the pushback has been striking.
As someone who appreciates the rare esoteric insult, I commend you on some fine captioning.
I’ll try and summarise the events this is based on.
The photo includes PVO, Coatesworth and Porter –all friends from Hale Private school.
Gemma Carey tweets a comment along the lines of “I fear for the women in the photo” – context is Christian Porter rape case after PVO publishes dead woman’s diaries, accuses her of making it up.
Carey receives defamation notice from lawyer representing all of PVO, Laming and Porter.
Carey removes tweet, apologies, states is still being sued.
People start questioning PVO – dickhead behaviours is normally expected from Laming and Porter.
PVO initially denies knowledge of the legal threats; tweets along the lines of not instructing lawyers to do this.
Internet outrage ensues re: group bullying, using wealth to crack down on free speech, picking on someone with a disability, victim of sexual assault etc.
PVO says Carey deserves it as she earns over 200k as a professor.
More internet outrage; others point out Porter/Laming etc would be earning much more even as backbenchers.
Defamation legal fund starts, reveals 14 other defamation cases from PVO and Co: https://www.gofundme.com/f/enough-defamation-defense-legal-fund
PVO makes crack about suing Carey so he can get hands on money for a boat.
More outrage.
PVO tweets that Carey has made a bad legal move, because supposedly a tweet deleted is an admission of guilt.
More outrage – people point out PVO called a politician a misogynist then deleted his Twitter account until the dust settled.
Carey disables Twitter account.
PVO claims victim status, and shuts down own Twitter account to non-followers.
Tweets start getting leaked about PVO going into meltdown – eg. tries to justify actions as Carey “not really” pregnant as having a baby via surrogate, and followers being blocked for telling him he’s completely out of line.
While all this has been happening people start contacting Channel 10 and UWA demanding they sack PVO.
Thanks for the rundown.
I would never have been able to piece that together.
Or interested enough, to be honest.
Thanks.
I’m not sure about Peachy’s two bit blog though, according to DLS it’s the most widely read economics and business blog in Australia (per his linkedin)!
This was really helpful I was very confused thank you.
Firstly, he is completely in-line – you are not pregnant if you are paying a surrogate to have a kid for you
Secondly, why isn’t she having the kid herself? Unless she literally does not have a uterus
Thirdly, this sounds like a hilarious shit show but it would be much funnier if I actually knew who anyone of these people were
So is this article satire? It is tagged as satire
Or did this happen?
I have no idea what is going on