Morrison, Gallagher deny misleading parliament over Higgins rape allegation
By James Massola and Paul Sakkal
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher has rejected claims she tried to use confidential information about Brittany Higgins’ rape allegation for political advantage as former prime minister Scott Morrison denied misleading parliament over his handling of the matter.
Gallagher told the Senate on Tuesday she was given information about Higgins’ allegation before it was reported in the media, but said she handled it appropriately and did not seek to weaponise it.
Both Scott Morrison and Katy Gallagher have attempted to clear the air about what they knew of Brittany Higgins’ allegations.Credit: The Age
Former defence minister Linda Reynolds has also threatened to sue federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek for suggesting she may have played a part in covering up Higgins’ alleged rape.
Reynolds confirmed her lawyers had sent a concerns notice to the minister accusing her of making false statements in an interview on the Seven Network’s Sunrise on Monday morning and demanded an apology and retraction from the environment minster.
“The central point here is that a young woman made an allegation that she had been sexually assaulted in her workplace and that it had been inappropriately investigated, even covered up by her employers,” Plibersek said in the interview.
Reynolds lawyer said the imputations were “totally false, without basis and constitute serious defamation”.
Plibersek was contacted for comment.
The opposition grilled Gallagher in Senate question time over whether she had received a transcript of Higgins’ February 15, 2021 interview with the Ten Network’s The Project, where the former Liberal staffer aired the claim she had been raped in Parliament House.
But Gallagher refused to answer, declaring she would not divulge the detail of private conversations. She also insisted she had not misled the Senate about when she knew about Higgins’ allegation.
“I received information several days before the first public reports went to air. I did nothing with that information. I was asked to keep that to myself and I did,” Gallagher told the Senate.
“Over the past week, Coalition members including those at the centre of the rape allegations have been alleging that I have misled the Senate over comments I made almost two years ago. I reject those allegations.”
Gallagher has faced a barrage of questions over her knowledge of the rape allegation before Higgins went public, following the publication of text messages indicating the Labor frontbencher was made aware in early 2021.
She said on Tuesday she had not discussed the information she received about Higgins’ allegation with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese or Foreign Minister Penny Wong nor any of their staff before the program went to air.
Earlier, Gallagher accused Coalition MPs of being “giddy” over the past fortnight as media outlets revealed communications between Higgins’ camp and Labor MPs, warning that the leaking of private texts could have a chilling effect on sexual assault victims speaking out.
“We cannot lose perspective of what matters here,” she said.
Albanese said the criticism of Gallagher was absurd and described suggestions Labor had tried to use the allegation for political advantage as a “bizarre conspiracy theory”, while Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus confirmed in the House of Representatives that Australian Federal Police was investigating the leaking of material related to the Higgins affair.
“It’s vital that victims of alleged sexual assault have confidence that if they come forward and report what happened to them they will be treated fairly by our justice system,” Dreyfus said.
He added that material produced in court in response to a subpoena was subject to an “implied undertaking” that no parties involved would use the material for purposes outside of court proceedings.
As Gallagher spoke in the Senate at noon, Morrison spoke in the House of Representatives to declare that he, too, had not misled parliament about what he knew of Higgins’ allegation.
On Saturday, The Australian reported that Morrison’s former director of operations, Fiona Brown, believed the former prime minister had misled parliament when he said he had spoken to Brown about Higgins’ claim her job had been threatened after her rape allegation.
Morrison told the chamber that Brown’s recollection of events might have been “more accurate” than his own but that he had not misled the chamber.
Brown was on loan from Morrison’s office and serving as former defence industry minister Linda Reynolds’ chief of staff in 2019, when Higgins alleges she was raped by colleague Bruce Lehrmann in Reynolds’ office. Lehrmann has always maintained his innocence and his trial was aborted in October 2022 due to juror misconduct. A retrial did not proceed due to concerns over Higgins’ mental health.
Morrison said he spoke to Brown last weekend and had reviewed the events of the parliamentary sitting week that began on February 15, 2021, when Higgins went public with her allegation.
“On the Thursday [of that week in February 2021] just before 3pm, I responded to a further question addressing these matters on that day. The question was from the then-leader of the opposition, and [he] asked whether I’d raised a statement with a staff member in my office – that is, Ms Brown – that Ms Higgins had alleged in a statement that Ms Brown had continually made her feel as if her ongoing employment would be jeopardised if she proceeded any further with the matter,” he said.
“In my response, I confirmed that I had raised the matter with a member of my staff and that was my recollection at the time.”
Morrison said his recollection differed from that of Brown but while he believed “my response to be accurate at the time, I cannot obviously fully discount that her recollection of those events now were the more accurate”.
“However, I reject absolutely any suggestion of deliberate intent in any such possible inaccuracy in my response and am pleased to have taken the first opportunity available to clarify these matters to the house,” Morrison said.
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