Brittany Higgins has accused her former boss, Senator Linda Reynolds, of employing a "scare tactic" by summoning her to a meeting in the room where she had allegedly been raped at Parliament House.
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The former Liberal staffer told the ACT Supreme Court on Thursday about why she did not pursue a formal police complaint until nearly two years after Bruce Lehrmann allegedly raped her in March 2019.
Lehrmann is currently on trial, having pleaded not guilty to a charge of sexual intercourse without consent.
He denies claims of any sexual activity with Ms Higgins in the office of Senator Reynolds, for whom they both worked at the time.
From the witness stand, Ms Higgins told the court about attending "four big, formal" meetings about the alleged sexual assault in the days after it was said to have occurred.
One of these was with Senator Reynolds, the defence industry minister at the time, and chief of staff Fiona Brown, in the office where Lehrmann had allegedly raped Ms Higgins on a couch a week earlier.
Ms Higgins said Senator Reynolds initially showed genuine empathy and apologised to her.
"I didn't think he was capable of something like that," Senator Reynolds said, according to Ms Higgins.
But Ms Higgins said the conversation quickly shifted to the looming federal election, claiming Senator Reynolds and Ms Brown "stated that they were concerned about me going to the police".
The pair said they wanted to be informed if there was to a be a formal police complaint, she added.
"My interpretation of that was that if I raised it with police, there were going to be problems," Ms Higgins told the court.
The alleged rape victim went on to describe the meeting as an "intense and loaded conversation" in what felt like "quite an adversarial space", adding that the choice of venue felt like "a scare tactic".
"Just by having the meeting in the room, it all seemed really off," Ms Higgins said.
She left the meeting with the impression Liberal figures feared that, if the alleged rape became known to the media, reporting may add to public perceptions the party had a problem with women.
Ms Higgins later told the court about meeting with Australian Federal Police officers, at Parliament House, on the same day as the discussion with Senator Reynolds and Ms Brown.
The matter was referred to ACT Policing investigators, who spoke to her a week later about when and how a formal statement might be taken.
But Ms Higgins subsequently emailed a detective to say she did not want to go ahead with a complaint.
She told the court she made this decision because she felt pressure from her workplace.
"It became really apparent that it was my job on the line, so I toed the party line and decided not to proceed at that time," she said.
Ms Higgins added that she had spent her entire life to that point working to reach the position she held.
"This was my dream," she told the court.
"Why was I going to let this person take that away from me?"
Ms Higgins later worked for Senator Michaelia Cash before pursuing a police complaint last year.
The trial continues.
