Folau - Higgins/Lehrmann P193

Linda Reynolds has spoken out for the first time since the Federal Court comprehensively debunked suggestions she and her office had engaged in a cover-up of Brittany Higgins’ rape.

The WA Liberal senator, who was the defence minister at the time her staffer Ms Higgins was raped by colleague Bruce Lehrmann in the minister’s parliamentary office, said the findings handed down by Justice Michael Lee during his verdict in Mr Lehrmann’s defamation had finally “set the record straight”.

“For three years I have endured intense public scrutiny, vilification, vile trolling and have been demonised as the villain in a story of a political cover-up I have always known to be untrue. Fiona Brown and I have lost our careers, had our reputations destroyed and have had our health seriously and irreparably compromised,” Senator Reynolds said.

“The decision of his Honour Justice Lee has finally set the record straight with respect to the conduct of Ms Brown and myself and the demonstrably false narrative that has dominated headlines and ruined lives and careers. To say I am pleased with the findings in relation to Ms Brown and myself and the cover-up that never was, would be an understatement.”

Beyond Justice Lee’s key finding that, on the balance of probabilities, Mr Lehrmann had in fact raped Ms Higgins, the judgment was notable for demolishing the notion that Senator Reynolds and her chief of staff at the time, Ms Brown,  had tried to cover up the incident.

The so-called “cover-up narrative” was at the centre of the Network Ten reports that prompted Mr Lehrmann’s unsuccessful defamation action. Senator Reynolds was subsequently demoted from the defence portfolio, and she recently announced that she would retire from politics at the next election.

Senator Reynolds is currently suing Ms Higgins and her fiance, David Sharaz, for defamation in the Western Australian Supreme Court. That matter is scheduled to go to trial later this year with the senator vowing to push on with the claim.

As Reynolds is pushing on with her claim I reckon Higgins and her beau, Sharma, might need every bit of that $2.45 million she was paid out by the ALP government.

The judge has been curious about David Sharaz all the way through the trial. At one point he likened Sharaz to the prophet Elijah, quipping there was a seat for him at the Passover table, but he never shows up.

Justice Lee asked both sides why they weren’t calling him to give evidence — and he had a lot to say about him in the judgment.

David Sharaz was the one who went to Lisa Wilkinson with a story he called a ‘Liberal Party Me Too Project Pitch”. In his messages and conversations with The Project team, he made it clear this was a story of a political cover-up and he wanted it to come out very soon, before Scott Morrison had a chance to call an election.

That’s because he wanted the Labor Party to ask questions about it in Question Time, during parliament — and if Morrison called the election, Parliament would rise and Labor wouldn’t get the opportunity to hammer the issue.

The judge said his motivations were clear — he wanted to cause political damage to the government — and he criticised Lisa Wilkinson and the producer Angus Llewellyn for not being more sceptical about the whole story for that reason.