Throughout my career I've had the opportunity to see, and assess, many hundreds of witnesses give evidence. Some make excellent witnesses, usually those not trying to hide anything, just relate the truth. At the other extreme are those who are shockers. They think they are smarter than they really are, and invariably wither under skillful cross examination. Most witnesses fall in between.
Ms Lisa Wilkinson falls into the "shocker" category. She definitely thinks she is the smartest person in the room, though last week she continually kept leading with her chin. No doubt, later at home sharing a bottle of French wine with Pirate Pete, she probably thought she "nailed it" in the witness box and put it over those pesky lawyers. Those of us watching thought her performance cringe-worthy. Wilkinson had clearly been schooled up on deflection, because she threw her [then] producer Angus Llewellyn under a bus and deflected blame to the 10 legal department when it suited.
Nobody knows what Justice Lee will makes of her evidence but the fact he intervened a few times to ask her very probing questions himself would not make her counsel feel comfortable.
Not that there weren't moments of levity, the best being the exchange between Lehrmann's counsel and Wilkinson over her Logie speech:"You were thrilled by the riveting commercial appeal of the story that she told," he said.
"Please don't make me sound like a cheap, tabloid journalist, Mr Richardson," Wilkinson replied.
A rhetorical question, surely! I would have thought any intelligent person would regard The Project as cheap, tawdry tabloid TV at its worst!
On to next week. Assuming Fiona Brown is well enough to give evidence, one expects she will carve a few holes in the evidence of both Higgins and Wilkinson.
