Two senators have told a court they heard Sarah Hanson-Young say “something along the lines” of men should stop raping women during a fiery debate in parliament last year, but that she was not referring to “all men”.
On Friday the independent senator Derryn Hinch and Stirling Griff from the Centre Alliance appeared as witnesses for the defence in the defamation battle between Hanson-Young and the former Liberal Democrats senator David Leyonhjelm.
The Greens senator is suing Leyonhjelm over interviews he gave between 28 June and 2 July to Sky News, the Melbourne radio station 3AW and the ABC’s 7.30 program, and a media statement posted on 28 June after the Senate exchange.
Leyonhjelm accused Hanson-Young of saying “words to the effect of men should stop raping women, the implication being all men are rapists”, and made comments about her sexual life.
Leyonhjelm said he had made the comments in response to an alleged claim by Hanson-Young in that debate that “all men are rapists” – a claim she denies.
On Friday Hinch told the court he heard Hanson-Young say “something along the lines of women would not need protection” in the form of pepper spray or mace “if men weren’t rapists, or if men stopped raping women”.
During cross-examination by Hanson-Young’s barrister Kieran Smark SC, Hinch was directed to an exchange on Twitter from 1 July last year in which he wrote “she didn’t” in response to a suggestion Hanson-Young called “all men rapists” in the debate.
Hinch told the court he was “paying close attention” to the debate in the Senate and was “fully confident” the Greens senator did not refer to “all men”.
He said her words were “something along the lines of protection for women wouldn’t be necessary if men stopped raping women or attacking women”.
“What was being purported to have been said by Senator Hanson-Young wasn’t true; [she] did not say all men are rapists in the Senate,” Hinch said.
Senator Griff told the court his recollection of Hanson-Young’s comments was “somewhat hampered” by his distance from her in the chamber, and the fact that he had not been playing close attention.
He said he heard “fragments” of her interjection, including the words “men, rape, raping and women in some form”.
“My takeout being men should not rape women … [I] didn’t read the words to be equivalent to all men are rapists but I saw it relating to the particular debate that was taking place or had already taken place,” he said.
Hanson-Young is claiming Leyonhjelm defamed her because his comments in the interviews and press release made her out to be a hypocrite and misandrist.
Leyonhjelm is pleading a truth defence, but in a bruising cross-examination on Thursday said it “would not be reasonable” to interpret comments about preventing men’s violence as referring to all men.
Later on Thursday he also answered “no” when challenged by Hanson-Young’s barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, on whether he still believed she was a misandrist “in that she publicly claimed that all men are rapists”.
But on Friday during re-examination by his barrister, Peter Morris QC, Leyonhjelm sought to clarify his comments, saying he had “maintained all along that I haven’t said those [were] her precise words … so I took that as literally exact, that’s why I said no”.
He said rather that he had been responding to “the meaning of what she said, but not her exact words”.
On Friday Hinch said he would have told Leyonhjelm what he believed Hanson-Young had said if he had asked him in the days following the incident.
“Yes I would, our relationship has been cordial, I’m not antagonistic towards Mr Leyonhjelm,” he said.
“It’s a common sort of thing senators do, opposing senators do, Liberal, Labor, whatever,” he said.
