Vikki Campion: Why those pulling the strings behind Higgins case have fooled us all

After nearly three decades in parliament and as head of Labor tactics, Anthony Albanese should have encouraged his team to engage in healthy scepticism before they tied their strings to Brittany Higgins’ boyfriend David Sharaz, writes Vikki Campion.

Labelling David Sharaz as the puppet master may prove to be true, but if so, it was senior Labor Party figures who opportunistically chose to be marionettes and tied their strings to him.

His texts revel in his belief that “we exude power” but the puppets were in the chamber first and now face serious questions about their war-gaming rape allegations and cover-up. Now we are expected to believe – in Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s denials – that Sharaz, a guy who used the names of Labor leaders as table numbers at his first wedding, didn’t have any aspirations to endear himself to Labor?

That a guy whose digital footprint fawns over Labor luminaries, as far back as his reporting on Albanese playing tennis on the parliamentary courts, had only motives unguided by prejudice?

When someone is so enthused with a Labor identity that he tweets his deepest sympathies for their child catching Covid, you start to question their clinical analysis.

After nearly three decades in parliament and as head of Labor tactics, Albanese should have encouraged his team to engage in healthy scepticism before they tied their strings to Sharaz.

Only Sharaz knows what motivated him when he allegedly took his girlfriend’s interview days before it aired and gave it to opposition senator Katy Gallagher to prime the explosion for question time.

David Sharaz allegedly took Brittany Higgins’ interview and gave it to Katy Gallager. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

But Gallagher wasn’t taking it for any other woman alleging she had been sexually assaulted – just one so closely connected to her party’s political fortune.

If Gallagher and Labor’s tacticians had wanted justice for a young woman claiming she had been raped in Parliament House, they should only have encouraged her to talk to her solicitor.

If you wanted the best for her in a pastoral form, the advice would have been exactly what her former chief of staff, Fiona Brown, did to support her to go to the police for justice.

Not to remonstrate it through TVs and the halls of Parliament but to keep her word confidential for the best chance of a fair trial.

Even now, in training delivered in Parliament House to deal with sexual assault, if someone confides in you, you are expected to keep it confidential, not to blab it to media elites and Labor figures so they can weaponise it for their political advantage.

It’s at odds with Brittany Higgins’s complaint of being silenced.

But then again, after Labor won the election, she silenced herself by signing a non-disclosure agreement to pocket a seven-figure undisclosed amount from the taxpayer.

Still today, the same people are fighting to access Freedom of Information requests about investigations pertaining to their own cases. There were no gin and tonics with Lisa Wilkinson for them, no supportive phone calls from Lucy Turnbull, no offers to front the National Press Club or elites offering use of their mansion or promising access into airport lounges.

Out of the basket of cases bubbling in that building, this was selected because it had the potential to create the most political damage.

We believed her story because it struck similar tones to those we knew first-hand, only to learn not only were the allegations that she had received no support after disclosing the alleged rape not true at all, but that in casting them, the lives and political careers of those who offered every support – support others never had – were turned upside down.

Katy Gallagher should have encouraged Brittany Higgins to talk to her solicitor. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Like most puppet shows, the trick was to hide the strings.

In this case, the marionettes got applause and were voted into office, where Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus quickly signed a seven-figure payout.

He claims this is in line with other payouts – which, if true, he should also disclose.

We know, in this instance, it was enough to go to London and the Maldives and for the “puppet master” to quit his gig reading radio news.

Now that there is a growing suspicion we have been treated as mugs, we should know on what grounds the payment was made and how much it was because those Comcare claims were not forthcoming to other victims of Parliament House, who were instead left with enormous legal bills.

Strings or not, part of the story is true. I still believe a young woman was taken advantage of by political animals – it’s just not who we were told they were.