A journalist expected to make explosive allegations in Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation case against Network Ten is no stranger to the hot seat, having gone toe-to-toe with Eddie McGuire on Millionaire Hot Seat.
On Tuesday, Network Ten will throw a last-minute grenade into the high-profile civil case by asking the Federal Court to consider new evidence from Taylor Auerbach, 32, former producer of Channel Seven’s Spotlight show.
That evidence would be presented just two days before Federal Court Judge Michael Lee hands down his ruling in the lawsuit, which relates to The Project’s 2021 interview with Brittany Higgins.
It was in that interview that Higgins first claimed she had been raped by an unnamed member of Parliament staff, an allegation Lehrmann has always denied, and her criminal trial was permanently adjourned due to jury misconduct.
If Judge Lee agrees to hear the new evidence at a special hearing at 5pm today, Auerbach will be called to give evidence. But who is he?
Taylor Auerbach has had a rollercoaster career as a journalist and now finds herself at the center of an explosive development in Australia’s most controversial defamation case.
Auerbach sent Bruce Lehrmann (above) a notice of concern after Lehrmann denied a story that Auerbach had hired Thai masseuses during meetings with Seven’s Spotlight programme.
Auerbach, 32, is a Sydney media personality who has worked for several major New South Wales tabloid outlets.
He recently made headlines amid a row with Steve Jackson, a Channel Seven producer who, until last week, was poised to become New South Wales Police Commissioner Karen Webb’s new adviser.
Two weeks ago a bizarre report emerged claiming Auerbach allegedly paid $2,940 for Thai masseuses for him and Mr Lehrmann last year using a Channel Seven credit card, and Jackson allegedly texted him advice on how to reverse the transaction.
Auerbach, who left Seven last year, lost his job at Sky News after the report was published and the commissioner later decided not to continue with Jackson in his new role, despite there being no indication of wrongdoing.
This is just a small sample of Auerbach’s varied career. Auerbach was in the news before becoming a journalist. He became the youngest Millionaire Hot Seat winner at age 18 in 2009, pocketing $50,000.
Then Auerbach, a journalism student at the University of Technology Sydney, was promised a job at Channel Nine on air by presenter Eddie McGuire, but the jokes didn’t turn into an actual job offer.
Auerbach appeared on Channel Seven, in the Herald Sun and the Macarthur Chronicle and on the radio about the matter. He also participated in the 2010 cooking show, Come Dine With Me Australia, where he hosted a dinner party with a 1950s rock and roll theme.
Lisa Wilkinson and her lawyer Sue Chrysanthou arrive during hearings in the defamation trial that were due to culminate in a sentence on Thursday, but a request from Channel 10 could delay it.
Brittany Higgins arrives with lawyers, supporters and her fiancé David Sharaz to the defamation trial last year.
At News Corp, Auerbach was considered a junior reporter with news-breaking skills, and he once rode a horse through regional Australia to reach a remote camp of an incest family.
In early 2014, Auerbach revealed that he had been close to former high-profile model turned Australia’s Next Top Model judge Charlotte Dawson before her tragic death in February of that year.
That same year he worked briefly for WhatsNew2Day Australia, before returning to News Corp and then working on Nine’s A Current Affair as a reporter, covering stories involving disputes between neighbors, terrorists, a Fijian prisoner and sports stars.
In 2019, Auerbach helped Steve Jackson, then a reporter for The Australian, secure an interview with former model and billionaire James Packer’s ex-fiancee, Tziporah Malkah.
The interview took place in Malkah’s apartment on Christmas Eve and was published three days later, but made headlines when candid photos emerged of Malkah and Auerbach together.
Taylor Auerbach’s career includes reporting for A Current Affair, where she covered stories about disputes between neighbors, terrorists and sports stars.
Auerbach’s next job was as a producer on Seven’s Sunday Night, which later became Spotlight. He worked with Jackson to get Lehrmann interviewed with the show’s reporter Liam Bartlett in June and August 2023.
The program featured the contents of a five-hour taped meeting between her and Lisa Wilkinson, Higgin’s fiancé David Sharaz and others. How Spotlight obtained these items is believed to be the subject of Ten’s urgent application, which was lodged on Easter Sunday.
All of this may never have come to light if Jackson had not been hired to take on the highly controversial role as Commissioner Webb’s new advisor.
The role had been in the spotlight since the sacking of Webb’s previous senior adviser, Liz Deegan, following criticism of the police chief’s handling of the alleged double murder of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies by one of his officers, Beau Lamarre.
Auerbach on the set of the Spotlight interview in the US with the Markle family, the closest relatives of the Dutch Sussexes
Meanwhile, the story emerged of the Thai masseuses originally charged to a Spotlight credit card, for $1,000 more each, supposedly for Auerbach and Bruce Lehrman.
They were booked in the early hours of Saturday, November 26, 2022, but reports showed text messages sent by Jackson to Auerbach with a script in Thai telling the masseuses they would be paid in cash, with a tip, for a total of $2940, and the credit card charges were cancelled.
There is no suggestion that Mr Jackson did anything wrong and he had nothing to do with arranging the massages or using the company credit card.
Lehrman publicly denied the massage claim and on the evening of Monday, March 25, Auerbach held his own press conference near his home in Elizabeth Bay.
By then he had already split from Sky, and in a two-minute appearance he questioned Lehrmann’s denial and that he had lost his job at Seven over the incident.
“Last week several stories and rumors emerged about Mr. Jackson and I, and events supposedly involving the two of us,” Auerbach told a gathering of reporters.
“They took on a life of their own, in their own way, and I can summarize a lot of it as gossip.”
‘In at least one of the articles, it was reported that Channel Seven advised me and gave me a written warning about my conduct, in relation to a night out involving Bruce Lehrmann. Those reports are inaccurate, as are reports that I lost my job because of the incident.
“Mr Lehrmann quickly denied the story, saying, and I quote, ‘it’s a bizarre and false story from a disgruntled former Network Seven producer.’
‘I would like to make it very clear that I reject Mr Lehrmann’s accusations. That’s all I can say for the moment.
Auerbach turned around and left when reporters demanded he answer their questions.
Two days later, he sent Lehrmann a note of concern, the first step in the defamation process.
Auerbach’s lawyer, Rebekah Giles, said in the notice of concern that Lehrmann’s press release conveyed the defamatory meaning that “Taylor Auerbach lied to the press about a Seven Network employee buying Bruce Lehrmann a massage.” .
The next day, last Thursday, the New South Wales police tore up the contract naming Jackson and agreed to pay him $20,000 instead of the weeks he was scheduled to take on a six-month contract.
Steve Jackson and Taylor Auerbach (above) worked together on Seven’s Spotlight program until Auerbach left in January to work for Sky News.
According to nine newspapersNetwork Ten hopes Auerbach’s evidence can “shed light on whether Lehrmann was responsible for leaking highly confidential information to Seven that was used in its June and August 2023 interviews with Lehrmann.”
Higgins’ text messages and the extensive recorded meeting leading up to the interview with Higgins for The Project were handed over to the Australian Federal Police under a search warrant as they investigated her claim that Lehrmann sexually assaulted her in Parliament in March 2019.
Lehrmann has denied being the source of the material acquired by Seven.
Different parties to the defamation case have claimed there were issues with the credibility of both Lehrmann and Brittany Higgins.
The case begins at five in the afternoon.