Probe needed on Higgins compensation decision
The emergence of highly charged text messages between Brittany Higgins and her boyfriend David Sharaz raises important questions about the behaviour of senior political figures that must be answered. The plotting and conversations revealed in the text messages are of vital public interest. They go to the heart of how politics is played and how events that are the proper preserve of the criminal justice system can be exploited for personal and political gain.
The extent of what appears to be collusion between Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz and political figures demands that a proper investigation be launched into a decision to award more than $2m in compensation to Ms Higgins with what could be considered a questionable regard for proper process.
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher is responsible for the department that paid the confidential settlement over the claim by Ms Higgins that she was not properly supported by her then boss, senator and former defence minister Linda Reynolds, and others after the alleged sexual assault.
The Albanese government barred Senator Reynolds from providing evidence in the case, threatening to tear up an agreement to pay her legal fees unless she agreed not to attend the one-day mediation.
A spokesman for Senator Gallagher has previously told The Australian: “The Minister for Finance has no decision-making role in processes around significant legal matters.” The spokesperson said 11 questions posed by The Australian “should be redirected to the Attorney-General or his department”.
However, a spokesperson for Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus declined to answer any of the questions, saying: “The parties have agreed that the terms of the settlement be confidential. All claims against the commonwealth are handled in accordance with the Legal Services Directions 2017.”
Given what is now known, it is vital that a thorough investigation take place. Senator Reynolds has said she will refer the matter to the newly formed national anti-corruption commission when it begins operations in July if no one else does.
The previously unseen text messages suggest Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz directly enlisted the help of senior Labor figures to pursue Ms Higgins’s rape allegations and the alleged attempt to cover up the rape to damage the Coalition government.
The texts reveal Mr Sharaz, a former journalist, arranging “drops” for favoured reporters, organising meetings with Labor MPs to bolster support for Ms Higgins’s claims against the Morrison government and boasting of his special relationship with now-Finance Minister Senator Gallagher. Mr Sharaz boasts that Senator Gallagher was an “old friend”.
The text messages reveal Mr Sharaz arranging meetings with major political figures following the public revelations, including with the then opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, and Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek.
Mr Albanese and Ms Plibersek made reference to the allegations dozens of times during question time in February and March 2021. On March 26, 2021, Ms Higgins boasts that then prime minister Scott Morrison is “about to be f..ked over”. “We’ve got him,” she says, according to an account of the texts.
We accept that the text messages between Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz present only one side of events. Public figures deserve a forum to put all the facts on the table. But we believe the contents of the text message conversations are of vital public importance and we publish them in the public interest so Australians can properly scrutinise them.
A proper inquiry must be held into the extent of what appears to be political collusion on the Higgins rape allegations. Taxpayers deserve to know how the decision was made to award Ms Higgins millions of dollars in compensation and exactly who was involved.
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