TV host’s secret role in Higgins saga revealed

The conservative chief of staff to Tony Abbott when he was prime minister has revealed she did so to support Ms Higgins’ campaign for change for employment laws governing political staffers but that she had grown concerned over time that the allegations were ultimately “politicised”.

The conservative chief of staff to Tony Abbott when he was prime minister has revealed she did so to support Ms Higgins’ campaign for change for employment laws governing political staffers but that she had grown concerned over time that the allegations were ultimately “politicised”.

She revealed she was in touch with Ms Higgins and her partner David Sharaz, a former Sky News producer, after the story broke, although she had never met her.

In court, Senator Linda Reynolds’ lawyer Martin Bennett said Ms Higgins’ collaboration with Liberal conservative Peta Credlin demonstrated the level of media planning Ms Higgins engaged in following the publication of her rape allegations.

Mr Bennett had made submissions that Ms Higgins was engaged in a plot to bring down the Liberal Government and destroy Linda Reynolds’ career.

On Tuesday night, Credlin used her program to confirm she had helped Ms Higgins draft the statement but did so with the “full support” of then-prime minister Scott Morrison and her manager at Sky News Australia.

“Not long after the Higgins story broke, within a couple of days, certainly in the first week, contacts of Higgins reached out to me as a former Liberal chief of staff and a woman,” Credlin revealed.

“I was asked if I would take a call from Brittany Higgins, which I did and in it, she asked me if I would help her draft the terms of reference for a review into the treatment of female staff in federal politics.

‘Reform was needed’: Peta Credlin

“I said I would, I said after 16 years as a staffer myself, I believed reform was needed and I then did two things – with her permission, I called the then prime minister Scott Morrison’s office to tell them, this was exactly what I was doing to which his chief of staff said ‘I fully support it’, and then I advised my direct manager here at Sky News.”

Credlin said she was “shocked” to discover that Ms Higgins had not yet made a formal police statement about the rape, which it is alleged occurred in Parliament House in 2019.

Ms Higgins had contacted police in April, 2019, given an account to two female police officers at Parliament House, and spoken with specialist sex crime detectives on April 8, but had not given formal evidence-in-chief interview.

She had also contacted police again before the story broke in February, 2021.

“As I helped draft the terms of reference, which later became the Jenkins Review, I was in contact a fair bit with Morrison’s office, his chief of staff, on other issues that came up,” Ms Credlin said.

“Such as helping to ensure Higgins was offered and received face-to-face private rape counselling as opposed to the earlier offer of phone counselling she claimed was all she got.

“I also told her, told Higgins, she must make a full statement to the Federal Police, rather than continue to run this issue through the media. I admit I was shocked that this had not been done in the many months since her alleged rape.

“In helping to bring this about I gave her advice on her draft statement for the media following that police interview.”

Peta Credlin ‘grew uncomfortable’

Despite assisting with the wording of her statement, Credlin said she later grew uncomfortable about how the former Liberal staffer’s rape had become “used politically as a weapon”.

“After a couple of months, I didn’t have any further contact with Higgins, or her partner David Sharaz – he was at one time you know an employee of Sky,” she said.

“Now I was concerned, into those months, at how the whole issue was being used politically as a weapon and once her taxpayer payout was revealed, that view only strengthened. To date, I have never ever met Brittany Higgins.”

Brittany Higgins’ ‘own words’

Ms Higgins’ defence concluded on Tuesday with her barrister Rachael Young SC ending with Ms Higgins “own words” from a media statement that tackled the then 24-year-old Liberal staffer’s “agency” in the aftermath of the alleged rape.

Ms Young then read out a statement that Ms Higgins had provided the media in 2021 after the story was published.

“The prime minister has repeatedly told the parliament that I should be given ‘agency’ going forward,’’ Ms Higgins said.

“I don’t believe that agency was provided to me over the past two years but I seize it now. I was failed repeatedly, but I now have my voice, and I am determined to use [it] to ensure that this is never allowed to happen to another member of staff again.”

In response, Senator Reynolds’ lawyer Martin Bennett told the court that Ms Higgins’ statement had been drafted with the assistance of the Sky News host and Liberal Party supporter Credlin.

He referred to an email from Ms Higgins, which included her now-husband David Sharaz, to Credlin, which said: “Hi Peta, Thank you again for your help. Please see below the initial draft – feel free to completely rework wherever you see fit”.

Mr Bennett said the correspondence demonstrated the level of media planning Ms Higgins engaged in following the publication of her rape allegations and suggested the statement was not an example of her voice but of “people jumping on bandwagons”.

Ms Higgins’; barrister Ms Young responded there was nothing unusual about media statements going through a series of drafts and that it didn’t “detract” from Ms Higgins’ words.

‘F*** it, I will cry on The Project’

Earlier, Mr Bennett pointed to a text message Ms Higgins sent to Mr Sharaz on 17 May, 2021, where she wrote: “F*** it. If they want to play hardball I’ll cry on The Project again because of this sort of mistreatment. I do not care.”

He said the message showed this was “a woman who was prepared to cry again,” and was further evidence of her “visceral hatred” of Reynolds.

The message did not refer to Senator Reynolds but related to an investigation by Mr Morrison’s chief of staff John Kunkel into whether or not the Prime Minister’s Office had briefed the media about Ms Higgins partner Mr Sharaz.

Judge asks pointed question about Linda Reynolds’ hospitalisation

Earlier in the defamation trial, Senator Reynolds’ partner Robert Reid, gave evidence her cardiologist warned “we might lose her” after she was treated for a pre-existing cardiac issue during the “lying cow” reporting.

Her lawyer Martin Bennett said Justice Paul Tottle should dismiss the defence’s claim that Mr Reid’s evidence was false.