Bruce Lehrmann targets ABC over Higgins and Tame’s Press Club address

Former federal Liberal political staffer Bruce Lehrmann is suing the ABC for defamation for broadcasting a National Press Club address last year by Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins, in a case expected to test the defences available for live broadcasts.

Lehrmann filed Federal Court defamation proceedings against the ABC on Wednesday. Documents released by the court on Thursday reveal he is suing over the National Press Club address on February 9 last year, which was televised by the national broadcaster, and a related YouTube video.

Former parliamentary staffer Brittany Higgins at the National Press Club last year.Credit: James Brickwood

He says the broadcasts conveyed the defamatory meaning that he “raped Brittany Higgins on a couch in Parliament House”. He denies the rape allegation.

The lawsuit is the third filed by Lehrmann, who is also suing Network Ten and News Life Media, the News Corp company behind News.com.au, over interviews with Higgins broadcast and published on February 15, 2021.

Higgins, also a former political staffer, did not name Lehrmann during her address in Canberra but said: “I was raped on a couch in what I thought was the safest and most secure building in Australia. In a workplace that has a police and security presence 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“The parliament of Australia is safe – it is secure – except if you’re a woman. If what happened to me can happen there, it can happen anywhere. And it does. It happens to women everywhere.”

Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins during their address to the National Press Club of Australia in Canberra on February 9, 2022.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Lehrmann’s lawyers argue he was readily identifiable as the person accused of raping Higgins.

He had been named in the media in August 2021 after he was charged with sexual intercourse without consent.

Lehrmann pleaded not guilty to the charge. His trial was aborted in October last year due to juror misconduct. The charge was later dropped altogether amid concerns about Higgins’ mental health. Lehrmann has always maintained his innocence.

If the defamation case proceeds to trial, the court may be asked to examine the defence of innocent dissemination in the NSW Defamation Act.

Bruce Lehrmann enters the Federal Court in Sydney in March.Credit: Kate Geraghty

University of Sydney Professor David Rolph, an expert in defamation law, said innocent dissemination is a defence that can be relied upon by a secondary publisher.

“In order to rely on the defence, any media outlet would have to be able to characterise themselves as a secondary rather than a primary publisher,” he said.

“Under the statutory defence, whether the media outlet has any capacity to exercise any editorial control over the matter before it is first published is a crucial element of the defence.”

Federal Court Justice Michael Lee has yet to decide whether he will extend a one-year limitation period to allow Lehrmann to sue over the Ten and News Corp interviews, which are now two years old.

Lee reserved his decision on that issue on March 23 and will deliver a judgment at a later date.

Lehrmann’s suit against the ABC, which involves a broadcast in February last year, falls within the one-year time limit because his lawyers sent a concerns notice to the national broadcaster in February this year.

Should Lee refuse to extend the limitation period in the Ten and News Corp proceedings, the case against the ABC could still proceed.

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