The scandal that just keeps on giving has given again, with former senator Linda Reynolds’ spectacular defamation win against Brittany Higgins. The ruling once again re-opens questions about the Albanese government’s role in promoting the false narrative, the multi-million-dollar payout to Higgins and, potentially, Higgins’ reliability as a witness in a pending appeal by Bruce Lehrmann against his own lost defamation suit.
Former Liberal senator Linda Reynolds has been awarded more than $340,000 in damages and interest after the WA Supreme Court found her ex-staffer Brittany Higgins defamed her in a series of social media posts.
Ms Reynolds’ win caps a turbulent four and a half years for the former senator, whose political career was derailed after Ms Higgins went public with her accusations that she was raped by colleague Bruce Lehrmann inside Ms Reynolds’ Parliament House office.
The court ruling goes to the heart of the narrative of Higgins’ and her supporters’ sustained assault against the then-Morrison coalition government, namely that the then-government conspired to silence and harass Higgins.
Justice Tottle ruled that Ms Higgins and her partner, David Sharaz, had defamed Ms Reynolds in a January 2022 that carried the imputation that Ms Reynolds had pressured Ms Higgins not to proceed with a genuine sexual assault complaint and was a hypocrite. Ms Reynolds was awarded $135,000 in damages for that tweet.
He also found that Ms Higgins had defamed Ms Reynolds in a social media post that carried the imputation that the senator had engaged in a campaign of harassment, had mishandled Ms Higgins’ rape allegation, and engaged in questionable conduct during the trial.
Yet, those claims were largely the basis for the secretive $2.4 million compensation payout awarded to Higgins by the Labor party once they won government. A win in no small part due to the relentless campaign against the Morrison government by Higgins and her supporters – a campaign we now know was largely fuelled by lies about harrassment and intimidation.
In a detailed statement provided exclusively to the Australian, Ms Reynolds expresses her relief at the finding that Ms Higgins and her partner David Sharaz concocted a deliberate plan to weaponise Ms Higgins’ legitimate rape allegations for a false political purpose.
Justice Tottle found that “the allegation of a cover-up had no foundation in fact and the allegation of inadequate support was based on an incomplete and misleading account of the facts”.
Justice Tottle found that “the simple but untrue story” that Ms Reynolds had been involved in the cover-up of the rape of Ms Higgins by a ‘rising star’ of the Liberal Party was so sensational and achieved such currency it was impossible for her to defend herself.
Justice Tottle’s judgment also cleared Ms Reynolds’ then chief of staff Fiona Brown of any involvement in a cover-up.
The first likely outcome of Reynolds’ win is its significant financial implications for Higgins, who now faces the prospect of not only having to pay damages to Ms Reynolds but also having to cover both her own legal costs and those of her former boss. Reynolds’ lawyer has indicated that she will lodge submissions to recuperate indemnity costs.
Ms Higgins has been primarily living off the proceeds of a controversial $2.4 million compensation payment secured from the Commonwealth in December 2022. But her mounting legal costs were cited as the reason for her decision to put her home in France up for sale, and she has since returned to Australia where she is working alongside Mr Sharaz at a public relations company.
The findings of the ruling must surely cast further doubt over Higgins’ compensation payout from the Commonwealth. The entire basis for her claim, remember, was that she was not adequately supported by her then-boss, Liberal senator Linda Reynolds, after she made allegations she was raped at Parliament House.
In his 360-page judgment, Justice Tottle identified 26 statements made by Ms Higgins in her media interviews that were objectively false or misleading and “so indifferent to the truth that they could only be regarded as dishonest”.
Ms Reynolds noted that these claims ultimately formed the foundation for Ms Higgins’ civil claim against the commonwealth, which resulted in a $2.4 million settlement by the Labor government.
The fallout from this latest court ruling is certain to turn the Albanese government’s own blowtorch back on it.
“It is now time that the prime minister and the Federal Labor government (the only party that has not yet been forced to defend its reputation) accept the significant impact their conduct has had in enabling Ms Higgins to perpetuate her lies,” Ms Reynolds said.
Justice Tottle’s ruling that Higgins was “plainly dishonest” is exquisitely timed, given that Bruce Lehrmann’s appeal on the ruling against him, in his lost defamation suit against Network 10, begins next week. Justice Michael Lee’s ruling last year found that Lehrmann had, “on the balance of probabilities”, raped Ms Higgins. That judgement raised many eyebrows, given that it was entirely based on the testimony of someone even Lee admitted was a liar. Now another judge has ruled that she is “plainly dishonest”.
You can bet that Justice Tottle’s findings will be a key element of next week’s appeals.
