Andrew Bolt: Higgins case highlights failings of recent Liberal governments

There’s something weird and worrying about the Brittany Higgins case the helps to explain one of the worst failures of the recent Liberal governments.

There’s something weird and worrying about the Brittany Higgins rape case that’s been treated as normal.

The two people involved, both Liberal staffers at the time, were so young – yet were advising and assisting the minister in charge of the defence of this country.

Maybe Canberra reporters don’t make a big thing about this because it’s how things usually are there, but to me it helps to explain one of the worst failures of the recent Liberal governments.

Higgins was just 24 when, she claims, she was raped by Liberal colleague Bruce Lehrmann. Lehrmann was even younger – only 23.

Higgins said she was “as drunk as she’d ever been” at the time, and Lehrmann said his own drunkenness was “moderate”, and both had gone back to Parliament House at 1:30am after a night on the turps.

Oh, they’re just young and stupid, you might say. Or worse. But consider what they were paid to do.

The Higgins case highlighted the number of junior staffers who were working in Linda Reynolds’ office. Picture: Getty

Lehrmann told police he’d worked in Parliament for six years, becoming the “most senior staffer” to Linda Reynolds when she was Assistant Minister for Home Affairs,

He followed Reynolds when Prime Minister Scott Morrison made her Defence Minister in 2019, and “was there to receive the advice of departments and write good policy”, sometimes working 14 to 15-hour days.

Now I’m 63, I reckon the chances of getting good policy from a 23-year-old, especially after a 15-hour day, are low.

As for Higgins, she did administration, liaison and media briefs for Reynolds.

That’s more like what you’d entrust to a gifted 24-year-old, if the office included experienced people for guidance.

But Higgins said “it was just like a bunch of 28-year-olds running around the office... It was weird.”

Yes, some ministers have very experienced staff, but a survey of the top jobs – chiefs of staff and advisers – in the Rudd, Gillard, Abbott and Turnbull governments showed most women were recruited when they were under 30, and most men under 35. Of the men, 14 per cent were under 25.

I hear excuses. Who else would work for a minister for that money? With those crazy hours? With all that shuffling between Canberra and their home state?

But this can’t be good for the country, and to me helps explain why Reynolds was such a hopeless Defence Minister, like her predecessor, Marise Payne.

Noticed we’re now critically short of the right weapons for our defence, with China threatening war? Who’s advising these ministers?