Former Defence Minister Linda Reynolds repeatedly leaked confidential correspondence about Brittany Higgins’ compensation payments to the media, according to legal documents filed in the Western Australian Supreme Court in what it alleges constitutes an ongoing “campaign of harassment”.
The alleged conduct, first detailed in Ms Higgins’ amended defence to Senator Reynolds’ defamation suit, follows the legal discovery of Senator Reynolds’ emails, text messages and correspondence regarding the rape allegation.
The amended defenses allege that Senator Reynolds leaked confidential legal correspondence to AustralianColumnist Janet Albrechtsen.
The Supreme Court of Western Australia has granted news.com.au access to the amended defence after a formal application lasting several weeks.
“Under these circumstances, the plaintiff engaged in a campaign of harassment against the defendant, including providing confidential information to the media,” the defense alleges.
In response, Senator Reynolds’ legal team argued that the behaviour described did not constitute harassment of Ms. Higgins.
The response stated: “The information provided by the plaintiff (Senator Reynolds) to Ms. Albrechtsen was information in his possession and he had the right to deal with it.”
“Plaintiff was entitled to question the circumstances of the personal injury claim brought by defendant against the Commonwealth in the circumstances that such claim was based on matters disputed by plaintiff.”
Alleged ‘harassing behaviour’ includes Linda Reynolds leaks in December 2022
Legal documents reveal that Ms Higgins first filed complaints against the Commonwealth, Senator Reynolds and Senator Michaelia Cash over her work in early 2022.
The compensation claim was the subject of mediation nearly a year later when the criminal trial concluded in December 2022.
On or about June 26, 2022, Commonwealth attorneys wrote to Senator Reynolds on a confidential basis (the letter also stated that legal professional privilege applied to the communication) informing Plaintiff that the Commonwealth intended to mediate those complaints with Defendant.
On December 6, 2022, Commonwealth attorneys again wrote to Senator Reynolds on a confidential basis (the letter again stated that legal professional privilege applied to the communication) providing further information about the Commonwealth’s participation in the mediation with the defendant, which will take place on December 13, 2022.
“In that letter, the Commonwealth directed the plaintiff not to make any public comment about the mediation or the defendant’s claim and to maintain confidentiality regarding all information related to the mediation,” the statement of defense said.
But just six days later, on December 12, 2022, the defense alleged that Senator Reynolds “provided the correspondence…with her response to the final letter in which (Linda Reynolds’) attorneys described the defendant’s allegations as ‘false’ to Janet Albrechtsen of Australian“
On or about December 15, 2022, Ms. Albrechtsen published an article in the
Australian Titled “Liquidating Linda Reynolds in Brittany Higgins Defense Case,” it referred to those secret correspondences.
Other leaks in February 2023 including Lauren Barrons email
On February 17, 2023, Senator Reynolds sat down for an interview with Ms. Albrechtsen, to comment on the rape allegation.
“During this interview, Plaintiff claimed that she supported Defendant after the incident, despite Defendant testifying under oath that she was not and did not feel appropriately supported, and Plaintiff’s apologies regarding these matters in 2021,” the defense statement read.
The plaintiff also said, Australian That, in fact, she had been informed by Ms. Brown of the defendant’s statement that she had remembered Mr. Lerman above her prior to his meeting with the defendant on April 1, 2019 in a manner that contradicted the evidence the plaintiff gave under oath in the criminal prosecution of Mr. Lerman.
“Prior to the publication of this article, the Claimant provided a number of documents to Ms Albrechtsen including a copy of an internal management email marked “Sensitive: Personal” between Fiona Brown and Lauren Barrons (which was not in the public domain at the time) in relation to the Claimant dated 29 March 2019, a tweet sent by the Defendant in 2019, a Q&A file, and information used in the 17 February 2023 interview and accompanying articles.
Ms. Albrechtsen then published another article on February 17, 2023, titled “Brittany
‘Secret’ email overshadows Higgins compensation case
In that article, Ms. Albrechtsen referred to the email to Ms. Brown from Ms. Barrons, describing it as a “previously confidential email,” and said it raised further questions about the settlement reached between the Commonwealth and the defendant.
Leaks about the Sofronov investigation
The defence also includes details of alleged leaks surrounding Senator Reynolds’ memos submitted to the Australian Capital Territory Board of Inquiry in the Lerman trial.
“(Linda Reynolds) continued to send documents to Ms Albrechtsen from time to time from February 2023 onwards, including providing a copy of additional correspondence exchanged with the Commonwealth Attorney in relation to the Claimant’s requests for legal assistance to participate in the Australian Capital Territory Criminal Justice System Inquiry Board (the Sofronoff Inquiry) on or about 31 May 2023, and a draft and then final version of a submission made by the Claimant to the Sofronoff Inquiry (which is not publicly available on the Inquiry’s website) on or about 11 July 2023,” the defence said.
Referral to the National Anti-Corruption Investigation Commission
“On or about June 7, 2023, the plaintiff made a statement questioning the settlement reached by the defendant with the Commonwealth in relation to the personal injury claim the defendant filed against the plaintiff and Senator Cash in December 2022 and proposed that it be referred to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC),” the defence said.
“It may be inferred from this statement that the plaintiff was publicly indicating that there was something improper in this settlement.
On or about the same day, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese publicly stated that such action would be “totally inappropriate.”
“On July 4, 2023, Senator Reynolds requested that the National Anti-Corruption Commission investigate the circumstances of the settlement between the defendant and the Commonwealth. The plaintiff then informed the media of this fact, even though this was within the purview of the National Anti-Corruption Commission, and continued to publicly question the settlement. It can be inferred that the plaintiff was making comments to the media, rather than simply referring the case, in an attempt to convince the public that there was a problem with the settlement.”
Is the National Anti-Corruption Commission investigating Brittany Higgins’ payout?
Despite media reports that the anti-corruption body would “investigate” the payment made after Senator Reynolds’ referral, the body itself has never confirmed that it is investigating its own suggestions.
NACC Commissioner Paul Brereton does not usually confirm what the commission is investigating.
However, he listed his criteria including whether the incident involved senior public officials, whether it had a significant impact – financial or otherwise – on the public interest, whether it involved potential systemic corruption, and whether the NACC’s investigation would clear the air and restore public confidence.
Senator Reynolds has been “silenced.”
Senator Reynolds has repeatedly complained that she was excluded from the pay negotiations with her former employee and denied natural justice in order to challenge Ms Higgins’ claims.
News.com.au broke the news of the compensation claim in December 2022, revealing that Ms Higgins had been in negotiations with the Commonwealth for almost a year over the amount to be paid.
Senator Reynolds claimed the payment to Higgins was made in an “unusually rapid manner”, which “raised serious questions about how such a large sum of public money was identified and allocated”.
Attorney General Mark Dreyfus has repeatedly insisted that the settlement was in accordance with the law, rejecting Linda Reynolds’s claims that she was silenced by the mediation process. The senator has also raised concerns about Dreyfus’s conduct. Reynolds, who received taxpayer-funded legal assistance to defend her in Higgins’ civil lawsuit, said the attorney general ordered her not to make public comments or attend mediation sessions.
“I initially obtained legal assistance to defend Ms. Higgins’ civil action against me (as well as Senator Cash and the Commonwealth), but on December 6, 2022, I was informed that the Commonwealth has discretion to control the conduct of my defense and that the Attorney General has decided to exercise that discretion,” Senator Reynolds’ statement said.
“The result was that the Attorney General did not want me to attend the mediation session or make any public comments about the mediation or Ms. Higgins’ civil action.”
But a spokesman for Dreyfus said the government’s handling of the case was appropriate and normal.
“The wine was amazing.”
Senator Reynolds has never hidden her cooperation with journalists, including Ms. Albrechtsen, about her concerns about the payment.
She has also interviewed the author in the past.
Two days after Federal Court Judge Michael Lee ruled that former Liberal Party staffer Bruce Lerman raped his then colleague Brittany Higgins in a ministerial office (a civil ruling under appeal), Ms Reynolds reportedly sat down for dinner with Ms Albrechtsen at the Italian restaurant Vin Boboli in Fremantle.
“I can confirm we had dinner at one of Fremantle’s newest restaurants after attending a recent conference,” Senator Reynolds said. the age‘s CBD column.
“I can also confirm that the food and wine in Western Australia was amazing!” she added.
Meanwhile, an investigation continues in the Australian Capital Territory into “private and confidential” text messages exchanged between Walter Sofronov and Albrechtsen, after the ACT Supreme Court found they raised “reasonable concerns of bias” against former attorney-general Shane Drumgold.
In a written ruling, Judge Stephen Kay likened the journalist and the judge to “travel companions.”
“A fair-minded observer might imagine that at that stage, Mr. Sofronoff considered himself a ‘travelling companion’ of Ms. Albrechtsen with respect to the views she expressed and maintained in her publications about the plaintiff,” Judge Kay wrote.
