Katy Gallagher knew Brittany Higgins’ boyfriend, David Sharaz, before payout: Linda Reynolds
Katy Gallagher, whose department paid a large settlement to Brittany Higgins, ‘knew David Sharaz’ before Ms Higgins’ rape claims became public, Linda Reynolds says.
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, whose department paid a multimillion-dollar settlement to Brittany Higgins, admitted she knew Ms Higgins’ boyfriend, David Sharaz, well before the former Liberal staffer went public with her rape allegations, Liberal senator Linda Reynolds claims. Senator Gallagher acknowledged her past association with Mr Sharaz in a private meeting with Senator Reynolds, attended by two other MPs in June 2021, and said he had warned her “something big” was going to happen, according to the former defence minister.
Senator Gallagher was responsible for the department that paid out the confidential settlement of up to $3m awarded to Ms Higgins in December over her claim she was not properly supported by Senator Reynolds and others after the alleged sexual assault by Bruce Lehrmann.
A spokesperson for Senator Gallagher told The Australian: “The Minister for Finance has no decision-making role in processes around significant legal matters.”
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.
At the time, Anthony Albanese declined to answer questions about whether it was a conflict of interest for Senator Gallagher to have oversight of the deal, given her earlier engagement on the issue and whether she should recuse herself from any involvement in it.
Labor has always denied any role in pushing the Higgins rape scandal for political gain.
But Senator Reynolds claimed she was the target of an orchestrated plot to bring down herself and the Morrison government, alleging senior Labor and media identities ruthlessly exploited her young staffer for political and personal gain.
“What happened should be of concern to all Australians, because this was clearly a political hit job on the government of the day to bring down the defence minister,” Senator Reynolds said in an exclusive interview with The Weekend Australian.
She said the late Labor senator Kimberley Kitching had confided in her that Penny Wong – now Foreign Minister – knew of the rape allegations and planned to “weaponise” them.
“She was actually quite distressed that Penny’s going to weaponise the incident,” Senator Reynolds said.
“I said, why would you do that? And you know, Kimberley agreed. She said, I’m so sorry. But she said that.”
Kitching later strongly denied leaking the information. However, Senator Reynolds reported her conversation with Kitching to the Australian Federal Police in a statement she provided during the investigation of Ms Higgins’ allegations.
Senator Reynolds said Kitching told her she first heard about the incident in an anonymous letter she had received and which she passed on to the Australian Federal Police “because that was actually the appropriate thing to do”.
“But she told me that Penny was really angry because she said ‘we could’ve used it’.”
That conversation with Kitching appears to have been still fresh in Senator Reynolds’ mind on June 4, 2021, when she fronted a Senate estimates committee, having been demoted by Scott Morrison and by then serving as minister for the NDIS, where she was grilled by senators Wong and Gallagher.
Reynolds said neither woman would normally turn up for a community affairs hearing, so “I knew I was in for it”.
After a heated exchange in which Senator Gallagher asked Senator Reynolds whether it was her decision to send Ms Higgins to Perth for the duration of the election campaign, Senator Reynolds said: “I know where this started.”
When Senator Wong and Senator Gallagher demanded she explain, Senator Reynolds said: “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.”
The two Labor senators emphatically denied the allegation, and continued to do so during a private meeting with Senator Reynolds and her colleague, then families and social services minister Anne Ruston.
“Good actors or genuine?” Senator Reynolds wrote of the Labor senators’ denials in contemporaneous diary notes.
“Either way shocked at implications. I had advised that Kimberley conversation was in my AFP statement (Penny asked if it was).”
At that point, Senator Reynolds said, she was still drafting her AFP statement, which she signed and executed on June 17, 2021.
“Katy was interesting in her admissions of being in contact with David Sharaz and also Brittany. Interesting also they blamed/speculated Brittany was behind the campaign and orchestrating it,” according to Senator Reynolds’ contemporaneous notes.
“Katy said she knew David Sharaz and was in contact with him and he had told her before it went public that it ‘would be big’. She also said she was in regular contact with Brittany (Brittany rang her) to keep her informed and was still in contact,” the notes continued.
“Penny and Katy were ‘stunned’ at Kimberley’s betrayal and said they did not know what to do about it – I noted it was not my problem but theirs and I had not used it publicly as it would have been unedifying and made matters publicly worse.
“I also explained that as a result of Kimberley’s disclosure, I assumed when [Sam] Maiden’s story and The Project happened and they went me in question time I naturally assumed it was what Kimberley told me that they were about to unleash hell on me. And it was hell – being accused of covering up the rape of a young girl in my office and care.”
Senator Ruston supported Senator Reynolds’ account of the meeting.
“They categorically denied it, said they had nothing to do with it,” Senator Ruston told The Australian. “Although Katy did make some veiled comment at the time that ‘I know David Sharaz and yes I’ve been communicating with him’, but that that was basically the size of it, you know: nothing to see here.”
Senator Gallagher’s links to Mr Sharaz would emerge again at the Lehrmann trial last October in a snippet of audio from a January 27 meeting between Ms Higgins, The Project host Lisa Wilkinson and Mr Sharaz.
“It’s a (parliamentary) sitting week when we want the story to come out,” Mr Sharaz can be heard telling Wilkinson and her producer. “Sitting week the story comes out … questions … it’s a mess for them. That’s why Britt’s picked that timeline.”
In the audio, Mr Sharaz said Senator Gallagher would probe and keep the story going in March at a Senate estimates hearing.
But at the June 2021 meeting with Senator Reynolds, the two Labor senators continued to insist they were blameless in the affair and “Brittany was orchestrating the whole campaign”.
Senator Reynolds said she reluctantly agreed they “should nip it in the bud” and that she would return to the committee and read a statement that Senator Wong dictated on her phone, accepting their assurance that “they were not involved in that matter being made public”.
Senator Reynolds now says she didn’t necessarily believe them but retracted the claim because “if they’re lying then we’ve got that line in the sand that (they) said ‘I didn’t’.”
“They each knew some aspect of the story before it went public,” she told The Australian.
Senator Reynolds recounts in her contemporaneous notes that she later saw Senator Wong in the executive club: “She was very chatty and friendly – never been before!”
But the meeting gravely damaged Senator Reynolds’ relationship with Kitching, who believed her friend had betrayed her confidence, and caused deepened hostility from Senators Wong and Gallagher, and the third member of the senior Labor group, Kristina Keneally.
Kitching was accused of leaking to the Liberals and complained of being bullied and ostracised by the three, who she dubbed “the mean girls”.
Even before Senator Reynolds’ disclosure about Kitching’s warning of the rape allegation being weaponised, Kitching had begun pursuing Senator Reynolds aggressively in question time.
“They [the three Labor senators] took an axe to Linda and Kimberley then took an axe to Linda, and Linda became her favourite punching ball from then on, I mean she was just vicious,” Senator Ruston said.
“I don’t know whether it was (to prove her loyalty) or whether it was that she was shitty with Linda for breaking her confidence because she thought she’d told Linda something in confidence.”
Kitching died from a suspected heart attack last March.
Senator Reynolds said that before her death, Kitching had apologised to her.
The Australian has seen texts between the two in which Kitching sympathises with Senator Reynolds’ plight.
“I understand. I really do. And I know you must be angry, and hurt and sad,” Senator Kitching says.
In another, Senator Reynolds says: “I have reflected often on your warning to me in Feb on what Penny was about to unleash and your genuine concern – I must confess it is impossible to reconcile with your approach since.”
Kitching responds: “I had to ask those questions because they were assigned to me. I am the shadow Assistant minister in your area. They were not written by me at all. I’m very happy to discuss this in person. And I would like to.”
Senator Reynolds now says Labor kept up the attacks after she became minister for the NDIS because they were disappointed Scott Morrison had kept her in the ministry.
“Because it was a sort of scalp … and I think they were just really pissy – they hadn’t quite killed me off,” she said.
Senator Reynolds said Australians need to think about the implications of the Department of Finance compensation process that led to the large settlement with Ms Higgins.
Neither Senator Reynolds nor Liberal Party frontbencher Michaelia Cash, on whose staff Ms Higgins later served, was asked for evidence that contested Ms Higgins’ claims.
“Any other Australian has to lodge a claim and it takes time and the claim is tested,” Senator Reynolds said.
“I think there are legitimate questions here – it doesn’t appear that a formal claim was required to be lodged.
“I was surprised and incredibly disappointed that I was barred from defending myself against any allegations and surprised that it didn’t appear any such allegations were tested.”
A spokesperson for Senator Gallagher said Senator Reynolds’ claims were untrue but declined to answer detailed questions from The Australian about her association and conversations with Mr Sharaz and Ms Higgins, including any conversations about any potential or actual civil claim by Ms Higgins against the federal government.
Senator Gallagher also declined to answer questions about whether it was appropriate for her as Finance Minister to sign off on the confidential settlement under these circumstances and why Senator Reynolds was instructed not to attend the mediation.
The spokesperson said the questions “should be redirected to the Attorney-General or his department as they relate to a significant matter under a legal services direction or legal processes”.
In a joint statement, Senator Gallagher and Senator Wong said:
“Senator Reynolds has also previously acknowledged, on the public record, that these claims are untrue.
“People will decide for themselves why Senator Reynolds has now changed her story. Senator Wong and Senator Gallagher’s long track records of integrity speak for themselves.
“Serious allegations were made and it was entirely appropriate for Senator Wong and Senator Gallagher to ask reasonable questions of the then Morrison Government about how they responded. Both senators always ensured that Ms Higgins’ wellbeing was front of mind and respected when pursuing this issue.”
Mr Lehrmann’s trial on rape charges was aborted last October due to juror misconduct.
Mr Lehrmann pleaded not guilty and has at all times denied the allegations.
The Director of Public Prosecutions has now withdrawn the charges.
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