From a Schwartz Media. I'm Daniel James. This is seven Am. Lynda Reynolds's defamation case against her former employee Britney Higgins has been going for two weeks. It's the third trial in which Britney Higgins has been involved. First, there was the criminal trial of Bruce Lehman, which was aborted, meaning no findings were made against him. Lherman then sued at Work ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson, claiming that they defamed
him by identifying him as a rapist. He lost that case over a truth defense, meaning the court found that he did to a civil standard rape Miss Siggins in an office in Parliament House. Now seemingly out of nowhere. The Senator who that office belonged to, is suing Miss Higgins for claiming that the senator was uncaring and unsupportive. So as taking a rape victim to court the best
way to restore your reputation. Today, the Saturday Papers Legal Affairs editor Richard Acklan my Senator Linda Reynolds defamation case and why some politicians are so quick to suit. It's Thursday, August fifteenth, which, in this case, was kicked off by an Instagram posts by Britney Higgins last year. But can you tell me about the specific claims being made by Senator Linda Reynolds and what she's basing the case on.
Yeah, well, out of, sort of seemingly nowhere comes Senator Linda Reynolds, the former Defense Procurement Minister and later Defense Minister, claiming that she'd been defamed by Britney Higgins over a series of tweets and posts that suggested she wasn't caring and supportive of Brittney Higgins following her accusation of rape.
The specific claims are that Senator Reynolds has conducted a campaign of harassment against Higgins, she mishandled the rape allegations by failing to provide support, that her conduct during Laman's criminal trial was questionable, and she wants to silence victims of sexual assault.
And that seems to be the nub of it. And that all arose.
From one post on Instagram by Britney Higgins pointing to headlines in the Sydney Morning Herald and The West Australian, where she says these are just headlines from today. This is from a current Australian senator who continues to harass me through the media and in the parliament, My former boss, who has publicly apologized for mishandling my rape allegation, who has had to publicly apologize for defaming me in the workplace, who's a whole bunch of questionable conduct during my rape trial.
Who is suing my fiance for a tweet. This has been going on for years. It is time to stop.
Can I say today? Sorry is the easiest word for me to say, and I unreservedly apologized to Brittany Higgins. And last night we all heard from Brittany herself in her own words, her trauma, her distress was very very clear to all to see. The fact that she felt unsupported in her time working here was also very very clear for us all to see. And for that I apologize.
That was what she posted and that led to the defamation claims. She's saying that it's untrue and that has damaged her and she wants a remedy.
She wants damages for that.
So Senator Reynolds needs to argue that what was posted in those social media posts is untrue.
Senator Reynolds in this case doesn't have to prove anything the onus is on Britney Higgins to prove the truth of what she published. That's the way defamation works.
Regardless, we've heard some evidence from Senator Linda Renalds at this trial. What has she and some of her lawyers had to say so far.
Well, Reynolds has given evidence and been cross examined. She has denied the claims she said. She was supportive, although there is evidence that might contradict that some aspects of that. She's bringing evidence on the trauma she suffered and the damage she's suffered. So these things all have to be demonstrated in court that you know what Higgins said, she alleged is wrong, that she's been damaged. And I mean it's been a very tear stained trial so far, with
various breakdowns and sobbings and so forth. So that's what the judge's got to plow through and work out where the remedy lies, if there is one.
So we've seen in the corporateceedings so far that former Prime Minister Scott Morrison was called as a witness for Linda Renold, which is interesting because he did hand her portfolio over to Peter Dutton during the height of the fallout of these othergations. Has his testimony been more about her welfare rather than her performance? What has been the reaction to his presentation to the court.
I mean he said that, yeah, Look, he did remove Senator Reynolds from the defense portfolio because she was so damaged and injured by the accusations against her, both the campaign and the media, and also from labor Senators.
Senator Gallagher, I did answer your questions to the point that you ground me to the ground and ended me ended up in the hospital.
But I'm bad.
I'm answering questions. I'm answering questions, and I'm assisting, Well, you just did age that we put you in hospital.
Just let I put you in hospital, Senator Reynolds.
You know, you could say that this probing of Senator Reynolds was part of the political process, trying to find out what exactly happened in her office, whether she was covering things up, whether she knew more than she was saying, and what happened to Britney Higgins. These were all I would have thought, quite legitimate issues for politicians to pursue. After all, this was an allegation of serious sexual assault in the Minister's office.
I suppose the context is that.
You know, there was an election in the wind, and the natural instinct of a government facing reelection is they don't want any dirty linen, you know, being aired.
So Scott Morrison spoke to the mental impact. Have we heard any evidence to counter the argument that Senator Reynolds was uncaring towards Britney Higgins.
We've seen all sorts of evidence. I'm not quite sure the importance of it or what it actually means. That Britney Higgins was happy on the campaign trail, that she was supportive of Linda Reynolds in the campaign in Western Australia, and that she was you know, texting and seen smiling and sending messages about have what fun she was having sitting by the pool and having dinners with Linda Reynolds
and so on. Whether that is significant in the scheme of things depends on whether you discount that he was a woman that was raped in the Minister's office trying to make life as normal as possible and trying to conduct herself in a manner that she could feel comfortable with and that life was normal, and you know, she wasn't going to be completely traumatized forever.
Now, what about Britney Higgins. What's her defense going into this hearing.
She's got several defenses.
She's pleading a truth defense, a justification defense. She says that the accusations she made against Senator Reynolds are true. She's also pleading various components of what's called qualified privilege, that she has a right and has an interest in making these remarks, and that the community has an interest in receiving them. There's also another common law qualified privileged defense called the Longey defense, which is that discussions on
matters concerning politics and government should be treated liberally. Mind you, it's not a defense that's worked terribly well for defendants in defamation cases, but nonetheless it's there and she's pleading it.
It's been revealed in court that Senator Reynolds has leaked to the Australian. How is that played out?
Well, that's right.
These were the leaks concerning discussions that Britney Higgins was having with the Commonwealth, and at some point in these discussions, Senator Reynolds was looped in to the process by the Attorney General's Department. The Attorney General's Department said, we've got a claim here from Britney Higgins for compensation, personal injury and other things that arose as a result of.
What happened in your office.
However, we are sending you some details of this. They attract legal professional privilege, so you're not to discuss them or not to share them with other people, and we hope you are.
Bide by that.
So she promptly then gave them to Janet Albreson, who's a columnist at The Australian, and al Bresen's you know, splashed them with some excitable headlines that you know, suggesting that Reynolds has been silenced and can't talk about something that is very important to her. This seemed to be a bit of a beat up and certainly in breach of the legal professional privilege that have been claimed on the documents. Reynolds just says, oh, well, I didn't agree
to that, and I was angry. And at the same time al Bresen at The Australian was a ally of hers, had been very supportive. So why wouldn't she lead her Why didn't she leak to the ABC or the Guardian or the Saturday Paper.
Well, exactly exactly. So there was an attempt to sway the court of public opinion. Given that we're two weeks into this hearing, what's the narrative that's emerging from it? How's it playing out?
Look?
It puzzles me. I'm completely confounded by this case. I mean, if you think, just momentarily, that Senator Reynolds feels she's hurt and damaged at the allegation that she's been an uncaring and unsupportive woman. So her response to that is to take to court a rape victim, a woman, a young woman that was raped on her couch in her office, who was emotionally traumatized and psychologically damaged by that. So her idea to restore her reputation that she's not an
uncaring woman is to sue Brittany Higgins. I mean, many people may think there's a sort of inherent contradiction in that, but I mean, how's it played out? I mean, the tweets and the Instagram posts that Linda Reynolds says a damaging of her, we're all deleted. No one has a clue what was in them, except now, of course they've been revived. They're in the pleadings. Everyone can see them and they're being reventilated. So this is not a good
way to sort of forget things and move on. And of course Senator Reynolds may be still smarting over the fact that she had to settle a defamation clan that Britney Higgins brought against her over the lying cow remark.
Senator Reynolds called Miss Higgins a lying cow. Today there was finally an apology in a statement. The Minister said she wanted to express how deeply sorry I am for these remarks and for any hurt and distress they have caused.
So look, it's a dog's breakfast.
Suing for defamation is not exactly new to the political culture. That's after the break Richard, Senator Reynolds is not the first politician to start a defamation case in Australia. Can you give us some examples of other politicians who've done similar things?
Well?
In recent memory, there was the Christian Porter claim against the ABC, which ended up being very damaging to him as a assault of suing. The ABC had to step down as Attorney General because that action was in the Federal Court over which he had a sort of ministerial oversight.
Peter Dutton went nowhere with a claim against a refugee advocate who said that he was a rape apologist on Twitter, and that went nowhere because the comment by the refugee advocate was in context to Dutton's remarks about refugees on Naru faking that they had been raped and having to come to Australia for medical attention.
Some people are trying it on.
Let's be serious about this.
There are people that claimed that they'd been raped and came to Australia to seek an abortion because they couldn't.
Get an abortion on Naru.
They arrived in Australia and then decided that they were not going to have an abortion.
They have the baby here.
The moment they step off the plane, their lawyers lodge papers in the Federal Court which injuncts us from sending them back.
So it's fair to say, though Richard, that defamation cases don't actually go very well for politicians broadly.
Why is that the case, Well, if their jury cases, I suppose the jury has to make up its main hurt as a hate more the politician or the media, and maybe that's one area where the media might come off a bit better. So most of them received very miserable damages. The cost of running a case would have far exceeded the damages they received. And has it changed any perception about their reputation or heal their wounded pride?
I mean, it's all very doubtful, and it's such a sort of ancient remedy, and it's such an antiquated remedy. You know that money is the balm. If we give you a bunch of money, you'll feel better.
And how much could the damages be In Linda Reynolds's case, damages are meant to be capped, but she's claiming aggravated damages as well.
I mean, if Brittney Higgins can't prove the truth, then I think the damages might be fairly well at large into the hundreds of thousands. But where does the money come from? I mean, Brittaney Higgins is selling the house in France and that presumably will pay her lawyers. She has the Commonwealth settlement in a trust. The other aspect of the protection that she is afforded is that damages
for personal injury are exempt under the Bankruptcy Act. So where the money comes from if Senator Reynolds is successful is a mystery, and while she's proceeding knowing, that makes it a double mystery.
And I guess that plays out in the public perception of politicians suing for defamation. Politicians comments and reputations are constantly under scrutiny. But he's part of the job. So shouldn't they just be able to face hass comments and criticism and avoid actions like this?
I think so.
I absolutely agree with that, And they've got their own remedies in Parliament. The whole point of parliamentary Cliffiage was to design to give them complete freedom of speech and to respond to things that damage their reputations in parliament.
They don't need the courts.
I think the public is fed up with this sort of thing, honestly, I mean, shouldn't she be getting on with the job. She's a senator from the open Quiry called West in Australia.
This requires work and.
She's deflected from all of this by bringing these proceedings.
The court seems like a weird distortion of the old saying you could be cruel to be kind Richard, I think so. Yes, Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you, it's a pleasure and good to talk.
Daniel Also in the news today, Opposition leader Peter Dutton has doubled down on calls for a ban on people from Gaza coming to Australia. Since October seven, around twelve hundred Palestinians escaping violence have come to Australia, with another four thousand, six hundred visa applications being rejected. Dutton's call follows ASIO director Mark Burgess's statement over the weekend that rhetorical support for hamas does not automatically mean an applicant
failed security test. The Opposition leader responded that he felt any Palestinian entering Australia quote puts our national security at risk, and seven West Media's yearly profits have taken an enormous hit, with a drop of sixty nine to forty five million dollars. Chief executive Jeff Howard has attributed to Stark declined to falling advertising revenue and losing the rights to the Olympics.
The news comes just days after an investigation by ABC's Four Corners featuring allegations of bullying and misogyny across the network, sparked by revelations about Channel seven Spotlight program reimbursing Bruce Lehman for sex workers and illicit drugs. I'm Daniel James. This is seven am. See you tomorrow.