Liberal senator Linda Reynolds’ lawyer has accused Brittany Higgins of concocting a plan to weaponise her alleged rape in an “unprovoked attack underpinned by visceral hatred” aiming to bring the former defence minister down.
Higgins’ barrister, Rachael Young, SC, used the final hour of her closing address on Tuesday to savage the conspiracy arm of Reynolds’ Supreme Court defamation claim over several social media posts from July 2023.
Senator Linda Reynolds (right) has taken defamation action against Brittany Higgins.Credit: Holly Thompson/ Supplied
Young told the court that Reynolds’ evidence had failed to support her claim Higgins and the ex-staffer’s now-husband David Sharaz had devised a malicious plan to attack her by handpicking and briefing journalists, curating the timing of the bombshell story and aiding her political opponents.
She downplayed the relevance of a five-hour recording before Higgins’ tell-all interview with The Project in 2021 in which Sharaz told journalist Lisa Wilkinson the former staffer’s motivation was for Reynolds to lose her job.
Heard in its entirety, Young said the audio showed Higgins’ real desire was for cultural change, and that had been evidenced by her continued advocacy for reform and to support victims of sexual assault.
“Ms Higgins wanted to call out the perpetrator and the way she was treated afterwards because she felt she had a moral obligation to do so … she wanted to generate reform, and that is evidenced by her continued advocacy on such issues,” Young said.
“Ms Higgins has talked about her motivation at length, which is corroborated by the evidence … at no point did Ms Higgins ever state to [journalist Samantha] Maiden that her motive was to injure Senator Reynolds.
“This bold and surprising plan is said to have been devised by one of two people in their mid-20s, including a junior staffer with long-held associations with the Liberal Party.”
But Reynolds’ lawyer Martin Bennett began his closing submissions by dubbing the recording the strongest proof of a coordinated attack by Higgins alongside Sharaz – her “co-conspirator” – based on a “litany of lies”.
Former defence minister Reynolds made a shock appearance just before 11am, sitting in the front row of the public gallery before Bennett lambasted Higgins for “arrogantly” trivialising his client’s suffering from her new home in France.
Read the full report here.
Source Agencies
