Labor minister Katy Gallagher rejects Linda Reynolds apology request over Brittany Higgins scandal
Outgoing Coalition senator Linda Reynolds has asked Finance Minister Katy Gallagher to apologise for the ‘damage that’s been wrought’ on her personal and professional life through Labor’s scrutiny over the Brittany Higgins scandal.
Outgoing Coalition senator Linda Reynolds has asked Finance Minister Katy Gallagher to apologise for the “damage that’s been wrought” on her personal and professional life through Labor’s scrutiny over the Brittany Higgins scandal, declaring there had been a “conscious decision” to weaponise Ms Higgins’ rape allegations.
Ms Higgins was a staffer for then defence minister Senator Reynolds when she alleged she had been raped by her colleague Bruce Lehrmann in Senator Reynolds’ office.
The scandal, which prompted a series of legal battles including a civil trial at which the judge ruled Mr Lehrmann had likely raped Ms Higgins, began in 2021.
At the time, Senator Gallagher and other Labor figures pressed Senator Reynolds on what she knew of the assault and when, which the Coalition senator described as bullying and harassment.
In her last Senate estimates before exiting politics, Senator Reynolds asked Senator Gallagher if she would now apologise for the damage done.
“As this is most likely my last Senate estimates, I just want to ask you, minister, will you now apologise – not just to me but to my staff and my family – for all of the damage that has been wrought on them by you and by others in the Labor Party?”
Senator Gallagher told her opposition colleague she was “sorry that you have been hurt by all of this” but maintained her questions were “reasonable”.
“I’ve gone back and had a look at the questions I’ve asked, and I believe the questions I’ve asked … when you were a minister and accountable for what happened in your office were reasonable,” she said.
“I consider these things deeply.”
Senator Reynolds asked if that was “a no” to a formal apology, to which Senator Gallagher replied: “That’s not a no.”
“You were a minister, you were accountable for what happened in your office, and we asked questions about an alleged sexual assault in this building,” she continued.
“And I would believe that other senators in a similar circumstance would ask exactly the same questions.
“But did I seek to cause harm to you or anyone else? No. I asked questions that I think most people expect would have been asked with such serious allegations about what has happened in this building.
Senator Reynolds promptly left the hearing following the exchange, declaring that “to this day I cannot understand how (Senator Gallagher) and her Labor colleagues thought it appropriate to so publicly interfere” with the allegations at the time.
“(They did) so in a way that was nothing short of an egregious example of bullying and harassment,” she said.
“There were other, more professional, more appropriate and more sensitive ways that she could have inquired about allegations of serious ministerial misconduct but she and her colleagues chose the path that best suited their own political agenda without a care in the world for the devastating trail of human consequences left behind.”
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