Finance Minister Katy Gallagher faces questions over advice she gave to Brittany Higgins

Coalition demands Katy Gallagher reveal whether she advised Brittany Higgins to go to police before making rape allegation public.

Labor Senator Katy Gallagher. Picture: Justin Benson-Cooper/The West Australian

The Coalition is demanding ­Finance Minister Katy Gallagher reveal whether she advised former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins to co-operate with police before making her rape allegation public, as Anthony Albanese faces his toughest parliamentary week since winning government.

Liberal senator Linda Reynolds, Ms Higgins’ boss at the time the alleged rape occurred, is among Coalition MPs calling on Senator Gallagher to be clear on whether she suggested Ms Higgins make a formal complaint to police upon being told of the allegations days before they were ­revealed in the media.

With the Coalition set to pursue Labor’s handling of Ms Higgins’ allegations in Senate question time on Tuesday, Senator Reynolds said there also needed to be more transparency from Foreign Minister Penny Wong.

The questions come as new audio from Ms Higgins’s five-hour pre-interview discussion with Ten Network presenter Lisa Wilkinson reveals she was “too scared” to immediately go to police in 2019 on the alleged rape due to the political nature of her job with the Coalition.

“I was always very cognisant of the fact that the moment this was reported, this will be a story,” she says in the recording.

“Not because of me, not because of Bruce (Lehrmann), but on the basis of a) where it happened and b) who I worked for. And I was always hyper-conscious of the media commodification of my story and I was scared of it.”

Senator Wong claimed that despite being made aware of an ­incident in late 2020, she was not told the name of the complainant nor any further details.

Senator Reynolds said the ­actions of Labor frontbenchers needed to be scrutinised. “I question what they did to ensure Brittany was supported when they first found out about the rape allegations and then subsequently through the months they amplified her story to great political ­effect in and out of the parliament,” she said on Monday.

“Now that the criminal trial is over, I think the same questions they asked of me in 2021 could now be asked of them.”

In the days after Ms Higgins’ alleged rape, Senator Reynolds encouraged her then-staff member to pursue a police complaint.

Opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price called on ­Senator Gallagher to resign as minister, accusing her of misleading parliament. “There has been an allegation of rape and that allegation has ­absolutely been exploited for political purposes … Senator Gallagher can attempt to spin and deny as much as she wants,” Senator Price told Sky News. “She needs to just admit to her wrongdoing and resign.”  

Coalition cabinet member Barnaby Joyce said it was clear Senator Gallagher should have encouraged Ms Higgins to go to police. “If you have knowledge of a crime there are a whole bunch of things you need to do, but one is not to ventilate it in the parliament,” he told The Australian.

“What should have happened is only to give one piece of advice, which is go straight to the police, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

“If you don’t, you don’t give the plaintiff the chance at a fair trial and the defendant the chance of a fair trial, as every utterance in the public realm could affect a fair trial. They’re not babes in the woods on this stuff, but they had something to motivate them more, which was to create political damage.”

The Prime Minister and senior government MPs have dug in ­behind Senator Gallagher and are backing her denials she misled parliament in 2021 when she ­declared “no one” knew about the allegations before they were published by News Corp Australia and Network 10’s The Project.

Senator Gallagher’s prior knowledge of the allegations was revealed in The Australian last week through leaked text message exchanges between Ms Higgins and partner David Sharaz.

Senator Gallagher is claiming she did not mislead the Senate ­because she was “responding to an assertion that was being made by minister Reynolds at the time that we had known about this for weeks and had made a decision to weaponise it”.

The issue is likely to dominate parliament this week as the ­government also faces headaches over inflation, interest rate rises and gaining Senate support for the Housing Australia Future Fund.

The ability of the Coalition to launch a Senate inquiry into whether Senator Gallagher misled parliament was dealt a blow on Monday after key crossbencher Jacqui Lambie said the debate was “getting very nasty”. “I want it removed from the Senate,” she said.

Jim Chalmers and senior ministers Tanya Plibersek and Murray Watt hailed Senator Gallagher as among the most honest representatives in parliament. “The idea that Katy Gallagher has misled the Senate is frankly ­absurd. And more than that, the idea that Katy hasn’t acted with utmost integrity and diligence is equally absurd,” the Treasurer said.