‘She’s drafting a plan for you’: Journalist Maiden testifies on breaking Higgins story

A recording of an interview between Brittany Higgins and the journalist who would break the story about her alleged rape in former defence minister Linda Reynolds’ office has laid bare how the young political staffer felt the incident had rendered her “toxic”.

Journalist Samantha Maiden was played portions of the hour-long talk with Higgins after being called to give evidence in Reynolds’ defamation case against the former staffer.

Flanked by three lawyers, Maiden told the WA Supreme Court she recalled hosting Higgins at her home for an interview over dinner on January 21, 2021, where Higgins would detail an incident she said had made her a “problem” for her then boss.

Senator Linda Reynolds (right) has taken defamation action against Brittany Higgins.Credit: Holly Thompson/ Supplied

In the recording, Higgins told Maiden she felt as if Reynolds “hated her” and branded a meeting they had alongside chief of staff Fiona Brown in April 2019 a box-ticking exercise.

That would be the sole meeting the trio had regarding a security breach during which Higgins claims she was raped by colleague Bruce Lehrmann in Reynolds’ ministerial suite after a night out on March 23, 2019. Lehrmann, whose 2022 criminal trial was aborted due to juror misconduct, maintains his innocence. He is appealing against a separate Federal Court judgment that found the rape allegation to be true on the balance of probabilities.

Higgins, who had been employed for only two weeks at the time she is alleged to have been raped, told Maiden she believed the former defence minister kept her at arm’s length out of fear the incident might cost her the portfolio she had “worked her entire life for”.

“She was actually quite nice, her [Reynolds] and Fiona I mean, but I didn’t feel it was a fair conversation on the basis I had been terrified since, and I was very new,” Higgins told Maiden in the recording.

“She didn’t know me or like me really ... I was just a problem for her. “She avoided being in photos with me. I was toxic to her. She hated me, and she still does to this day.”

But Higgins told Maiden the substance of what was said at that meeting was “a blur” she could “barely recall” because she was distracted by being within metres of the couch she was allegedly assaulted on.

Higgins went on to explain how the support she received was limited to receiving a brochure for an employee counselling service with a month-long waiting list and that she was given the option of returning home, staying in Canberra or travelling to Perth to campaign alongside Reynolds ahead of the 2019 election.

Despite having sighted a security report stating Higgins had been found partially undressed in her office, Reynolds testified that at the time of the meeting there was no allegation a sexual assault had occurred and that she would not have hosted the meeting there if she had known.

Higgins’ partner, former press gallery journalist David Sharaz, first approached Maiden about the story in January 2021, writing a text message about a “Me Too incident” the Liberal Party had “covered up”.

“I am letting this be [Higgins’] decision, but she’s drafting a plan for you. She wants to do it in an election year,” Sharaz wrote.

Maiden confirmed Higgins later sent a document referred to as “The Dossier”, but rejected that it went by that name at the time and said that was something that “entered the media lexicon” afterwards.

Journalist Samantha Maiden.

The article would be published on news.com.au on February 15, 2021, with Maiden telling the court the timing was dictated by Higgins’ desire to have the story drop during a parliamentary sitting week. Higgins’ tell-all interview with journalist Lisa Wilkinson for The Project was aired later that evening.

Maiden told the court Higgins gave her the impression her intention was altruistic and she wanted the story to have an impact.

“She was concerned it would be a one-day wonder. She wanted there to be an impact given what she saw as systematic failures [in the government’s handling of the alleged rape],” Maiden said.

But Maiden labelled a text message she had received from Sharaz on the morning of publication hailing the article a “f---ing scoop” inappropriate.

The court was then taken to a series of text messages between Maiden and senior Labor Party figures, including Penny Wong and Tanya Plibersek, regarding questions to be levelled at Reynolds during question time.

Maiden insisted there was nothing remarkable about the correspondence and dismissed any assertion she had acted as a conduit for the staffer or that Higgins had a plan to bring down the Morrison government.

Reynolds’ lawyer, Martin Bennett, grilled Maiden about a text exchange between herself and Higgins in which Higgins told her she did not believe Reynolds should resign because she was just “following instructions” from the prime minister’s office.

“Just having played my little part in your operation has been one of the greatest moments of journalism I’ve ever had,” Maiden texted Higgins.

When asked what she had meant by “operation”, Maiden told the court she believed Higgins had shown “great bravery at great cost” to raise issues that had resulted in legal reform and improved parliament as a workplace.

During cross-examination by Higgins’ lawyer, Rachael Young, SC, Maiden recalled a conversation in which Reynolds had told her she did not know whether the rape allegation was true, because she was not in the room.

Maiden also recalled being approached during Lehrmann’s criminal trial by Reynolds’ long-time partner, Robert Reid, who she said was peppering her with questions about Higgins’ whereabouts.

The Walkley Award-winning journalist is the latest person to give evidence in Reynolds’ defamation case against Higgins over a series of social media posts Reynolds claims accused her of mishandling the rape allegation and silencing victims of sexual assault.

Reynolds has also argued Higgins and Sharaz engaged in a calculated and premeditated campaign to attack her via her political opponents and the media.

Higgins is defending the allegations on the basis the substance of her posts was true.

Several of Reynolds’ high-profile colleagues have been called to attest to the impact the saga had on her at the time, including former prime minister Scott Morrison and former foreign affairs minister Marise Payne.

On Tuesday, Payne told the court she watched her colleague of more than 30 years struggle under the weight of mounting pressure from what she described as unprecedented questioning.

Payne described seeing Reynolds shaking, breathing heavily, and gripping her desk in the parliamentary chamber after days of being “aggressively targeted” over the alleged rape before her public breakdown in late February 2021.

The month-long trial will be cut short after Higgins made an eleventh-hour decision not to take the stand, on medical grounds, and because her legal team did not believe it was necessary to successfully argue the case.

Higgins, who is expecting her first child, had been due to travel to Perth from her new home in France to testify from August 26.

Fiona Brown has also been excused from giving oral evidence on medical grounds.

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