Former defence minister Linda Reynolds had concerns about Bruce Lehrmann before he allegedly raped Brittany Higgins in her office, a defamation trial has been told.
Senator Reynolds is suing Ms Higgins over a series of social media posts containing alleged mistruths concerning her conduct that she believes have damaged her reputation.
She told the second day of the trial that Lehrmann said "odd" things that became a red flag for her and her then-chief of staff Fiona Brown.
This included being friends with then-head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, which was later found to be a lie.
He also left a highly secure document unattended on a desk in the days before he allegedly raped colleague Ms Higgins in 2019.
"It was highly classified and should never have been in my office and in his possession," Senator Reynolds told the Western Australia Supreme Court on Monday.
She said she and Ms Brown came to the opinion Lehrmann wasn't fit to hold a job in the Defence portfolio.
"He had no place in the ministerial wing and we agreed that we would take action to refer him to the security vetting agency," she said.
Ms Higgins' lawyer Rachael Young SC said her client, then 24, finally found the "courage" to speak up about the alleged rape and workplace culture at Parliament House in 2021.
"Ms Higgins had every right to give press interviews as she did on (TV show) The Project," she said.
Ms Young also targeted the claim that Ms Higgins and her husband David Sharaz created and executed a plan to use the rape and political cover-up allegations as a weapon to inflict damage on the senator and the Morrison government.
"Two young adults in their 20s, in effect, plan to bring down the Liberal government," she said.
"One doesn't need to know much about politics to know such aspirations would be, to put it mildly, bold in a representative democracy like Australia."
Ms Young rebutted as implausible the senator's claim she wasn't aware of a possible sexual assault involving Ms Higgins when the pair met on April 1, 2019, eight days after the alleged rape.
"It became increasingly clear that Ms Higgins was in significant distress," she said.
"Her (alleged) rapist had been fired.
"The notion that the senator had no suspicion of any criminal activity ... On the evidence that will not pass muster.
"She ought to have known or believed or suspected, that Ms Higgins had been sexually assaulted."
Ms Young said Senator Reynolds already knew Ms Higgins was found naked on a couch in the ministerial suite after Lehrmann "fled" Parliament House when the pair met.
"The senator suggested to Ms Higgins that she was not the right person to be talking about it," she said.
"So that's not the right response of an employer, and suggesting that Ms Higgins go and speak to someone else about it, effectively telling her to go elsewhere is not supportive and is not handling the allegation correctly."
Ms Young also addressed the 2022 and 2023 social media posts that gave rise to the defamation case, noting some were too old to be included in the legal claim.
She said Ms Higgins was arguing a defence of truth, and also qualified privilege, fair comment and honest opinion.
The senator's reputation was already "baked in" when the posts were published, Ms Young said, as she told Justice Paul Tottle that any damages awarded should be low.
Many of the senator's 20 witnesses would testify about the harm she suffered in 2021 and not 2023 when Ms Higgins' posted, the lawyer added.
Lehrmann has always denied sexually assaulting Ms Higgins. His criminal trial was aborted because of juror misconduct and Ms Higgins' mental health was cited as the reason for no retrial.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
