Geelong AFL star Tanner Bruhn has proclaimed his innocence, calling on police to investigate those who made dumped rape allegations against him.

Prosecutors withdrew charges against Bruhn and his co-accused Patrick Sinnott today after the pair fought claims they raped a woman in February 2023.

Bruhn's identity had been suppressed throughout the court proceedings but his barrister Dermot Dann KC asked for the order to be lifted.

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He said the complainant had since admitted she lied and the case was clearly a "horrible stain on the criminal justice system".

"(Bruhn) should be regarded now and forever as someone who was 100 per cent innocent," Dann told Geelong Magistrates Court today.

Prosecutors alleged Bruhn and Sinnott raped the woman, who cannot be legally identified, in the early hours of February 5, 2023 after attending a strip club in Geelong, south-west of Melbourne.

They alleged the two men left the club with the complainant in her car and the assault happened in a Dan Murphy's car park in the nearby suburb of Belmont.

CCTV footage showed the woman leaving the strip club with the men at 4.17am and then her car arriving at the car park at 4.21am.

The alleged rape was not captured on the vision, but the woman's vehicle was seen leaving the area about 5am.

During a committal hearing in September, a male prosecution witness told the court the woman later admitted to lying in her police statement.

She told the man she had an agreement with Bruhn and Sinnott and it was consensual, but something happened she didn't agree with, the court heard.

The man said the complainant told him to lie in his statement to police and in his evidence before the court.

The woman was scheduled to give evidence today before the charges were dropped.

Bruhn's lawyer Anna Balmer said her client wanted those behind the allegations to be investigated.

"Tanner wants to see those responsible for making these false allegations held to account," she told reporters outside court.

"We should all hope that Victoria Police properly investigates what appears to be an attempt to pervert the course of justice by at least one, if not two, prosecution witnesses."

The AFL confirmed Bruhn had been stood down from playing in the AFL or VFL while the allegations were before the courts.

Bruhn said he was keen to get back to playing football.

"Tanner wants to put this nightmare behind him," Balmer said.

"He's hopeful for the future and looking forward to getting back to doing what he loves."

The Geelong Football Club confirmed Bruhn would return to its program for the start of pre-season training.

"While legal proceedings have been ongoing, the club has provided professional welfare to Tanner during this time and will continue to do so," a club statement read.

Lawyers for Sinnott also spoke outside court, noting he had suffered the brunt of public scrutiny while his co-accused's identity was suppressed.

"The impact has been deep and far-reaching," lawyer Holly Boylan said.

"Patrick now asks to be allowed to move forward in his life."

The AFL Players Association welcomed the charges being dropped after a "long and flawed process".

While Geelong had been exemplary in its care for Tanner during the court process, the association described an AFL decision to stand him down after charges were laid as "premature and disproportionate".

Early in the 2025 season, Tanner was listed as unavailable with a finger injury before being removed from the injury list altogether.

Unlike the NRL or Football Australia, the AFL does not have an official no-fault stand-down policy.

National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).

National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028

Help is available from the Men's Referral Service on 1300 766 491.

Surf cams have captured the moment a great white shark knocked a panicked foilboarder into the water at a popular beach in Western Australia. 

Andy McDonald could be seen suddenly falling into the water and thrashing about 50m off Prevelly Beach, south of Perth, about 5.45pm yesterday. 

He said he fell onto the creature, with the leashes attached to him getting tangled with its body.

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"I was just like punching it and kicking, and I was panicking basically," he told 9News.

McDonald hit and pushed until he made his escape, rushing back to the shore. 

"I didn't even want to look up to see if there was a fin. I was thinking, I just hope this thing doesn't come back," he said.

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The shark had taken a chomp out of the board, just centimetres away from his feet.

But luckily, McDonald was uninjured. 

He had been between the Boat Ramp and the Bombie surfing spots when the encounter took place.

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A shark warning is now in place for the area, with people urged to take extra caution.

Officers from the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development are monitoring the situation.

See the full warning online here.

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‘Emma had the biggest heart we have ever known.’

A former senator's bid to discover where Brittany Higgins' $2.4 million compensation payout went following their bruising defamation battle has been frustrated by a bankruptcy paperwork glitch.

Ex-Liberal senator Linda Reynolds successfully sued Higgins over a series of social media posts the former defence minister believed damaged her reputation.

Reynolds was awarded damages of $315,000 plus $26,109 interest after Western Australia's Supreme Court in August found some of the posts were defamatory.

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The former political staffer was also ordered to pay 80 per cent of her former boss's legal costs, which are estimated to be more than $1 million.

Reynolds launched bankruptcy proceedings in October against Higgins to recoup the costs awarded in her defamation win.

A Federal Court hearing today was expected to result in Higgins being declared bankrupt, but a technical issue led to the matter being adjourned.

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Reynolds' lawyer Martin Bennett said his client would continue to pursue Higgins after he had complied with the court's request for more information.

"(Ms Reynolds) is incredibly disappointed that Higgins got $2.4 million worth of taxpayer money and has paid not a cent towards the judgment against her," he told reporters outside the court.

"It cost her an enormous amount to prove that dishonest lies had been said about her and not a cent has been recovered."

If Higgins is rendered bankrupt by a court order, a trustee will be appointed and could investigate a trust Reynolds alleged the former staffer was using to protect her Commonwealth payout.

"Ms Higgins is saying she personally has no money (but) where is the $2.4 million?" Bennett said.

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Higgins apologised to Reynolds after the former defence minister emerged victorious from the duo's high-profile five-week defamation trial.

Justice Paul Tottle found Higgins' social media posts carried an array of imputations.

They included that Reynolds engaged in a campaign of harassment against Higgins, mishandled her rape allegation and engaged in questionable conduct during Bruce Lehrmann's aborted criminal trial for rape.

The 360-page judgment made factual findings about the events involving Reynolds and Higgins, including her alleged 2019 rape and the events in the years after it.

Higgins made 26 false or misleading statements in media interviews after her alleged sexual assault, the judgment said.

She alleges former co-worker Lehrmann raped her in the senator's ministerial suite.

A Federal Court judge overseeing a defamation case launched by Lehrmann against Network Ten found Higgins was, on the balance of probabilities, raped by her former co-worker in the office.

Lehrmann is appealing that finding.

He has always denied the rape allegation and his criminal trial was derailed by juror misconduct.

Higgins' husband David Sharaz was also served with a bankruptcy notice by Reynolds and is expected to declare bankruptcy.

He was also found to have defamed the former politician and was ordered to pay $85,000 in damages plus interest and costs.

Higgins' bankruptcy matter will return to the same court next Tuesday.

Support is available by calling 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) or the National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service on 1800 211 028.

Coster goes on leave from his role as CEO of the Social Investment Agency.

Three members of one family, including a toddler, have died after a truck and a car collided in regional Victoria.

Emergency services were called to the crash at the intersection of Eurambeen-Streatham Road and Mount William Road at Stoneleigh, west of Ballarat, shortly after 9.30am.

Police said a car carrying three generations of the same Geelong family allegedly drove through a stop sign at the intersection and into the path of a B-double truck.

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The car was t-boned by the truck and spun on its wheels multiple times before coming to rest on its passenger side, according to police.

The driver, a 41-year-old male, a 31-year-old female passenger and their three-year-old boy died at the scene.

A woman who was trapped in the rear passenger seat of the car, believed to be the child's grandmother, has been airlifted to the Alfred Hospital with life-threatening injuries.

The male truck driver suffered minor injuries and was taken to Ballarat Base Hospital in a stable condition.

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He lives locally to Stoneleigh and was returning the empty truck, which usually transports potatoes, back to the depot at the time of the crash.

He has been fully cooperative with police and had right of way on the road, police said.

The area has been cordoned off and the surrounding roads blocked as part of the emergency response.

Detective Inspector Craig McEvoy said there were warning signs hundreds of metres before the intersection.

"The truck driver is shaken as you'd expect, he's with family and friends," he said.

Speed is not believed to have played a part in the crash at this stage, McEvoy said.

"It's a terrible scene," he said.

McEvoy said "catastrophic injuries" and "significant damage to the car" meant police had been unable to move the deceased from the scene as of 3pm.

Any witnesses or anybody with vision is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or online.

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Steps under way to establish the ‘strongest possible oversight’ after scathing review.

The school’s headmaster has defended the decision to expel the 12-year-old.

While the Coalition's very public internal fractures have caused it to flounder in the polls, one often overlooked party has quietly gained a surge in support, bolstered by a "laser-focused" agenda and unimpressed voters. 

The latest Resolve poll for Nine's newspapers showed the Coalition scraped a two per cent increase of the primary vote after bottoming out at 27 per cent in September.

Meanwhile, One Nation has remained steady at 12 per cent after seeing its numbers rise to their highest point since the federal election.

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Resolve's Jim Reed said voters are abandoning the Coalition for One Nation due to Opposition Leader Sussan Ley's inability to address the root cause following weeks of infighting over net-zero and Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce openly flirting with the idea of defecting to One Nation.

"The Coalition are viewed as disunited and focused on themselves, so they've got to get their house in order in terms of leadership and unity, competence in prosecuting a case against Labor and having an alternative policy suite," he told 9news.com.au.

"One Nation's vote is at its highest point now, and it's mostly come from the Coalition, mainly because they're acting like an opposition.

"They're highlighting government weaknesses that are relevant to people in immigration and energy policy, and prosecuting the case for a different path."

The Coalition's failure to reach an agreement has brought Ley's leadership into question from her own party members, forcing Angus Taylor to deny growing speculation that he would challenge her position. 

Joyce is considering leaving the Nationals for One Nation, after citing policy differences and his strong opposition to net-zero, threatening to take some voters with him.

Hanson has invited him over, saying he is more aligned with her right-wing party than the Nationals.

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Monash University's head of politics, Associate Professor Zareh Ghazarian, said voters are no longer apprehensive about supporting non-major party candidates if they sense division and disunity.

"The Liberal Party seems to be really struggling with what it wants to be in Australian politics," he said. 

"You've got other parties, for example, like One Nation, which I think has become more prominent because they've got a very laser-focused policy agenda, and people know what that party is seeking to achieve in a policy sense."

Analysts and politicians alike have long recognised a shift in voter sentiment away from the major parties towards minor parties like the Greens and One Nation, and independents.

Together, the minor parties and independents have 20 seats in the Senate, not far behind the Coalition at 27 and Labor at 29.

The story is a little different in the House of Representatives, where Labor has a commanding majority.

But 10 independents retained their seats in the House in this year's federal election, continuing to solidify themselves as legitimate alternatives.

They played a significant role in the 2022 federal election, snatching several once-safe Liberal seats and helping create the largest crossbench in Australian history.

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Ghazarian said some voters believe minor parties and independents can be more effective at representing clear policy concerns rather than Labor and the Coalition.

"There is fragility. There is a bit of brittleness within the party system and within the electoral system, as in voter preferences," he said.

"And it is a warning to the major parties that they must work very hard to maintain the support that they have and to potentially build on it.

"Otherwise, we're seeing that voters are very happy to support non-major party candidates."

But Reed warned that major parties still take the lion's share of the primary vote, with Labor at 33 per cent and the Coalition at 29 per cent, leaving the centre as the place where elections are won and lost. 

"We've got to remember that One Nation is still very much a minor party and that the likes of Hanson and Joyce are still not well-liked, but they are effectively appealing to a minority and making gains because of that," he said.

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Instead of investigating anonymous sex allegations, the police arrested the young woman.