It is a case that has shaken Australian politics to its core. An allegation of rape in the nation’s parliament, levelled by a government staffer against a colleague, has led to senior ministers appearing before court, triggered a slew of internal reviews and forced a reckoning over the gendered dynamic and toxic atmosphere plaguing an ecosystem devoid of workplace protections.
While Brittany Higgins’ story has become a mainstay of Australia’s political discourse, in recent days it has taken an extraordinary turn. Last week, before a retrial after the first was abandoned due to juror misconduct, the prosecution of the accused man, Bruce Lehrmann, was aborted out of concern for Higgins’ mental health.
Lehrmann had pleaded not guilty to one charge of sexual intercourse without consent and at all times maintained his innocence and denied that any sexual activity occurred between himself and Higgins.
Now, the matter is likely to spill over into a civil case by Higgins against previous government ministers, with a potential multimillion-dollar compensation bill, and defamation claims by Lehrmann against the media and public figures who spoke out about the allegations.
It has also exposed shortcomings of Australia’s justice system in dealing with sexual assault claims, especially those at the centre of intense media scrutiny.
The firestorm
On 15 February 2021, Higgins made public the accusations and set off a firestorm. In a sit-down interview, she detailed how after an evening work function in Canberra in March 2019, when she was 24, she and Lehrmann returned to Parliament House, intoxicated, in the early hours of the morning.
During the trial, the court heard that Higgins alleged that the pair entered the office of her then boss, Linda Reynolds – a senior member of the conservative Liberal party and coalition that was then in government – where Lehrmann raped her.
Higgins claimed she lost consciousness and woke up on a sofa in the office to find Lehrmann on top of her. Lehrmann has repeatedly denied this version of events.
The court heard that records showed Lehrmann left parliament about an hour after arriving, and that a security guard found Higgins naked on the sofa hours later.
At the time, Reynolds was the minister for defence industry; she would become defence minister two months later and was still in that role at the time Higgins went public with her allegations.
The claim rocked Australia. In addition to the allegation of rape in such a senior office in the seat of Australia’s parliament, there were questions about how the incident had been handled.
In the days after the incident, the pair were questioned separately by their bosses about entering the office after hours. Lehrmann’s employment was soon terminated. Higgins raised a complaint with federal police but said she halted it out of fear that it would anger her superiors.
Higgins later transferred to work for another Liberal party minister. In the month before going to the media with her story, she quit her job and approached police to reopen the matter.
Less than a day after the story broke, questions were raised about who in government had known about the allegations. Higgins claimed she had raised the rape allegation with her bosses, but the ministers she worked for denied having been told.
Higgins’ story kickstarted a wave of revelations. Media soon reported a past rape allegation levelled against the then attorney general, who strenuously denied the claims and went on to start defamation proceedings against the national broadcaster. Claims surfaced of affairs between other ministers and staffers, and inappropriate touching.
After Higgins’ claims aired, there was a protest march to the lawns of Australia’s parliament house to draw attention to the treatment of women. Higgins addressed the rally wearing suffragette white.
By this point, multiple inquiries had been launched, including into workplace culture for parliamentary workers, and into who knew what in the prime minister’s office.
A defamation suit had sprung up over comments that Reynolds allegedly made, which she did not deny, calling Higgins a “lying cow” over Higgins’ claims that Reynolds did not support her former staffer in the aftermath of the incident. The comments were allegedly made in Reynolds’ office, overheard by department workers present on secondment, and were later reported in the media. Reynolds and Higgins settled the matter, with Reynolds paying damages.
This caused further headaches for the prime minister Scott Morrison’s government, which was struggling to defend itself from claims that it was unpopular with women.
Prof Catharine Lumby, the head of the University of Sydney’s media department and a longtime gender equality advocate, said Higgins’ case provoked an examination of the discrimination that women have encountered in Australia’s political circles and in workplaces more broadly.
She said Higgins’ allegations, as they related to parliament, carried a certain gravity that demanded a response from the highest levels. “There is no question we have gone through a cultural reckoning in this country as a result of Brittany Higgins’ story and all those young women who followed,” Lumby said.
Lumby believes Higgins’ case became “a crucible in which a whole lot of other issues got swept up”, and the government’s handling of it angered women, which contributed to women abandoning the Morrison government in this year’s election.
The trial
Meanwhile, the legal case against Lehrmann slowly progressed. The trial began in October this year, but after prolonged deliberations the jury was dismissed after the court learned a juror had brought outside evidence about the matter into deliberations. A retrial was slated for next year.
However, last Friday, the retrial was dropped. The director of public prosecutions, Shane Drumgold, said independent medical evidence suggested there was a “significant and unacceptable risk to the life of the complainant” if a second trial was pursued.
Suppression orders were later lifted, making public that Higgins had had a mental health crisis during the first trial when giving evidence.
Without the prospect of a retrial, Lehrmann remains entitled to the presumption of innocence. The saga has prompted questions about how alleged victims navigate Australia’s justice system. Higgins is calling for legal reform, saying she had not fully understood the country’s “asymmetrical criminal justice system” before she raised the rape allegation.
The role of the media in reporting cases of high public interest is also in the spotlight. Several News Corp outlets have been critical of the role some journalists were playing in the story. This week its national broadsheet, the Australian, highlighted calls for Drumgold to resign over the trial.
In his announcement last Friday, Drumgold said: “During the investigation and trial, as a sexual assault complainant, Ms Higgins has faced a level of personal attack that I have not seen in over 20 years of doing this work. She’s done so with bravery, grace and dignity, and it is my hope that this will now stop.”
Higgins is expected to launch a civil case against Reynolds, another minister she worked for, and the government, seeking a rumoured $3m in compensation. Reynolds has indicated she wants to fight the claim.
Lehrmann is understood to be considering his own possible legal remedies in relation to media reporting on the matter.
