We haven’t heard much recently from the perpetually aggrieved Linda Reynolds, but that’s not to say nothing is going on.
In fact, she told one of her resident typists at The Australian that she’s “delighted” that the Federal Court has ordered her and the Commonwealth into mediation over her claim that the government owed her a duty of care when it settled a claim from Brittany Higgins, following her rape on Linda’s parliamentary couch.
After all, Brittany extracted a juicy settlement ($2.4 million), and now Linda is after one as well.
“I am still having to fight the Labor government for justice and a mediation – quite the opposite from their approach to Brittany Higgins’ mediation and settlement for allegations they should have known were lies.”
This seems to miss the point that criticism of Higgins’ “cover-up” claims only emerged in courts two years after the settlement.
Meanwhile, there’s been another round of sabre-rattling from Camp Linda over the documentary film Silenced, released in January at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.
Higgins was among a group of women interviewed for the project, orchestrated by human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson, who has been fighting and campaigning “against the weaponisation of defamation laws to silence survivors”.
Linda’s lawyer, Martin Bennett from the eponymous Bennett Law, has indicated that it would be a grave mistake should the film suggest that Reynolds “silenced” Higgins.
“It’s due to be released in Australia in May or June, so that’s one we will watch very closely.”
Linda sued Brittany Higgins and her husband for defamation over the cover-up allegations, and last year bankrupted both of them. Any suggestion that she was other than supportive of her former staffer is a dastardly libel that has to be remedied.
Linda has a firm belief that expensive and long-winded struggles in the defamation courts are the best way to restore a reputation.
Depending on the private screening of Silenced at the Bennett office in Perth, it might be a world first for a plaintiff to bring a libel action against someone they have already bankrupted.
All the fine details about Reynolds v The Commonwealth of Australia can be found at the Federal Court file.
From our sister publication Spilled Ink