Thursday 6 October 2022 11:34 PM Brittany Higgins, Bruce Lehrmann rape trial to hear of secret recording of call ... trends now

Brittany Higgins will be questioned about a secret recording she made of a conversation with a senior Liberal minister, as her high-profile rape trial continues.

The former Liberal staffer is the first witness in the criminal trial of Bruce Lehrmann, who she alleges sexually assaulted her inside Parliament House after a boozy night out in March, 2019.

Mr Lehrmann has appeared in the ACT's Supreme Court in Canberra on all four days of the trial so far, having pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual intercourse without consent.

On Thursday, the court heard Ms Higgins secretly recorded a phone conversation with her former boss and then-employment minister Michaelia Cash in 2021, which she described as 'the weirdest call of my life'.

Ms Higgins initially worked for former defence minister Linda Reynolds, but took a job as a junior media advisor with Senator Cash after the 2019 election.

Ms Higgins, now 27, told the court under cross-examination that the senator was pretending she didn't know about the alleged rape during the phone call - despite having spoken about it previously. 

'It was ridiculous. It was the weirdest phone call I have ever had in my life,' she said.

Defence lawyer Steven Whybrow put to Ms Higgins that she had sent the recording to multiple people, including journalists, to begin backgrounding for the story.

But Ms Higgins said it was for her legal protection, so she could corroborate her story.

'I was trying to give [the recording] to as many people as possible to have them just so that they existed,' she said. 

'It's my word against a cabinet minister's, and the power disparity between those two is ridiculous.'