Samantha Maiden to release a new book into toxic Canberra bubble culture

Samantha Maiden has signed a book deal that promises to deliver fresh revelations about the toxic culture inside both the major political parties.

HarperCollins Publishers Australia has acquired world rights to a new book by news.com.au political editor Samantha Maiden. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

The inside story of the sexual misconduct allegations that rocked Parliament House inspiring a new generation of women to tell their stories and a bruising political fallout for Prime Minister Scott Morrison is the subject of a new book to be released in 2022.

News.com.au political editor Samantha Maiden, who broke the story of Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins alleged rape at Parliament House in February, has signed a new book deal that promises to deliver fresh revelations about the toxic culture inside both the major political parties.

HarperCollins Publishers Australia announced on Monday it has acquired world rights to a new book by the Walkley Award-journalist in a hotly contested auction brokered by Jeanne Ryckmans of Cameron’s Management.

Probing the fallout over the rape allegations at Parliament House including the growing list of senior Morrison Government ministers and staffers who were entangled in the crisis, the book will reveal the untold story of a moment in history that dominated the headlines for weeks and the mass rallies that followed.

But it will also examine former Attorney-General Christian Porter’s now-discontinued defamation fight with the ABC over a historic rape allegation that he denies, insisting he was the victim of a false claim that destroyed his career.

Maiden attended school in Adelaide with Mr Porter’s accuser in the late 1980s and later university, providing a new insight into the Adelaide woman’s life and trials and her circle of well-connected university friends who would lead the campaign for an inquiry into the allegations more than 30 years later.

This is Maiden’s second book. She also wrote Party Animals, a book that probed the Labor Party’s shock defeat at the 2019 election.

Samantha Maiden.

Maiden’s first book, Party Animals.

“I am honoured to be working with HarperCollins on a book that will examine the fearless Australian women who ignited a movement by refusing to be silenced by powerful men and the institutions that protect them,” Maiden said.

“This is a book that will deliver new revelations and shine a light on allegations of abuse and misconduct in the both Labor Party and the Liberal Party, inspired by a new generation who refuse to play by the old rules. It will examine the role of journalism, the spin doctors and lawyers who tried to stop them, and the courage of women whose stories are so powerful they are changing Australia.”

Publisher Mary Rennie said, “The match that Samantha Maiden lit with her revelations about Brittany Higgins has become a bonfire, a reckoning, a rallying call to women, and an astonishing story of entitlement, cover up and misogyny. I am so thrilled to be publishing this critically important book which will give us the bigger picture of what is probably the country’s most intractable institution.”

Maiden is a finalist in the Walkley Foundation’s Mid-Year awards for journalism for her work on the Brittany Higgins story in two categories: the June Andrews Award for Women’s Leadership in Media and the Our Watch Awards, administered by the Walkley’s for excellence in the reporting of violence against women and children.

Maiden’s book will be published by HarperCollins in March 2022. Sign up to Maiden’s weekly newsletter, Party Games, for a must-read political briefing.