FIVE Sydney Swans AFL players accused by three strippers and hysterical “Me Too” media stories of “sexual assault” in a room at the Pullman Hotel in East Melbourne, have understandably engaged lawyers to defend themselves and are strenuously denying any criminal behaviour.
More than two weeks after the much-trumpeted alleged offences and investigations by the Victoria Police sex crime squad, none of the five players have been arrested or charged with any criminal offences – this widespread mainstream media reports painting the players as some sort of sexual criminals.
The players, Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner, James Jordon, Riley Bice, and Nick Blakey, have been stood down by the Sydney Swans for the remainder of the 2026 AFL season for breaching club standards regarding drinking and having unauthorized visitors in the hotel where the alleged offences took place.
Adelaide law professor Dr Joanna Howe and her husband James have blown the whistle on the episode, and say the players are being used as pawns in the Albanese government’s latest push to censor social media.
Albanese’s latest Online Safety Amendment (Strengthening Enforcement for the Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2026 aims to “close enforcement loopholes” and targeting tech companies that fail to block underage users with astonishing $99 million dollar fines.
It also gives the eSafety Commissioner further “information-gathering powers”, allowing her to legally compel tech platforms to provide evidence of the exact steps they are taking to prevent under-16s from registering.
Essentially, it is Albanese and the Leftist establishment censoring “violent, mysoginist, sexist, racist” content or anything that can be construed along those lines and removing it from social media platforms.
“The Sydney Swans scandal was never just about football. In this episode, I expose how unproven sexual assault allegations against Swans players have been weaponised to fuel a much bigger political campaign against social media and free speech,” Prof. Howe says in her video introduction.
“From Media Watch to News Corp, Tanya Plibersek, Katy Gallagher and Anthony Albanese, the same message is suddenly everywhere: algorithms are dangerous, misogyny is spreading, and government must step in.
“I explain how this narrative feeds directly into Labor’s proposed digital duty of care and why Australians should be deeply alarmed. This is about censorship, control, and silencing dissent online in Australia.”
The Howes’ investigation of the incident indicates that the alleged sexual assault was simply the players paying money to slap the buttocks of a trio of strippers. There apparently was a dispute over one of the strippers being slapped four times instead of the three that the payment specified.
The gathering in the hotel room then apparently turned sour which apparently prompted the strippers to lay a complaint with Victoria Police.
This stupid incident then turned into “violence against women” according to media reports. The Herald Sun’s Jay Clark wrote: “This is much bigger and far more concerning than the fate of football teams premiership campaign. Sure. Simply violence against women happens far too often.”
A lawyer for the strippers came out in public beating up the incident to unbelievable heights, saying what happened in the hotel room was “the most disgusting and degrading thing he had heard of in his nearly three decades on the job”. Really? He must have led a very sheltered life.
Even the woke Governor General, Sam Mostyn AC, dived into the debate saying “Sadly, the lack of respect for women across the country remains an issue for us all to be concerned about, particularly in sport.”