Senator Linda Reynolds suing former staffer Brittany Higgins

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Senator Linda Reynolds' defamation trial against her former staffer Brittany Higgins is underway in the West Australian supreme court. The court will hear arguments about whether social media posts by Ms Higgins defamed Senator Reynolds.

Transcript

00:00At the centre of the case are social media posts Brittany Higgins made in 2023, in which

00:07she was critical of the way she says Senator Linda Reynolds handled the rape allegation

00:11in 2019.

00:13At the centre of the case are social media posts Brittany Higgins made in 2023.

00:18She was critical of the way she says Senator Linda Reynolds handled the rape allegation

00:23in 2019.

00:24Senator Reynolds says her former employee defamed her in these social media posts.

00:29She says the posts caused her distress and injured her credibility.

00:33She says this was aggravated by what she's described as a plan by Ms Higgins and her

00:37partner to use allegations of a cover-up as a weapon to inflict damage on the Morrison

00:42government.

00:43Brittany Higgins will argue that what she said in the social media postings was essentially

00:47true, that Senator Reynolds mishandled the rape allegation and did not provide adequate

00:52support.

00:54The trial is expected to run for several weeks, with Senator Reynolds likely to start giving

00:58evidence on Monday and Brittany Higgins later in the trial.

01:02The trial is also likely to hear from other Senators and former Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

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