Who knew what? In many cases of sexual assault in politics, events take place behind bolted doors, the perpetrator and
victim bound by ties of power, seediness and suppression. The victim is left with an odious and onerous task: to report
the event. The risks can be considerable. Careers can be ruined. Retaliation from the political tribe can be
remorseless.
Parliaments present a paradox. Encrusted with surveillance, crawling with security, safety would surely be guaranteed
for all who work within their walls. But the environment of power, ambition and conspiracy lends itself to hierarchies,
asymmetries, and inequalities. Politicians find themselves with access to budgets, forums and staffers. There are
receptions and meetings to attend, liquor to consume in abundance, deceptions to cultivate. The risk of wandering hands
is ever present.
The staffers, in turn, are mindful of their careers, insecure about their futures to the point of neuroses. They are
expected to be unconditionally loyal to politician and party. Nikki Savva, herself a former staffer turned scribe, remembers the time: “The hours were long, the demands never-ending, the stress phenomenal and the fear of stuffing up overwhelming.” The
staffer is permanently vulnerable and precariously positioned. Reasons for terminating employment are broad and
susceptible to abuse. The parliamentarian can, for instance, do so for having “lost trust or confidence in the
employee”. When politicians become arbiters of trust, the condition of the absurd has been affirmed.
Maria Maley, an academic from the Australian National University, busies herself with the sordid business of researching
political staff. Over the Australian summer, she interviewed eight former political staffers about their time spent in
the offices of ministers and electorate offices at both state and federal level. Her findings were not earth shattering.
Staffers were bullied, subject to sexual harassment by colleagues and bosses. “It is hard to know how common this is,”
Maley suggests, “as the world they inhabit is secretive.” She is being unnecessarily coy.
On March 23, 2019, Brittany Higgins, a Liberal Party staffer, was allegedly raped in the offices of Australia’s Defence
Minister, Senator Linda Reynolds. Having initially contacted police, she felt a deep reluctance to press matters
further. An election was about to be called. A month ago, Higgins resigned her political job and recommenced the
complaints process with the police.
Both the Defence Minister and then chief of staff Fiona Brown were told by Higgins about the incident. Both expressed
shock and promised to support the staffer if she decided to take the matter up with the police. In a manner excised of
empathy, Reynolds had decided at the time that it was appropriate to hold a meeting with Higgins at the same venue the
attack is claimed to have taken place.
The political machine is coming into full play to stifle. Apologies have come from the Defence Minister and the Prime
Minister. “At the time, I truly believed that I and my chief of staff were doing everything we could to support that
young woman who I had responsibility for,” explained Senator Reynolds to her colleagues in the chamber. Her intention and aim at the time had been “to empower Brittany and
let herself determine the course of her own situation, not by me, not by my staff, not by the government as a whole, but
by Brittany.” A true philosophe, is the minister.
Morrison did not do much better. On the morning of February 16, he showed striking emotional immaturity in employing an
advertising gimmick. He had, he told journalists, spoken to his wife the previous day. “She said to me, ‘You have to think about this as a father first. What would you
want to happen if it were our girls?’ Jenny has a way of clarifying things.” Evidently, things were rather cloudy for
the prime minister prior to Monday.
The tenor of these apologies is tactical. Assault can be managed. Assault can be contained within a bureaucratic
compass. And there was the issue of privacy, a weapon often used against the victim to muzzle matters and preserve the
status quo. We kept quiet to help her and observe protocol.
Reviews into the complaints processes of Parliament House and the Liberal Party have been promised by Morrison. Much of
this is due to ascertaining, or not, as the case often is, the scope of responsibility and prospects for reform. Reviews
should be fiercely independent but the Morrison government is taking few risks, despite having conceded to the
opposition that a third, independent inquiry should also be initiated. In one line of inquiry, the Liberal Party will be
investigating itself, with West Australian MP and former vice-chancellor of the University of Notre Dame Celia Hammond
steering matters.
With a former, overly remunerated university vice-chancellor managing the show, putative efficacy is all but guaranteed
to fail. Hammond’s conservative Catholicism is also well known, and her views on sex Victorian in reservation.
Complaints regarding staff safety are currently made through the Department of Finance. There is no standalone body to
perform that task. Various female members of parliament not affiliated with the major parties have decided that this be
redressed. One is Rebekha Sharkie of the Centre Alliance. “I don’t think sitting within the Department of Finance with a
minister still in government of the day is really going to provide that level of confidence.” As for Labor, Anthony
Albanese has voiced support for “an arm’s length, independent body that is able to investigate and provide support to anyone in this
building who has an issue with their safety.”
The looming question remains: Who knew what and when? Morrison is adamant that blissful ignorance reigned till the story
broke, going so far as to publicly rebuke Reynolds for having not told him about the allegations. When asked in
parliament by the opposition leader Albanese as to whether it was acceptable that the Defence Minister had kept the
matter quiet for two years, Morrison was sharply insistent. “It’s not and it shouldn’t happen again.”
The whole matter is smelly enough to be drawing out the sceptics. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull found it “inconceivable that [the matter] wasn’t well known to at least key members of the prime minister’s staff.” Higgins also has an account that rather holes the narrative, claiming that one of Morrison’s senior advisers had called her some months ago to see
how she was coping. At least another member of the prime minister’s staff was also charged with handling her complaint.
A pattern, distressing and invidious, is rapidly emerging.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.
Email: bkampmark@gmail.com