Welcome to the journalists’ world, Justice Tottle

’While judges have the full weight of the law behind them to compel witnesses to answer questions, journalists have no such backing.’

We don’t know if Paul Tottle ever had any aspirations to be a journalist before he settled on a career in law. But in the West Australian Supreme Court on Tuesday, Justice Tottle very much got a taste of what it is like to be a press ­gallery reporter.

While judges have the full weight of the law behind them to compel witnesses to answer questions, journalists have no such backing and spend their lives trying, and all too often failing, to get straight answers from politicians.

On multiple occasions on Tuesday, Justice Tottle – who has been largely silent through much of the proceedings so far – had to intervene to try to prompt Scott Morrison to give a direct response to the questions being asked of him by Brittany Higgins’s barrister, Rachael Young SC. Veteran politicians, using skills honed through years of press conferences, question times and Senate estimates hearings, are generally adept at avoiding questions they don’t want to answer. It turns out those skills can come in handy during cross-examination.

More than once, after the former prime minister had gone off down another path, Ms Young followed up with “coming back to my question, Mr Morrison”.

Ms Young and Mr Morrison got bogged down in particular in the details of the inquiry started by the then secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Phil Gaetjens, one of three such reviews that stemmed from the aftermath of Ms Higgins’s revelations.

As Ms Young repeatedly tried to get Mr Morrison to expand on what the Gaetjens inquiry was looking into, he said he was “puzzled” by the relevance of that matter. He repeatedly avoided going into any detail, saying the crux of the inquiry was unrelated to Ms Higgins’s allegations of 2019 – which were brought to his attention shortly before they went to air in February 2021 – or Linda Reynolds’ handling of them.

“That inquiry wasn’t in relation to the matters that were brought to my attention on the 15th February (2021), which is what I thought was what we were discussing,” he said.

Ms Young: “That inquiry was in relation to workplace safety at parliament?”

Mr Morrison: “My understanding was it was a bit more specific than that.”

Ms Young: “What was your understanding as to the scope of that inquiry?”

Mr Morrison: “That it was more specific.”

Ms Young: “And what specifically?”

Mr Morrison: “That it wasn’t dealing with the matters that were brought to my attention on the 15th of February.”

It prompted one of several interjections from Justice Tottle: “Sorry Mr Morrison, unless there’s an objection to the question, and there hasn’t been, I would be grateful if you would answer it,” he said.

Finally, Mr Morrison said the inquiry was in relation to other allegations made subsequently regarding what members of his office “may or may not have done in relation to management of these issues … They don’t relate to the events of what occurred in 2019 or issues regarding the process of the handling raised at the time of the 15th of February, or indeed, anything relating to Senator Reynolds at all,” he said.

Anyone who has interviewed a politician will know they “don’t do hypotheticals” and Ms Young struggled to draw Mr Morrison on what he would have done if he had learned of the 2019 rape allegations before Ms Higgins went public in February 2021.

Ms Young is trying to establish a truth defence to Senator Reynolds’s claim that Ms Higgins defamed her by implying she had mishandled the rape allegations. And she appeared to be looking for Mr Morrison to confirm that more could have been done to assist Ms Higgins sooner if the matter had been brought to his attention earlier. Mr Morrison may have stripped Senator Reynolds of the defence portfolio but on Tuesday he seemed determined to defend her standing.