Waleed Aly's unexpected stance on Stefanovic brothers' leaked phone call controversy
Waleed Aly has weighed in on the “Ubergate” scandal surrounding the Stefanovic brothers’ controversial phone conversation, saying “nobody came out looking great”.
The Project panel were discussing the fallout from Karl and Peter’s 45-minute rant on colleagues – including entertainment reporter Richard Wilkins, new Today co-host Georgie Gardner, veteran reporter Mark Burrows and Nine bosses – which was overheard by an Uber driver and sold to New Idea magazine.
“We do all talk about work colleagues and it’s a privacy issue,” Waleed said.
“I mean there is nothing wrong with these two guys talking about someone they work with. The criminal here or the person who is at fault is someone who has intruded on that conversation. That’s the problem.”
According to the driver, who was reportedly paid $50,000 for the story, Karl accused Georgie of “sitting on the fence” and not having enough opinions. He reportedly became angry as he declared she had to “step up” if she “wanted to stay on the show”.
Although it was widely reported the driver had secretly recorded the conversation – which is illegal in NSW – by the end of the week the story had changed and the driver would instead be recounting the call from his own memory.
The driver is understood to have signed a statutory declaration saying he did not tape the conversation, The Australian report.
Of the saga, Waleed said society was “building a really sick culture of surveillance”.
“In the end when all this was supposedly revealed, and we have no idea if it is even accurate, right?” he said. “But when all that’s revealed, it wasn’t even that big a deal.”
The Project panellist Steve Price agreed and added “these days you really cannot say anything”.
“You have to stop yourself whenever you’re referring to another individual and really think twice about it,” Steve said.
“In the old days you could spray people all you liked, nothing ever happened and no one dragged you off ... and you could bag people and swear about them.”
The Project panel’s comments are a far cry from Jessica Rowe’s stance, who slammed the Stefanovic brothers and came out in defence of Georgie on Studio 10 yesterday.