Senator Linda Reynolds has denied she wanted questions raised about whether her former staffer, Brittany Higgins, should have received a multi-million-dollar payout from the Commonwealth government when she shared confidential documents about it with the media. Senator Reynolds is giving evidence in a defamation action she brought against Ms Higgins over a series of social media posts made by her former employee.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Today's evidence in the W.A. Supreme Court really focused on suggestions that Senator
00:05Reynolds harassed her former employee, Ms. Higgins, over this $2.4 million payment she
00:11received from the federal government.
00:14Now Senator Reynolds is suing Ms. Higgins and her partner David Shiraz over a series
00:19of social media posts.
00:20She says defamed her.
00:23The posts relate to Ms. Reynolds' handling of Ms. Higgins' allegation she was raped in
00:28Parliament House in 2019 by her then colleague Bruce Lerman.
00:33Now Mr. Lerman was charged with her rape, but those criminal proceedings were discontinued
00:38over juror misconduct.
00:39However, in another civil case, on the balance of probabilities, it was found that Mr. Lerman
00:46did rape Ms. Higgins in Parliament House that night in 2019.
00:50Now this case really relates to a series of posts Ms. Higgins made on social media.
00:56One of those posts was about the Senator's referral of that $2.4 million payout to the
01:03federal corruption watchdog.
01:05Now Senator Reynolds has suggested that this post implies that she's been using the media
01:12to harass Ms. Higgins over this payout.
01:16The Senator, sorry, Ms. Higgins' lawyer today is suggesting to the Senator that she used
01:21the media and leaked confidential documents about this settlement to try to undermine
01:25Ms. Higgins' credibility and by questioning the truth of her sworn testimony and the circumstances
01:31in which the settlement was paid.
01:33Now Ms. Higgins is relying on a defence that these leaks and the subsequent media comments
01:37were indeed part of a campaign by the Senator to besmirch her.
01:43Senator Reynolds denies that she's ever sought to undermine Ms. Higgins' account of the rape.
01:47However she's told the court today that she made the referral to the corruption investigator
01:52because she was concerned about the process in which that settlement was made.
01:56Now she's suggested that Federal Attorney General Mark Dreyfus behaved corruptly by
02:01shutting her out of the mediation process in relation to this settlement and it prevented
02:05her from defending herself from Ms. Higgins' claims that she somehow mishandled the situation
02:11after the allegation was made public about her rape.
02:15Now the Senator is due to finish her evidence this week.
02:18This trial is set to hear from a number of high profile witnesses including former Prime
02:23Minister Scott Morrison who's due to give evidence next week along with a number of
02:27Senators.