Brittany Higgins’ rape allegations ‘weaponised to discredit me’, Scott Morrison tells court

Scott Morrison has revealed in court he feared for his then-defence minister Linda Reynolds’ life and that he was forced to demote her to protect her health.

Scott Morrison has made explosive claims that Brittany Higgins’ rape accusations were weaponised to discredit him personally, as the former prime minister revealed the aftermath left him fearing for his then-defence minister Linda Reynolds’ life and that he was forced to demote her to protect her health.

Mr Morrison took the stand via video link as the star witness in Senator Reynolds’ bitter defamation battle against her ex-staffer on Tuesday and said “strangely co-ordinated” allegations that the government was involved in a cover-up of events around Ms Higgins’ rape were “utterly false”.

A day after Senator Reynolds’ psychologist told the court that the former Liberal frontbencher claimed in a session that Peter Dutton was trying to undermine her and get her out of the defence portfolio, Mr Morrison denied in the West Australian Supreme Court that he demoted Senator Reynolds because she called Ms Higgins a lying cow.

“The reason Senator Reynolds was unable to continue in the ­defence portfolio was because of the severe injury she suffered as a result of the attacks applied to her over a prolonged period of time that damaged her mental and physical health,” Mr Morrison said. “That is why Senator Reynolds no longer served in the role of defence minister, and that is the sole reason that I chose to make a change in the ministerial arrangements.”

He said members of the Coalition were “very fearful” that the episode could lead to “a fatal outcome” for Senator Reynolds.

Pushed several times by the judge to answer questions more directly, the former prime minister said Ms Higgins’ accusations of a rape in Parliament House had been “weaponised” not just against Senator Reynolds, but against him personally.

“It was intending to discredit her. It was the weaponising of this issue for political purposes to discredit both Senator Reynolds and the government, and by extension myself,” Mr Morrison told the court.

Senator Reynolds is suing Ms Higgins and her husband David Sharaz for social media posts that the senator says implied she had mishandled Ms Higgins’ rape allegation against Bruce Lehrmann.

Federal Court judge Michael Lee, presiding over Lehrmann’s own defamation case against ­Network Ten and its presenter Lisa Wilkinson, found in April that, on the balance of probabilities, the former staffer had raped Ms Higgins.

Senator Reynolds has claimed that attacks from Ms Higgins and her partner David Sharaz – whom she called in court “creepy” – left her sick and fearing for her job. She also told the court she felt guilt over the death of late Labor frontbencher Kimberley Kitching, after she outed her to ALP Senate leader Penny Wong as the source of a warning that the then-opposition would target her over an alleged rape in her office.

In a rare appearance of a prime minister in a court hearing, Mr Morrison said suggestions his government was involved in a cover-up were “completely and utterly false, without any foundation”.

Reynolds and Morrison in 2019. Picture: AAP

“I was subjected to quite a barrage of questions by the opposition … they were strangely co-ordinated, those questions, over a period of weeks with the things we were seeing in the media,” he said. “So I was somewhat sceptical about the political ­weaponisation.”

Mr Morrison was also asked about Senator Reynolds’ “lying cow” remark in front of her staff about Ms Higgins. When The Australian revealed the remark in 2021, Mr Morrison described it as “disgraceful”. Mr Morrison said calling her former staffer a lying cow was offensive but “it was a statement completely out of character that one wouldn’t expect to have become public”.

“And if all members of parliament had their private conversations in their offices made public, we wouldn’t virtually have a member serving in parliament,” Mr Morrison said.

Senator Reynolds reached a deed of settlement with Ms Higgins for calling her a lying cow and apologised to her nine days after she made the remark.

Mr Morrison said he did not recall ever asking Senator Reynolds to apologise to Ms Higgins for the remark.

When asked by Ms Higgins’ lawyer Rachael Young SC about media reports or public comment at the time of the lying cow comment in which Senator Reynolds’ position was described as untenable, Mr Morrison replied: “That happens all the time in politics”.

He said Senator Reynolds was in “a quite fragile emotional state”.

The court has previously been told that, at this time, Senator Reynolds had a pre-existing but undiagnosed condition called ­microvascular disease, which caused small veins around her heart to contract and spasm when she was stressed, giving her the symptoms of a heart attack.

Mr Morrison told the court: “I remember for a period there we were very fearful that … this could be a fatal outcome for her.

“(The allegation was) that somehow … the government was involved in a cover-up of this issue which was completely and utterly false, without any foundation.”

Mr Morrison was also questioned about the suite of inquiries and reports that he commissioned or supported – broadly on workplace safety at Parliament House – in the wake of Ms Higgins’ rape allegation.

“That’s where I saw the great weakness in the system here that let Ms Higgins down but also let down Minister Reynolds and her staff in seeking to deal with this issue,” he said. “Everyone wanted to see this issue dealt with at the time and later in the best possible way but the processes – which have now been reformed thankfully – were deficient.”