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 shown to be so manipulative that the Court cannot safely rely on anything she has said". It was further said that whenever Ms Higgins was challenged in cross-examination, she felt she had a safe harbour in repeatedly giving "unresponsive and self-serving speeches" and exhibiting frustration at the process of being challenged (Network Ten itself described some of these incidents as "emotional outbursts").

189 Like with Mr Lehrmann, I will not evaluate her evidence as to what occurred in the Ministerial Suite in this section, but it is convenient to specify ten points going to credit made by Mr Lehrmann and then evaluate the merits of them and other matters.

III The Points Made by Mr Lehrmann in Submissions

190 First, reliance was placed on allegedly dishonest conduct or false statements shortly after the incident being: (a) asking Ms Brown for a day off to go to a doctor's appointment on 28 March 2019 when, in reality, she was apparently spending time with Mr Dillaway who was staying in Canberra (Ex R4; T782–3); and (b) telling the AFP on 1 April 2019 that she had gone to Phillip Medical Centre and had tests done, and was awaiting results (Ex R77 (at 6); T1406).

191 Secondly, Mr Lehrmann pointed to a series of representations made to Mr Dillaway before and shortly after the alleged rape that are inconsistent, or at least apparently inconsistent, with Ms Higgins' later account, for example:


 * (1) despite giving evidence that Mr Lehrmann was treating her poorly when she commenced work in Senator Reynold's office, on 6 March 2019, Ms Higgins asserted to Mr Dillaway (in response to a question as to how her day had been) that it was "actually, pretty good. I really like the Reynolds team. They are super relaxed. The remaining defence industry people are being such a pain though" (indicating that people were becoming annoying and territorial), but that she was "super happy just to go hang with Bruce on the Senate side and work" (T935.35) – before leaving this message, Ms Higgins' evidence to me that she was "not really" being truthful in making this entirely benign representation to Mr Dillaway (T936.24) is a good example of her willingness to rewrite history in aspects of her evidence when she later thought it was in her interests;


 * (2) asserting that she had already spoken to her father about the incident and her father was flying down – when Ms Higgins had not, in truth, discussed any incident with Lehrmann v Network Ten Pty Limited (Trial Judgment) [2024] FCA 369