On October 15, former defence minister Linda Reynolds wrote a 12-page letter to the speaker of the House and the president of the Senate, seeking a further investigation into events that followed the rape, on a couch in her office, of her then staffer Brittany Higgins by co-worker Bruce Lehrmann.
Reynolds demanded a joint inquiry into what she described as a “political scandal” – one that “specifically and publicly reviews all circumstances relating to how the Parliament dealt with Ms Higgins’ allegations”. She asked that the inquiry consider whether Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher misled parliament.
Also this month, Reynolds began bankruptcy proceedings against Higgins for the $315,000 settlement of her defamation suit plus $26,000 in interest, along with 80 per cent of Reynolds’ $1 million-plus legal costs, awarded by Justice Paul Tottle in the Western Australian Supreme Court.
Justice Tottle’s findings in Linda Karen Reynolds v Brittany Mae Higgins convey the current state of play regarding Reynolds’ actions arising from events following Lehrmann’s rape of Higgins. The following precis draws significantly on Justice Tottle’s decision.
The rape occurred in the early hours of Saturday, March 23, 2019.
The following Tuesday, Reynolds, in Brisbane to attend her first cabinet meeting, took a call from her chief of staff, Fiona Brown, concerning a serious security breach: Lehrmann’s and Higgins’s inebriated late-night visit to Reynolds’ office, their place of work.
Reynolds was angry about the security breach but ignorant of the rape, Justice Tottle found. Brown testified she did not yet know of the rape, and Justice Tottle preferred her evidence to Higgins’s recollection of telling Brown, “I recall him being on top of me.”
Reynolds rang Brown on Friday that week and told her to “report the incident in a ‘low-key’ way” to the Australian Federal Police. Brown’s evidence was that “Ms Higgins had not made any specific allegations of sexual assault or rape so I didn’t know what to report”.
Brown arranged a meeting between Reynolds and Higgins for the morning of April 1, 2019. It took place in Reynolds’ office, “not far from” the couch where Higgins was raped.
Justice Tottle condemned “hindsight” views that Reynolds and Brown should have realised the overall picture suggested that a sexual assault had occurred.
Reynolds attended a meeting with the AFP on Thursday, April 4, where she said she first heard the rape allegation, nearly two weeks after the event.
Justice Tottle preferred Reynolds’ evidence to that of the AFP deputy commissioner of operations, Leanne Close, whose notes of the meeting show Reynolds, when told of the sexual assault allegation, said, “I thought that’s what it would be about.”
One week later, on April 11, Scott Morrison called an election for May 18, 2019. Higgins went to Perth and worked in a hotel room, mostly alone, for the several weeks of the campaign.
On Monday, February 15, 2021, nearly two years later, the rape became public. Watching Lisa Wilkinson’s interview with Higgins on Network 10’s The Project in her “open door” office, Reynolds was heard by staffers to call Higgins a “lying cow”.
Justice Tottle accepted Reynolds’ evidence she was responding to Higgins’s characterisation of Reynolds’ and Brown’s handling of the matter, not the rape itself.
In this month’s letter to the leaders of both houses of parliament, Linda Reynolds writes: “After nearly five years, it is well and truly time to release those of us who were falsely accused, nationally vilified and so badly and irreparably harmed by this conduct…”
On February 23, after days of media and parliamentary scrutiny, “The plaintiff left the Senate chamber shortly after 3pm and broke down”, according to Justice Tottle’s findings.
A National Press Club speech by Reynolds scheduled for the next day was cancelled when she was admitted to hospital overnight with chest pains. She went on five weeks’ sick leave.
On March 3, Reynolds’ “lying cow” comment was reported in The Australian, and then publicly condemned by prime minister Scott Morrison.
On March 12, in response to representations from Higgins’s lawyers, Reynolds apologised and paid her former staffer damages of $10,000 and legal costs of $11,000.
Three days later, March4Justice rallies were held across Australia and Higgins addressed the one in Canberra, in front of Parliament House.
On March 28, 2021, Morrison replaced Reynolds as defence minister with Peter Dutton and appointed her minister for the NDIS and government services.
Nearly a year later, on February 8, 2022, with a federal election only three months away, Morrison apologised to Brittany Higgins on behalf of the government.
The following month, Higgins’s lawyers sent Reynolds’ lawyers a statement of claim, including that Higgins had been isolated and ignored during the 2019 election campaign, with Higgins directed to work mostly from her hotel room alone, seven days a week for six weeks, with deleterious mental health effects.
On May 21, 2022, the Morrison government lost office. New Coalition leader Peter Dutton overlooked Reynolds for his shadow cabinet.
On October 4, 2022, Bruce Lehrmann’s criminal trial began. Reynolds was due to give evidence for the defence later in the trial. She sought transcripts of proceedings from Lehrmann’s lawyer, Steven Whybrow, along with evidence of Higgins’s text messages.
“I won’t give you the transcript for your own protection,” Whybrow responded. “Then no one can say you have tailored your evidence to fit in with what has already been said.”
Reynolds’ partner, Robert Reid, attended every day of the Lehrmann rape trial, except the day Reynolds gave evidence.
On December 6, 2022, Reynolds’ lawyers were informed that then attorney-general Mark Dreyfus was exercising the Commonwealth’s right to “control the conduct” of Reynolds’ defence against Higgins’s civil claim.
Commonwealth solicitors reportedly directed Reynolds to refrain from “any public comment … and to maintain confidentiality in relation to all information related to the mediation”.
Reynolds contested this decision through her lawyers, but mediation over the claim went ahead without her on December 13, 2022. The Commonwealth settled the Higgins claim for what was later revealed to be $2.4 million, including costs.
On the eve of the mediation, Reynolds emailed copies of the confidential legal correspondence between her and the Commonwealth to The Australian’s Janet Albrechtsen. Reynolds conceded she had probably also spoken to Albrechtsen because she was “incredibly angry” about how the civil claim had been managed.
Cross-examined on whether she chose Albrechtsen because she thought she’d get the most favourable coverage of her view, Reynolds said it was because Albrechtsen was the most “balanced”.
Justice Tottle found Reynolds’ choice of Albrechtsen was a matter of the “most effective way of communicating to the public” her belief that the process followed by the Commonwealth was “corrupt” because it had excluded her.
On January 12, 2023, Reynolds sued HarperCollins and author Aaron Patrick over his account of the April 1, 2019, meeting between Reynolds, Brown and Higgins in his book Ego: Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberal Party’s Civil War. The claim was settled in four months, with Reynolds receiving $84,000 and unspecified costs.
Reynolds also sued Independent Australia over a May 18, 2023, article headlined, “Media ‘frenzy’ over Bruce Lehrmann’s rape trial leads to defamation bonanza”, winning an apology, a correction, a $20,000 settlement and $5500 for legal costs.
On July 4, 2023, Reynolds referred the Commonwealth’s settlement with Higgins to the National Anti-Corruption Commission. The commission’s “extensive preliminary investigation” ultimately found no evidence of wrongdoing, nor any problems with the mediation process.
On November 9, 2023, Reynolds’ lawyers served a concerns notice on the ACT government in relation to comments made by Shane Drumgold in a letter in 2022. On March 1, 2024, the ACT government apologised, made a retraction, and paid Reynolds $70,000 compensation plus $20,000 in legal costs.
On April 28 this year, Reynolds sued the Commonwealth of Australia and HWL Ebsworth Lawyers, who acted for the Commonwealth on the Higgins mediation, claiming the breach of various duties allegedly owed by them to Reynolds.
On June 11, Reynolds’ action was amended to add the claim that the former attorney-general had “conducted himself in a manner that constituted a misfeasance of public office”.
This matter continues.
In this month’s letter to the leaders of both houses of parliament, Linda Reynolds writes: “After nearly five years, it is well and truly time to release those of us who were falsely accused, nationally vilified and so badly and irreparably harmed by this conduct. Released by both the government and the Parliament. It is only then we can start to heal and craft new lives for ourselves and our families.”
Six years after she was raped on the couch in Linda Reynolds’ office, Brittany Higgins, along with her husband and new baby, await the outcome of the bankruptcy proceedings.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on
October 25, 2025 as “Linda Reynolds’ many choices”.
For almost a decade, The Saturday Paper has published Australia’s leading writers and thinkers.
We have pursued stories that are ignored elsewhere, covering them with sensitivity and depth.
We have done this on refugee policy, on government integrity, on robo-debt, on aged care,
on climate change, on the pandemic.
All our journalism is fiercely independent. It relies on the support of readers.
By subscribing to The Saturday Paper, you are ensuring that we can continue to produce essential,
issue-defining coverage, to dig out stories that take time, to doggedly hold to account
politicians and the political class.
There are very few titles that have the freedom and the space to produce journalism like this.
In a country with a concentration of media ownership unlike anything else in the world,
it is vitally important. Your subscription helps make it possible.
Send this article to a friend for free.
Share this subscriber exclusive article with a friend or family member using share credits.
Used 1 of … credits
use share credits to share this article with friend or family.
You’ve shared all of your credits for this month. They will refresh on November 1. If you would like to share more, you can buy a gift subscription for a friend.
SHARE WITH A FRIEND
? CREDITS REMAIN
SHARE WITH A SUBSCRIBER
UNLIMITED
Loading…