David Sharaz told journalist Samantha Maiden a Morrison government payout would make Brittany Higgins look ‘bought off’
David Sharaz told journalist Samantha Maiden that Brittany Higgins would not feel comfortable accepting a payout from the Morrison government as it would make her look ‘bought off’, as the scale of Mr Sharaz’s involvement was laid bare in court | READ THE TEXTS
David Sharaz told a senior journalist that his now wife Brittany Higgins would not feel comfortable accepting a payout from the Morrison government as it would make her look “bought off”, as the scale of Mr Sharaz’s involvement in taking Ms Higgins’ rape allegations public was laid bare.
Hundreds of messages between Mr Sharaz and news.com.au political editor Samantha Maiden were released by the Western Australian Supreme Court on Wednesday afternoon, after they were tendered as evidence in Linda Reynolds’ defamation action against Ms Higgins. The almost 10,000 words exchanged between the pair shed new light on the role of Mr Sharaz in bringing Ms Higgins’ plight to public attention.
Among the cache was a message from Mr Sharaz in January 2021 – before Ms Maiden broke the story – in which he described the Morrison government as being in “panic bribery mode”, and a February 2021 message soon after Ms Maiden’s story was published in which he said “there is ZERO chance she can accept a government payout without looking bought off”.
Ms Higgins would later accept a $2.445m settlement payment from the Albanese Labor government in December 2022, and Senator Reynolds – who has accused Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus of freezing her out of that compensation process – has referred the matter to the National Anti-Corruption Commission.
Read the messages between David Sharaz an Samantha Maiden below
Also in February 2021, a week after Maiden was the first to reveal Ms Higgins’ story, Mr Sharaz told the reporter that both he and Ms Higgins were “regretting all of this” because “the government seems to have gotten away with it all, and we’re both unemployed”.
Mr Sharaz texted Maiden on February 19: “I can see why PMO hate us. It all looks planned haha”.
The evidence emerged as Maiden, who won the Gold Walkley in 2022 for breaking the story of Ms Higgins’ rape allegations, told the WA Supreme Court of an “inappropriate” message she received from Mr Sharaz soon after she first interviewed Ms Higgins.
That message read: “It’s a weird story. Journalism hat on, what a f..king scoop ha ha”.
Maiden confirmed she had read that message at the time.
“I do recall receiving that message and I thought it was inappropriate,” she said.
The messages also spell out Mr Sharaz’s frustrations over the Morrison government’s response to Ms Higgins’ allegations, and in particular the report from John Kunkel, Scott Morrison’s chief of staff, into whether the Prime Minister’s office briefed against Ms Higgins.
Mr Sharaz said in those messages that Ms Higgins felt belittled by the Kunkel report and that the Morrison government “got away with it”. Maiden appeared to push back, describing the final lines of the report as “very pointed” and describing the idea that they got away with it as “a bizarre interpretation of what happened”.
Mr Sharaz, who married Ms Higgins earlier this year, is also being sued for defamation by Senator Reynolds but is not defending the action.
The court was played parts of the recording of the first meeting between Ms Higgins and Maiden in January 2021, just over a month before she published the first story airing Ms Higgins’ allegation that she was raped by a colleague inside Senator Reynolds’ parliamentary office.
In excerpts from the recording, Ms Higgins told Maiden how Senator Reynolds “hated” her and treated her like she was “toxic” after she met with the senator soon after she was allegedly raped by Bruce Lehrmann.
Other correspondence between Ms Higgins and Maiden tendered as evidence documents an enquiry from Maiden asking Ms Higgins if Senator Reynolds should step down.
“If Ms Higgins had said that Linda Reynolds should resign, that would have been a significant story at the time, I wanted to ask her of her opinion,” Maiden told the court. “And her opinion was that she didn’t think so. She said ‘I think she was just following instructions to be honest’.”
Also tendered were messages sent between Maiden and Labor politicians Penny Wong, Katy Gallagher and Tanya Plibersek.
Senator Wong sent Maiden a message inside the Senate chamber to flag that Labor was going to quiz Senator Reynolds over the rape allegations.
“I walked into the Senate and I received a message from Penny Wong. She must have seen me coming into the chamber, or I may have already been sitting in the chamber, and Senator Wong said something to the effect of ‘we’re going to come back to Senator Reynolds’,” Maiden said.
“So, presumably they have asked a question, and maybe I wasn’t there … but basically she was messaging me to say ‘we’re going to ask more questions of Senator Reynolds’.”
The messages also show Mr Sharaz told The Project host Lisa Wilkinson Ms Higgins had contemplated suicide in the wake of Network 10 requesting another interview with her in a follow-up program to its initial broadcast.
Mr Sharaz sent Maiden a copy of an email he said he had sent to Wilkinson, describing the “impossibly intense” pressure on Ms Higgins and the severe consequences for Brittany’s family and himself. “While I understand that you do have the contractual rights to her original interview, she was never told at that time that you would air more than one program detailing her assault,” Mr Sharaz wrote in the letter that was addressed to Wilkinson and shared with Maiden.
“Last night, she threatened to kill herself to me, and I had to engage support. She’s not coping, and I think … another interview would be incredibly damaging to her mental health. We were really clear we wanted to do one interview in print, and one television interview. We chose you because you champion women, and you’ve done exactly that with this story.”
He wrote that while he was sorry for the pressure on Ten for a follow-up interview, “I can’t, and won’t, lose Brittany because of this”. “If she were to kill herself due to the pressure, or public sentiment changing against her, I don’t think either of us could live with ourselves,” he said.
Under cross-examination by Rachael Young SC for Ms Higgins, Maiden said Ms Higgins had not told her of her desire to “bring down” Senator Reynolds and the Morrison government.
Senator Reynolds is suing Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz over social media posts the senator says implied she had mishandled Ms Higgins’ rape allegation and had harassed her former staffer.
Federal Court judge Michael Lee found in April that, on the balance of probabilities, Mr Lehrmann had raped Ms Higgins. Mr Lehrmann has denied the allegations and is appealing the finding.
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