Kimberley Kitching warned Katy Gallagher about her ties to Brittany Higgins
Senator Kimberley Kitching warned now-Finance Minister Katy Gallagher that her contact with Brittany Higgins and David Sharaz could blow up in Labor’s face.
NSW
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Embattled Finance Minister Katy Gallagher exchanged messages with Brittany Higgins’s partner during Senate Question Time on the day news first broke of the former Liberal staffer’s alleged rape, and was later warned by a colleague she was too close to the couple.
Senator Gallagher is under pressure to explain when she first knew about Ms Higgins’ allegations that she was raped in the ministerial office of then-Defence Industry Minister Senator Reynolds in March 2019.
In June 2021 Ms Gallagher told a Senate Estimates hearing “no one had any knowledge” of Ms Higgins’ claims until they were made public in February 2021.
At the same hearing, Senator Penny Wong also denied knowledge of the allegations before they were published.
But text messages published this week by The Australian appear to show that on February 11, 2021, four days before Ms Higgins’ allegations broke, Mr Sharaz texted his partner.
In the texts he said, “Katy is going to come to me with some questions you need to prepare for … She’s really invested now ha ha”.
In another text he also described her as “an old friend”. “We opened a chair together! So you can trust her,” he said.
Ms Gallagher has gone to ground since the text messages were published and did not respond to questions.
On Friday Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told Sunrise TV show that he was “absolutely” confident Senator Gallagher did not mislead parliament.
Instead he pointed fingers at the Liberal Party.
“What is being suggested here by Peter Dutton, you had allegations by a Liberal staffer that another Liberal staffer had a sexual assault in a Liberal minister’s office and, somehow, Katy Gallagher has some responsibility for what was going on here? This is bizarre,” he said.
News Corp can reveal that Victorian Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching, who died in March 2022, was distressed at the decision of her party’s leadership to use the Higgins allegations as a stick to beat the Morrison government.
She later confronted Senator Gallagher about the amount of contact she was having with Mr Higgins and Mr Sharaz because she feared it could blow up in Labor’s face if it ever became public.
Senator Kitching later told friends that Senator Gallagher had defended her interactions with the couple as “a welfare check”.
A senate colleague said that Senator Kitching had been “deeply uncomfortable” with the Labor leadership’s decision to “weaponise” Ms Higgins’s allegations.
Senator Gallagher and Senator Wong’s denial that they were aware of Ms Higgins allegations came at a Senate Estimates hearing during which Senator Linda Reynolds alleged she had been warned that Labor had foreknowledge of the allegations and intended to use them against her.
“I was told by one of your senators two weeks before about what you were intending to do with the story in my office. Two weeks before,” she told the hearing.
In a break in the hearing Senator Reynolds later told Senators Gallagher and Wong that she had received the warning from Senator Kitching.
Senator Kitching maintained that she did not warn Senator Reynolds and could not have done so because at the time she was not aware of the allegations.
Senator Reynolds’ allegations against Senator Kitching resulted in her being banished from Labor’s Senate tactics committee.
She later dubbed Senator Gallagher and Wong, as well as then Senator Kristina Keneally, as “the mean girls”.
Sources familiar with the events of that time recalled this week that Senator Gallagher had exchanged messages with Mr Sharaz during Senate Question Time on February 15, 2021.
During that Question Time Senator Gallagher peppered Senator Reynolds with questions about her interactions with Ms Higgins in the immediate aftermath of the alleged assault.
In the same Estimates hearing, in June 2021, Senator Wong responded angrily to Senator Reynolds' allegations she had been warned by a Labor senator two weeks before the allegations became public.
“I had no knowledge of this until that night,” she said.
Meanwhile, on Friday deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley said “if anyone, a politician, or a journalist, sought to politically profit from a rape allegation then that is just morally bankrupt”.
Ms Ley called on Senator Gallagher to reveal if she actually had “no knowledge of the allegations prior to them becoming public”.
Yesterday, Northern Territory Senator Jacinta Price also slammed the remarks made about her in a five-hour audio recording revealed this week as “derogatory and racist comments”.
Senator Price says she was most offended when they suggested she was a “diversity pick”, and demanded Channel 10 and Wilkinson apologise.
Evidence revealed during the criminal trial suggested that Ms Higgins received support from her former employers in the Morrison government, raising questions about the Commonwealth’s decision to pay compensation.
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