Former prime minister Scott Morrison could appear as a trial witness at the defamation trial Senator Linda Reynolds has brought against her by ex-staffer Brittany Higgins.
Reynolds is suing Higgins over a series of social media posts Reynolds claims damaged her reputation.
Higgins apologised to both both Reynolds and her then-chief of staff, Brown, following Justice Lee’s civil judgement– that Lehrmann had raped Higgins on the balance of probabilities– in the defamation case brought by Lehrmann against Network 10. Lehrmann is appealing the decision.
Despite this apology, Senator Reynolds has moved to resolve her legal claim, which returned to the supreme court of Western Australia for a directions hearing on Tuesday ahead of a trial in the coming months.
Reynolds also launched legal action against Higgins’ husband David Sharaz, who declared weeks ago he did not have the financial means to take the matter to trial.
Speaking outside the court, Reynolds’ lawyer Martin Bennett said Morrison was among the 17 witness outlines for the high-profile trial.
Morrison has provided a written witness statement to the court, and may be called to give evidence via video-link.
“He’s prepared to give evidence. He’ll be overseas on time so can we do it remotely,” Bennett said about Morrison, adding that there are five more witness outlines to file, and that Liberal senator Michaelia Cash might be among them.
Higgins’ lawyer, Teresa Ward, told the court her client had already handed over the first set of documents expected to form evidence in the case.
Senator Reynolds’ made an unexpected appearance at the directions hearing on Tuesday, telling the media that she was physically present in order to demonstrate her determination to take the matter to trial and “finally get justice”.
“I’ve been particularly grateful in recent times for the support from Scott Morrison and from many other witnesses in this trial in terms of the impact this has had on me and many other people as well,” she said.
“I’ve always hoped we could reach settlement before this point, but it doesn’t look like we will, so we are going to court because it is far too important.”
“I need to clear my name finally after well over three years and so many people have been so damaged by this.”’
Higgins’ lawyers tried to delay the start of the trial from July 24 to August 5 because of timetable conflicts. Another hearing has been scheduled for next week to attempt to resolve the timetabling matter. And the proceedings are set down for six weeks.
Senator Reynolds is also still working to establish who controls a trust in Higgins’ name, which she claims was established to safeguard Higgins’ $2.4 million federal government pay-out for lost earnings and hurt, distress and humiliation.