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‘Brought to her knees’: Marise Payne, Anne Ruston detail Reynolds’ breakdown amid political furore
Former foreign minister Marise Payne has described watching Liberal senator Linda Reynolds shaking, breathing heavily, and gripping her desk in the parliamentary chamber after days of being “aggressively targeted” over Brittany Higgins’ alleged rape.
While giving evidence in Reynolds’ defamation trial against Higgins on Tuesday, Payne recalled Reynolds publicly breaking down in late February 2021, a week after the former staffer’s tell-all interview on The Project.
Marise Payne during her valedictory speech in the Senate last year.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Higgins had gone public with allegations she was raped by colleague Bruce Lehrmann in Reynolds’ ministerial office following a night out on March 23, 2019, prompting a media and political firestorm over what Reynolds knew and when.
Lehrmann, whose 2022 criminal trial was aborted due to juror misconduct, has maintained his innocence.
Payne told the court she watched her colleague of more than 30 years attempt to respond to the political furore while grappling with her distress over events she believed had been “misrepresented”.
“Senator Reynolds was under an enormous amount of pressure from questioning, pressure I have rarely seen before or since,” Payne told the court.
‘I could see she was in the depths of great despair about what had been alleged about her personally and professionally.’
Marise Payne
“There’s no question the parliamentary chamber is a place of debate and contest, but I found she was so upset and distressed that she was struggling to respond to questions that she would have otherwise been able to ... especially when you are aggressively targeted by your political opponents.
“I recall very clearly seeing the physical trauma in her body, from a combination of shaking, of what I regarded as elevated breathing, to physical distress where I could see her holding on to her desk tightly and trying to control the physical effect this questioning was having on her.”
In the weeks after Reynolds’ near-collapse in the parliamentary chambers and during her period of extended leave, Payne indicated the former defence minister appeared a shadow of her former self.
“I could see glimpses of the person I had known for several decades but at other times, I could see she was in the depths of great despair about what had been alleged about her personally and professionally,” Payne said.
Reynolds was then treated for a cardiac condition and mental health issues, which her doctor has told the court were exacerbated by stress.
Payne is one of almost two dozen witnesses, including former prime minister Scott Morrison, called to attest to the impact the saga has had on the senator as part of the five-week trial over a series of media posts Higgins published in 2023.
Reynolds claims the posts accused her of mishandling the rape allegation and attempting to silence victims of sexual assault. She claims the fall-out has included a premature end to her decade-long political career.
Higgins is defending the claim, arguing that the posts were substantially true.
Payne told the court that she and Reynolds would often discuss the social media posts and their impact on her, including the distress of reliving the events of 2021.
Senator Linda Reynolds outside court this month with husband Robert Reid (left) and lawyer Martin Bennett (right).Credit: Trevor Collens
But when grilled by Higgins’ lawyer, Rachael Young, SC, Payne told the court she could not specifically recall the individual posts she had seen but knew it had triggered significant media reporting.
Payne conceded part of the stress Reynolds was experiencing was a result of media reports related to her calling Higgins a “lying cow” in her office and being publicly condemned for it by Morrison, then the prime minister.
Former minister for women’s safety Anne Ruston told the court the saga had brought Reynolds “to her knees” while on the witness stand on Tuesday, recalling her devastation at watching the former defence minister endure an attack she claims Reynolds “never really recovered from”.
“I saw a person I had always had a tremendous amount of respect for, a strong and compassionate person, and the kind of person I had great admiration for… [endure] this sustained attack in the media, in the chamber and on social media about her integrity,” Ruston told the court.
“The [reports] were just so far from the truth about her character, and it had a really profound effect on her mental health, which subsequently affected her physical health. She was brought to her knees by one of the most relentless attacks, she could barely leave her office without copping an accusation.”
Ruston, Reynold’s colleague and flatmate, also recalled being ushered into her office where she was sobbing uncontrollably and later deemed unfit to front the National Press Club.
The South Australian senator told the court Reynolds was devastated by losing the defence portfolio amidst the political firestorm, one she described as the pinnacle of her career.
Liberal senator Anne Ruston.Credit: James Brickwood
The evidence comes after bombshell revelations Higgins would no longer enter the witness box in the row because the defence no longer considered it necessary and held concerns for Higgins’ medical state.
Higgins, who is expecting her first child with husband David Sharaz, had been due to travel to Perth from her new home in France to give evidence over five days from August 26.
The decision is expected to cut the five-week trial short, with Reynolds’ former chief of staff, Fiona Brown, also excused on medical grounds.
Higgins’ lawyers have since gained permission to call AFP former assistant commissioner Leanne Close to test Brown’s evidence regarding how long she spent at a meeting between Close and Reynolds on April 4, 2019.
Close’s notes of that meeting contradict evidence Reynolds gave that she did not know an alleged sexual assault had occurred at the time.
Justice Paul Tottle took the extraordinary step of publicly warning anyone attempting to interfere with the administration of justice they would be held in contempt of court after an attack on the trial by a “twitter army of fake robots”.
Bennett called for the order after receiving an email from Brown’s lawyer, Dominique Hogan-Doran, SC, which featured 15 pages worth of bot posts, one of which criticised Tottle for excusing Brown from giving oral evidence.
The biographies of the respective profiles suggested the posts were coming from across the United States and Asia.
Tottle told the court that while the contents of the posts and the disparate location of the users indicated they were unlikely to be genuine, any attempt to interfere in the proceedings through intimidation was unacceptable.
The order is similar to one made by Federal Court Justice Michael Lee following a similar incident during Lehrmann’s defamation trial with Network Ten.
Stopped outside the court, Reynolds’ lawyer, Martin Bennett, told waiting media that Reynolds had expressed her disappointment during a conversation overnight about Higgins’ decision not to front court.
But Bennett declined to be drawn on what he made of the top-secret medical report filed supporting Higgins’ application, telling reporters that was a matter for the judge.
“As I predicted, she’s disappointed effectively because she won’t have her word against Ms Higgins’ word adjudicated, so it’s not the most satisfying matter,” he said.
Bennett will now file a long list of documents he had been due to use to grill Higgins into evidence, including a 56,000-page download from Higgins’ phone and a string of WhatsApp messages.
Journalist Samantha Maiden, who broke the story about Higgins’ alleged rape, is expected to give evidence on Wednesday.
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