Legal discovery reveals Linda Reynolds’ leaks

Exclusive

Former defence minister Linda Reynolds repeatedly leaked confidential correspondence about Brittany Higgins’ compensation payout to the media according to legal documents filed in the WA Supreme Court in conduct that is alleged to constitute an ongoing “campaign of harassment”.

The alleged conduct, detailed for the first time in Ms Higgins’ amended defence to Senator Reynolds’ defamation claim, follows legal discovery of Senator Reynolds’ emails, texts and correspondence regarding the rape allegation.

The amended defence claims Senator Reynolds leaked confidential legal correspondence to The Australian’s columnist Janet Albrechtsen.

The WA Supreme Court granted news.com.au access to the amended defence after a formal application over several weeks.

“In the circumstances, the plaintiff has engaged in a campaign of harassment against the defendant, including by providing confidential information to the media,’’ the defence alleges.

In response, Senator Reynolds’ legal team argued that the conduct described did not constitute harassing Ms Higgins.

“The information provided to Ms Albretchsen by the plaintiff (Senator Reynolds) was information in the plaintiff’s own possession and the plaintiff was entitled to deal with it,’’ the response states.

“The plaintiff was entitled to question the circumstances of the defendant’s personal injury claim against the Commonwealth in circumstances where such a claim was founded on matters that were disputed by the plaintiff.”

Alleged ‘harassment conduct’ includes Linda Reynolds leaks in December 2022

The legal documents reveal that Ms Higgins first made complaints against the Commonwealth, Senator Reynolds and Senator Michaelia Cash arising from her employment in early 2022.

The compensation claim was the subject of mediation nearly a year later at the conclusion of the criminal trial in December, 2022.

On or about 26 June 2022, the solicitors for the Commonwealth wrote to Senator Reynolds on a confidential basis (the letter also stating that legal professional privilege applied to the communication) advising the plaintiff that the Commonwealth intended to mediate those complaints with the defendant.

On 6 December 2022, the solicitors for the Commonwealth again wrote to Senator Reynolds on a confidential basis (the letter again stating that legal professional privilege applied to the communication) providing further information about the Commonwealth’s participation in a mediation with the defendant, to be held on 13 December, 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 in relation to all information related to the mediation,’’ the defence states.

But just six days later, 12 December, 2022, the defence alleges that Senator Reynolds “provided the correspondence…together with her response to the latter letter in which (Linda Reynolds’) lawyers described the defendant’s claims as ‘spurious’, to Janet Albrechtsen of The Australian”.

On or about 15 December 2022, Ms Albrechtsen published an article in The

Australian entitled “Linda Reynolds muzzled in Brittany Higgins Lawsuit Defence”, which referred to that confidential correspondence.

Further leaks in February, 2023 including Lauren Barons email

On 17 February 2023, Senator Reynolds sat down for an interview with Ms Albrechtsen, commenting on the rape allegation.

“During this interview, the plaintiff alleged that she had supported the defendant after the incident, notwithstanding the defendant had given sworn testimony to the effect that she was not and did not feel appropriately supported, and the apologies made by the plaintiff about those matters in 2021,’’ the defence states.

“The plaintiff also told The Australian that she had, in fact, been told by Ms Brown about the defendant’s statement that she recalled Mr Lehrmann on top of her prior to meeting with the defendant on 1 April 2019 in a manner that contradicted sworn evidence the plaintiff had given in the criminal prosecution of Mr Lehrmann.

“Prior to the publication of this article, the plaintiff had provided a number of documents to Ms Albrechtsen including a copy of an internal departmental email marked ‘Sensitive: Personal’ between Fiona Brown and Lauren Barons (which, at that time, had not entered the public domain) in relation to the plaintiff dated 29 March 2019, a tweet sent by the defendant in 2019 and a question time answer dossier, information used in the 17 February 2023 interview and articles that accompanied it.

Ms Albrechtsen then published a further article on 17 February 2023 entitled “Brittany

Higgins’ compensation payout clouded by ‘secret’ email”.

In that article, Ms Albrechtsen made reference to the email to Ms Brown from Ms Barons, describing it as a previously secret email’ and stated that it raised further questions about the settlement reached between the Commonwealth and the defendant.

Leaks regarding the Sofronoff Inquiry

The defence also details alleged leaks surrounding Senator Reynolds submissions to the ACT Board of Inquiry into the Lehrmann 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’s solicitors relating to the plaintiff’s requests for legal assistance to participate in the ACT Board of Inquiry into the Criminal Justice System (Sofronoff Inquiry) on or about 31 May 2023, and a draft and then final copy of a submission made by the plaintiff to the Sofronoff Inquiry (which is not publicly available on the Inquiry website) on or about 11 July 2023,’’ the defence states.

Referral to the National Anti-Corruption Inquiry

“On or about 7 June 2023, the plaintiff made a statement that questioned the settlement reached by the defendant with the Commonwealth In relation to personal injury claim made by the defendant against,the plaintiff and Senator Cash in December 2022 and suggested it be referred to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC),’’ the defence states.

“It can be inferred from that statement that the plaintiff was suggesting publicly that there was something untoward about that settlement.

“On or around, the same day, the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, stated publicly that such an action would be ‘entirely inappropriate’.

“On 4 July 2023, Senator Reynolds asked the NACC to investigate the circumstances of the settlement between the defendant and the Commonwealth. The plaintiff then informed the media of that fact, notwithstanding that this was a matter for the NACC, and continued to publicly question the settlement. It can be inferred that the plaintiff was making comments to the media, rather than simply making a referral, to seek to persuade the public that there was an issue with the settlement.”

Is the NACC investigating Brittany Higgins payout?

Despite media reports that the corruption watchdog will “probe” the payout following Senator Reynolds’ referrals, the body itself has never confirmed it is investigating her suggestions.

NACC Commissioner Paul Brereton does not traditionally confirm what the commission is investigating.

However, he has listed his criteria including whether an incident involved senior public officials, whether it had a significant impact – financial or otherwise – on the public interest, whether it involved potentially systemic corruption, and whether a NACC inquiry would clear the air and restore public confidence.

Senator Reynolds ‘silenced’

Senator Reynolds has repeatedly complained that she was frozen out of the negotiations over the payout 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 nearly a year over the payout.

Senator Reynolds claimed the payment to Higgins was finalised in an “unusually swift” manner, “raising serious questions about how this significant sum of public money was determined and allocated”.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has repeatedly insisted that the settlement was by the letter of the law, rejecting Linda Reynolds’s claims she was silenced through the mediation process.The senator also raised concerns about the conduct of Dreyfus. Reynolds, who was given taxpayer-funded legal assistance for her defence on Higgins’ civil claim, said the attorney general had told her not to make public comments or attend mediation sessions.

“I was initially granted legal assistance to defend the civil claim made by Ms Higgins against me (as well as Senator Cash and the Commonwealth) but, on 6 December 2022, I was advised that the Commonwealth has a discretion to control the conduct of my defence and that the Attorney-General had decided to exercise that discretion,” Senator Reynolds’ statement read.

“The result of this was that the Attorney-General did not want me to attend the mediation or make any public comments about the mediation or the civil claim made by Ms Higgins.”

But a spokesman for Dreyfus said the government’s handling of the case was appropriate and usual.

‘The wine was amazing’

Senator Reynolds has never made a secret of her engagement with journalists, including Ms Albrechtsen, over her concerns about the payout.

She has also sat down for interviews with the columnist in the past.

Two days after Federal Court Judge Michael Lee found former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann had raped his then-colleague Brittany Higgins in a ministerial office (a civil finding that is being appealed), it was reported that Ms Reynolds sat down to dinner with Ms Albrechtsen at Fremantle Italian joint Vin Populi.

“I can confirm that we had dinner at one of Fremantle’s newest restaurants after we both attended a conference nearby,” Senator Reynolds told The Age’s CBD column.

“I can also confirm the Western Australian food and wine was amazing!” she said.

Meanwhile, an ACT probe continues over Walter Sofronoff’s “private and secret” text messages with Albrechtsen following an ACT Supreme Court finding that it gave rise “a reasonable apprehension of bias” against the former top prosecutor Shane Drumgold.

In a written judgment, Justice Stephen Kaye likened the journalist and the judge to “fellow travellers”.

“The fair-minded observer might fairly apprehend that, at that point, Mr Sofronoff regarded himself as a ‘fellow traveller’ of Ms Albrechtsen in respect of the views that she had expressed and maintained in her publications about the plaintiff,’’ Justice Kaye wrote.