After Lehrmann saga, Reynolds doubts watchdog will stop ‘weaponisation’

The Liberal senator criticised amid allegations against Bruce Lehrmann believes parliament’s new workplace watchdog will not stop the “weaponisation” of parliament as crossbenchers attack its structure as too weak to enforce a change in behaviour.

Both major parties agreed to create the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission last week to investigate complaints against badly behaved politicians, staff and others in federal parliament, but its reach stops at the doors of the Senate and House of Representatives chambers.

Senator Linda Reynolds in Parliament House last month.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Debate in those chambers is legally protected from both lawsuits and the new watchdog to allow robust discussion of the issues facing the country.

Liberal senator Linda Reynolds told this masthead she welcomed the commission’s establishment and the protection of parliamentary privilege, but that it would not prevent political attacks.

“The simple fact is that this new commission cannot protect senators, members and their staff from the political weaponisation of parliamentary privilege,” Reynolds said.

“As parliamentarians, it is hypocritical to legislate appropriate standards of behaviour for Australian workplaces, while not meeting the same standards ourselves in our own workplace.

Reynolds, then the minister for defence, cries during question time in February 2021 when Brittany Higgins’ rape allegation became public.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“Being adversarial and respectful are not mutually exclusive. It is time for senators and members to set the same standard for ourselves as we set for the rest of the nation.”

Reynolds came under intense scrutiny from Labor senators when Brittany Higgins’ rape claims were aired in 2021. The Liberal senator has previously said scrutiny over her handling of the claims represented a “political hit job” from Labor senators Katy Gallagher, Penny Wong and Kristina Keneally.

“There is no worse thing you can allege for any woman than that she has covered up the rape of another woman … that’s what they did day after day, and they knew it wasn’t true,” Reynolds told Sky in November last year.

Gallagher’s office, which has been responsible for the legislation to set up the commission, did not respond to a request for comment.

Pressure for a commission built for years in response to ministerial affairs, a boozy culture in the country’s legislature, and allegations of harassment and assault. A judge last year found Lehrmann raped Higgins in Parliament House in 2019 – on the balance of probabilities, the civil standard of proof – in a defamation action he brought against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson. A criminal trial for the rape was aborted after juror misconduct and Lehrmann has maintained his innocence.

Separately, the government agreed to fund Reynolds’ legal costs on Tuesday as she attempts to have the National Anti-Corruption Commission examine the government’s decision to settle Higgins’ personal injury claim for $2.44 million.

On Wednesday, Labor and the Coalition agreed to amend the standards commission legislation so the chair of the committee overseeing the watchdog would always be a government MP, with the opposition supplying the deputy.

The commission has to provide a report to the parliamentary privileges committee – a group of politicians – after its investigations, but does not have to make recommendations. The committee can ignore those reports.

Crossbenchers including Helen Haines, Kylea Tink and Andrew Wilkie have labelled the watchdog weak. “The government has done a grubby deal with the opposition to ensure that they continue to have a stranglehold on what goes on in this place,” Wilkie said last week.

“The whole thing’s a stitch-up, it won’t improve things and I think I speak for a great many Australians when I say this is shameful behaviour by the government and the opposition.”

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