Two women intent on vindication ensure Higgins affair haunts Labor

The extraordinary Brittany Higgins saga, probably one of the biggest Australian political scandals of our time and devastating for multiple people, returned this week to the margin of public attention when one of the legal cases was in the Federal Court.

The alleged 2019 rape of Higgins, a staffer of then-defence industry minister Linda Reynolds, has claimed or tarnished the careers of countless political, legal and media figures. The tentacles continue to reach through the legal system.

As Katy Barnett, professor of law at Melbourne Univerity, a follower of the affair’s twists and turns, puts it, “The omnishambles continues to shamble along”.

Higgins accused fellow staffer Bruce Lehrmann of raping her in Reynolds’ parliament house office. Although he denied it, in 2024 a judge in a civil case found, on the balance of probabilities, he did so. An earlier criminal trial miscarried because of a juror’s misconduct.

The story broke publicly with Higgins’ interviews in 2021 in two media outlets. In the runup to the 2022 election the Albanese opposition, especially its Senate team of Penny Wong, Katy Gallagher (who had been tipped off about the story) and Kristina Keneally, claimed a cover-up by the Morrison government.

Labor relentlessly targeted Reynolds. A blindsided Scott Morrison threw Reynolds and her 2019 chief of staff Fiona Brown, who had been closely involved in the handling of the matter at the time, under the political bus.

After the election in 2022, the new Labor government signed off on a $2.4 million settlement for Higgins.

Reynolds currently has a case on foot against the Commonwealth over this settlement, based on the fact she was excluded from putting her side of the story when it was being concluded. Reynolds is also pursuing Higgins for awarded funds after winning a defamation case against her, relating to what she posted on social media.

Brown has a fair work case against the Commonwealth, claiming she was not accorded a duty of care when in the Morrison office, where she was working in 2021.

On Monday this week the Brown case was back in court. The Commonwealth hired leading barrister Kate Eastman, SC, for the hearing. Given its procedural nature, the level of Commonwealth legal representation raised some eyebrows. Even the judge observed the “heavy representation for a consent order”.

A trial, with a possible length of four weeks, has been set for 2027.

The Commonwealth’s determination to fight the Brown case is noteworthy, especially as it relates to what the Morrison office did or didn’t do, not to actions by the Albanese government. Sources say this is usual Commonwealth practice, as the employer.

Two separate judges have blown the “cover-up” claims out of the water: Federal Court judge Michael Lee last year and Western Australian Supreme Court judge Paul Tottle this year. Lee said:

when examined properly and without partiality, the cover-up allegation was objectively short on facts, but long on speculation and internal inconsistencies – trying to particularise it during the evidence was like trying to grab a column of smoke.

Albanese is extremely sensitive about the matter. This came out when he was questioned last week in Perth. He dodged and fobbed off questions.

When it was put to him, “Should your senators who led the charge of a Liberal Party cover-up over the Higgins case, apologise to Ms Reynolds?” he said, “Well, that’s not right. I don’t accept that characterisation.” It is hard to see how the “characterisation” was not accurate.

The prime minister must know what is obvious to most people who take a dispassionate view: there was no cover-up and the information we have indicates Reynolds and Brown behaved reasonably in the circumstances.

But many are reluctant to acknowledge the two women have been, on what’s on the record, badly done by.

Many players have vested interests, including Labor and some in the media.

From Labor’s point of view, the affair provided it with electoral fodder; some in Labor appear to have the attitude that if there were political opponents who unfairly became victims, so be it. Labor will do all it can to avoid being held to account retrospectively. It wants to throw a blanket over its part in the political aspects of the affair.

The media are divided. The Australian newspaper has pursued the matter to the point of obsession, and has ventilated the grievances of Reynolds and Brown. Some other parts of the media have taken little interest in later developments, seeing it as yesterday’s story or turning a blind eye. Obviously, sections of the media were key participants in the original story (news.com.au, the Network Ten) or dealt themselves into subsequent chapters (the Australian).

More fundamentally, three issues have been conflated, affecting judgements and coverage initially and later: the alleged rape, the politicisation of the affair when the story broke, and its blending into the wider Me Too movement. The Higgins story triggered marches around the country, including a large demonstration outside parliament house; it brought to the surface a wide range of grievances many Australian women felt.

The failure to separate these distinct but intertwined strands has worked against Reynolds and Brown being accorded a fair go.

For example, independent MP Zali Steggall, expressing support for Higgins this week, said the “continued harassment and pursuing of this issue is disgusting”.

Higgins is under tremendous pressure after all she has endured and continues to go through. But that doesn’t negate the reasonable desire by Reynolds and Brown to seek justice for themselves. Brown’s health in particular was broken by what happened to her. Justice Lee found Brown had been unfairly vilified, and highlighted her integrity.

Calls for an inquiry are futile and counterproductive. There is plenty of evidence in the public arena – it’s just that some people want to ignore, or fail to acknowledge, the inconvenient truths contained in parts of it.