According to Scott Morrison, Linda Reynolds was gravely hurt by Labor’s political attacks on the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins, which led to her losing her defence portfolio.
The former prime minister stated in a defamation trial that he was afraid Higgins’s claims of a political cover-up would result in his death, as reported by the media.
Senator Reynolds is suing her former employee for allegedly spreading false information on social media, which she claims hurts her reputation.
The senator was sacked as defence minister, according to Morrison, “due to the serious harm she sustained from the attacks applied to her over an extended period of time… that harmed her mental and physical health.”
“That is the only reason I decided to change those ministerial arrangements,” he stated through an audio-visual link to the Supreme Court of Western Australia.
Morrison characterised as “aggressive” and “co-ordinated” the political uproar that erupted in response to Higgins’s claims that the senator handled her rape improperly.
“It was the weaponising of this issue for political purposes to discredit both Senator Reynolds … and the government and by extension myself,” he stated.
Morrison responded, “That the government was involved in the cover-up of this issue, which was completely and utterly false, without any foundation,” when asked about the claims made during the attacks.
The former head of the Liberal Party remembered the impact on Reynolds, whose he said had been a friend for almost 20 years. His testimony lasted two hours.
“She was quite visibly, physically stressed… highly fragile emotional state,” he added.
“Her cardiac problem wasn’t disclosed to me, which increased my level of concern. “I remember for a period there we were very fearful for Senator Reynolds this could be a fatal outcome for her.”
Morrison supported the senator’s approach to Higgins’s accusation of rape against Bruce Lehrmann.
“I believe that they had done everything they possibly could within the processes they had to support Ms Higgins,” he stated.
“Ultimately those processes have failed and she felt the way that she felt and that has never been in dispute.”
Before being ordered to respond by Justice Paul Tottle, Morrison continually contested queries from Higgins’ attorney Rachael Young regarding the formal enquiries that followed the former staffer’s claimed rape in the senator’s office in 2019.
The former lawmaker claimed that they looked into workplace safety and the procedures that were put in place after the incident, and that the prime minister’s office and parliament had no business looking into Higgins’ claims.
“That was a process for the judicial process and the police,” he stated.
“Senator Reynolds and others had sought to encourage and provide support to enable the complaint to be made to police.”They gave Ms. Higgins assistance in exercising her agency in choosing not to do that.”
According to Morrison, procedures were later enhanced to give complainants access to private, unbiased counselling.
“That’s where I saw the great weakness in the system … that obviously let Ms Higgins down … let down minister Reynolds,” he stated.
Morrison responded, “Yes, initially I was but as events transpired, Senator Reynolds chose not to do that… out of respect for the confidence that they’d entered into with Ms Higgins,” when asked if he was dissatisfied that he wasn’t informed of the rape accusation until 2021.
“That was a dilemma.” Morrison claimed that the day the former employee’s cover-up claims became viral was also the day he found out about the 2019 incident and the security breech that resulted in Higgins and Lehrmann being in Reynolds’ office.
He disclosed that he didn’t pursue the senator for an apology after she referred to Higgins as a “lying cow” during her appearance on The Project on Network Ten.
“I made it very clear that I completely repudiated that, the minister understood that, and this was out of character for her,” he continued.
“She was angry, she said it was something she regretted.”
Lehrmann disputes the charge of rape, and improper jury behaviour caused his criminal trial to end in failure.
