As Liberal senator Linda Reynolds took the stand this week in her defamation trial against Brittany Higgins, she shed a light on the underbelly of Australian politics in a way she might not have intended.
The first full week of the trial in Western Australia’s supreme court was always going to put the former defence minister in the spotlight.
Reynolds is suing Higgins, and her husband, David Sharaz, over three social media posts published in mid-2023 which she believed damaged her repuation.
But in doing so, a more murky picture has emerged.
Reynolds has given the public an insight into how she communicated behind the scenes with some of Higgins’ biggest detractors. And the 59-year-old senator’s evidence has also shown how she used the media and her contacts to her advantage.
Twenty witnesses are expected to be called during the nearly five-week trial. Higgins’ defence intends to call only one – Higgins herself.
Six days into the trial, here are the key things we’ve learned so far.
Reynolds’ legal team unveiled its primary narrative on Friday in opening arguments: that Higgins’ alleged rape, and the events that followed, were a “fairytale” of “political coverup” by the former Liberal staffer – and the villain was Reynolds, her former boss.
Higgins publicly alleged in February 2021 that her colleague Bruce Lehrmann raped her in March 2019 in Reynolds’ ministerial suite in Parliament House. Lehrmann has always vehemently denied raping Higgins and pleaded not guilty at the October 2022 criminal trial in the ACT, which was aborted due to juror misconduct. A second trial did not proceed due to prosecutors’ fears for Higgins’ mental health.
As part of Lehrmann’s failed defamation trial against Network 10 and Lisa Wilkinson, a federal court in April found that, on the balance of probabilities, he raped Higgins. Lehrmann is appealing that finding.
The Liberal senator was at the centre of a conspiracy concocted by Higgins and Sharaz to inflict maximum damage, her lawyer, Martin Bennett, told the court on day one.
Reynolds, in her own words, described how the allegations she had mishandled Higgins’ allegations and planned to bury them ahead of a looming federal election couldn’t be further from the truth.
Posts by Higgins and Sharaz on social media about her in the years that followed worked like a press release machine that fed the media frenzy and continued the “pile on” against her, Reynolds said.
“She will not stop,” Reynolds said on Wednesday.
An Instagram story – and a campaign to ‘capture some public opinion’
As Reynolds began giving her evidence in the defamation trial, a fundraising page to cover Higgins’ legal fees was created.
Higgins also posted an Instagram story on Monday featuring the latest book by Julian Assange’s lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, How Many More Women? How The Law Silences Women. The former staffer’s post included the words “Pertinent reading”.
Those were “not coincidence” but part of a continued campaign to “capture some public opinion” against Reynolds, Bennett said in court. “It’s a timing issue as well,” Bennett said. He pointed to the page’s creation on Monday, the same day Reynolds began giving her evidence in the defamation trial.
Higgins’ lawyer, Rachael Young SC, said it was beyond any “stretch of the imagination” that the page formed part of an alleged conspiracy by Higgins to damage the senator’s reputation.
Any communications between the fundraising page’s organisers and Higgins’ legal team has been subpoenaed and will be handed to both legal teams next week. Higgins’ story will also be included as part of an amended claim by Reynolds.
Under cross-examination by Young in the latter end of the week, the narrative began to shift.
With Reynolds’ obvious anger at being excluded from the behind-doors mediation between the Commonwealth and Higgins came revelations she had leaked confidential letters outlining the proposed terms of Higgins’ personal injury settlement to a columnist at the Australian.
Higgins was eventually awarded $2.445m by the Commonwealth on 13 December 2022 for what she experienced.
Documents sent from Reynolds’ private email to Janet Albrechtsen’s private email in December 2022 ahead of the settlement showed the former defence minister believed she was not bound by confidentiality rules.
Reynolds said she sent the confidential documents to Albrechtsen because she was “incredibly angry”, believed the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, was “stitching” her up, and wanted the public to know.
“The letter of confidentiality was never signed by me so my recollection is while they sent the [settlement] proposal, what the Commonwealth wanted in terms of locking me down, I never agreed,” Reynolds said on Wednesday.
“So therefore I had no particular concern about sending that to Ms Albrechtsen.”
On Thursday, further communications between Reynolds and Albrechtsen were revealed, including advice Reynolds and her then chief of staff, Fiona Brown, had received in March 2019 from the finance department to handle the incident.
Reynolds insisted countless times that the leaks were to show her defence to Higgins’ claims she mishandled her rape allegation. She denied all accusations by Young that her intention, or even the effect of actions, was to undermine Higgins’ rape allegation.
Reynolds’ messages with Lehrmann’s barrister
The senator’s communications with Bruce Lehrmann’s then barrister, Steven Whybrow, in the lead up to Lehrmann’s 2022 criminal trial in the ACT for raping Higgins were also unearthed.
The text messages were provided to the court on Wednesday after the defence was granted an 11th hour request to subpoena them from the office of the ACT chief minister, Andrew Barr.
They had not been discovered earlier because Reynolds admitted to deleting them as part of routine “cyber hygiene”.
“So with the messages, unless it’s important … I regularly clear out messages – not every day but every few weeks,” Reynolds said. “It’s just one of the things we practice with cyber hygiene.”
The text messages showed Reynolds offered Whybrow the names of staffers he should speak to. Texts between Higgins and another staffer the senator said was mentoring Higgins at the time, Nicky Hamer, may be “revealing”, Reynolds texted Whybrow after the trial had started in October 2022.
An earlier text message to Whybrow in August showed Reynolds suggested speaking to one former staffer, who could “shed light on Brittany’s activities in Perth and also how she came to be with Bruce on that night”.
The AFP’s notes in Reynolds meeting
Handwritten notes from AFP assistant commissioner, Leanne Close, written on 4 April 2019 during a meeting with Reynolds and her then chief of staff, Fiona Brown, were also shown to the court.
The notes read: “I said – there’s been an allegation of a sexual assault by a female member of her office against a male member”.
The notes followed with Reynolds’ purported response: “She said ‘I thought that’s what is [sic] would be about. Can I bring in Fiona, my chief of staff, who has the specific details’.”
Close noted Reynolds brought Brown into the office. She noted the minister said: “It’s about Brittany – we became aware on Tuesday that this had happened on Saturday night – on my couch there”. Close said Reynolds pointed toward the couch in her office where the rape allegedly occurred.
Close’s notes indicated Reynolds then said “we found out through a DPS report”. The department of parliamentary services security report was given to Reynolds and Brown on 27 March 2019.
Reynolds told the court on Friday said she did not point to the couch because she was not yet aware of the sexual assault allegation.
Reynolds also said the notes were incomplete and were just “four points of abbreviation of a longer conversation”.
This is not a transcript of a conversation – this is pulling up, as police do, elements of a conversation,” Reynolds said.
Young compared accounts Reynolds gave to Lehrmann’s 2022 criminal trial with the DPS report.
The report said Higgins had appeared drunk upon entrance to Parliament House and said two welfare checks were provided and she was in a state of undress.
Reynolds denied claims that she should have known “on face value” that the report showed signs Higgins might have been sexually assaulted and insisted she did not know a sexual assault might have occurred because “nothing in the [DPS] report” had indicated “a crime had taken place”.