David Leyonhjelm's barrister has told a court his client was "the adult in the room" during his controversial appearance on Sky News in the wake of telling Senator Sarah Hanson-Young to "stop shagging men".
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
In his closing submissions Tony Morris QC told the Federal Court his client had tried to steer the discussion on the program back to the issue of women protecting themselves.
"It was the personalities on the program who focused on the more inflammatory matters," he said on Friday.
Mr Leyonhjelm is being sued by Senator Hanson-Young, who says he defamed her in a media statement and in three media interviews between June 28 and July 2, 2018 - one of which included his appearance on Sky News.
The Greens senator says Mr Leyonhjelm portrayed her as a misandrist and hypocrite in that she had sex with men despite having said words in the Senate that meant "all men are rapists".
She has denied Mr Leyonhjelm's account of what happened, saying it would be an "absurd" statement.
On Friday, Senator Derryn Hinch backed her story, saying she never said or implied that "all men are rapists" during the debate.
Senator Hinch - who was present in the chamber said he heard her say something like "women would not need protection ... if men stopped raping women".
"At no stage did Senator Hanson-Young say all men are rapists," he said.
Senator Hinch, who was subpoenaed by Mr Leyonhjelm to give evidence at the trial, had tweeted after the incident that comments made by the former Liberal Democrats senator on Sky News were "vile".
"I thought someone on Sky should have called them out at the time," he said.
Senator Hinch told the court that Mr Leyonhjelm did not contact him in the days that followed to verify what he had heard Senator Hanson-Young say.
When he did make contact, Senator Hinch told the court, it was "only by insulting text ... tweets".
"He'd (tweeted) she did (say it), I heard it, and I said she didn't," Senator Hinch said.
"And he said 'you would have probably been asleep' and that was an allusion to the fact that on the first day of parliament I fell asleep during the governor-general's address."
In his final submissions to Justice Richard White, Mr Morris also noted both Senator Hinch and Senator Stirling Griff - who also gave evidence on Friday - testified that they heard the words "rapists" or "rape" from Senator Hanson-Young.
Senator Hanson-Young previously gave evidence that she said words to the effect that "putting Tasers on the streets won't make women safer from men".
Justice White has reserved his decision.
Australian Associated Press
