The defence minister, Linda Reynolds, says she had no contact with the staffer alleged to have raped Brittany Higgins since he was sacked, and did not give him a reference for a public relations job, but has refused to reveal whether his termination payout was withheld on grounds of “serious misconduct”.
Labor will attempt on Thursday morning to force Reynolds to provide a 15-minute statement to the Senate about her handling of the Higgins case, as the government faces mounting pressure to divulge key details of what it knew about the allegations and its response.
After Higgins accused Scott Morrison of responding to her allegations with “victim-blaming rhetoric”, the prime minister wrote late on Wednesday to the Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, flagging an arm’s length review into workplace supports for parliamentary staff, and seeking bipartisan backing. Morrison said he was seeking a “consensus position”.
The man accused of the rape left Reynolds’ office in March 2019 and later took a job with a Sydney-based public relations and registered lobbyist firm.
He admitted himself to Royal North Shore hospital in Sydney this week, according to News Corp. His name and other identifying details cannot be published for legal reasons.
Reynolds told the Guardian she has had no contact at all with the alleged perpetrator since he left her office. She said she had given him no references for his post-politics work.
“Since the individual in question left my office I have had no contact with him and I have provided no references,” Reynolds said in a statement.
But the minister’s office would not answer questions about whether he had received a termination payout.
“To protect the privacy of this individual, it is not appropriate to provide any further details relating to their employment or the termination of their employment in the office,” a spokeswoman said.
Further questions about the termination payout were directed to the Department of Finance.
Termination payouts are generally paid to political staffers through the members of parliament staff enterprise agreement.
But termination payouts can be withheld if, in the view of the minister, the employee is guilty of serious misconduct or “misconduct of such a nature that it would be unreasonable to require the employing member to continue the employment of the employee”.
Earlier in the week, Reynolds had been pressed in the Senate about whether she had assisted the alleged perpetrator with alternative employment opportunities or with a reference after he was terminated for a “security breach”. She said that to the best of her recollection she had not.
Higgins says she was raped on the evening of 22 March 2019 on a couch in Reynolds’ ministerial office. The Department of Parliamentary Services has confirmed the suite was cleaned on the afternoon of 23 March after a request from the finance department.
The alleged attack was initially flagged as a security incident and Reynolds has said the staffer who is alleged to have assaulted Higgins had his employment terminated for a “security breach”.
Guardian Australia has been told the security incident report from DPS was withheld initially from the Australian federal police, despite multiple requests, and was only provided after the police escalated inquiries.
DPS responded to a question about the handling of the incident report by stating: “The relevant reports of the incident were handed to the AFP at their request in April 2019.”
This means the report went to police in the month after the alleged assault. Higgins spoke with the Parliament House police unit on 26 March but withdrew her initial complaint on 13 April 2019.
