Senator Reynolds did not cover herself with glory as a Minister in the Morrison Government & has been written off politically (my opinion), so it will be interesting to watch her attempts at redemption:
(the article is lengthy & I have not posted it in full in deference to the rules over copyright.)
'With this week marking the two-year anniversary of the explosive interview with Higgins by Lisa Wilkinson on The Project, Reynolds wants to set the record straight. Once and for all time, she says.
Reynolds spoke with The Weekend Australian last weekend, over more than four hours. As she sat down, she said she would answer every question. No holds barred. She is a no-nonsense woman. There is not a hint of self-pity. Which is remarkable given that Reynolds has been portrayed as a central villain in the Higgins story, a political conspirator who hid the rape of her staffer prior to the 2019 federal election.
At the outset, Reynolds tells me she respects Higgins’ right to tell her story. “I respected her agency and it was her to story to tell. Just because it didn’t match with my recollection of events and my story, it doesn’t invalidate her right to tell her story, which she has,” Reynolds says.
“But it didn’t accord with my recollection of what had happened two years ago.”
Reynolds was not able to tell her story during the criminal trial last year; prosecutor Shane Drumgold treated her as a hostile witness during the trial. Reynolds was prevented from telling her story during the civil claim where Higgins made serious allegations against her former boss and also against Reynolds’ chief of staff, Fiona Brown; Labor Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus used his powers to muzzle Reynolds, instructing her not to attend the mediation in return for the commonwealth paying her legal fees.
Reynolds recounts watching the Project interview in her office with her staff. “It was just like a bomb went off in my head. It was like, what is, what is Lisa saying? What is this conversation about me and about Fiona?” Reynolds says. “Because almost everything that was said did not accord with my recollection of what had happened two years previously.
“I actually couldn’t believe what I was hearing and seeing. It was just such a shock. Being accused of covering up the rape of a young woman for political purposes. It was like a stake through my heart.
“It hurt,” she says, quietly.
That pain is still not far from the surface. The 57-year-old former defence minister recalls how Labor senators “just kept at me asking me questions day after day, essentially saying that I covered up the rape of a young woman. And that was one of the most distressing and confronting things in your workplace, having your colleagues not only in your workplace, but in front of the entire nation, accusing you day after day of covering up the rape of a woman.”
Labor senators Penny Wong and Katy Gallagher led the charge, using a pincer movement in the days and weeks that followed the Project interview. Between them they asked Reynolds eight questions in the Senate on February 15, 2019, the night the Project interview aired. With no clue about what was about to explode that night, Reynolds didn’t have immediate access to notes or files. The next day, February 16, another six questions were fired at Reynolds; the next day, another nine.
Reynolds gave a statement in the Senate on February 18, setting out how, during a meeting with Higgins, she offered her young staffer full support in whatever course of action she chose. In that statement to her Senate colleagues, Reynolds asked that this very serious issue be dealt with “away from politics”.
Not a chance. Labor senators lined up the next day, posing nine questions to her, then a dozen more the following day.
Reynolds maintained then what she maintains now: she did the right thing, supporting Higgins, encouraging her to speak with AFP officers in Parliament House and to seek counselling if that’s what she wanted. “Parliament is the last place, and the media is the last place that these matters should ever be discussed,” she says to me. “Having supported family members and friends, and a colleague in the parliament as well, a staffer in previous years … I understood the concept of agency from those personal experiences. Anything relating to sexual assault … these are not matters that should be played out in public.”
After the Higgins allegations exploded on the national stage two years ago, Reynolds recounts that she requested a private meeting with Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins on February 23, 2021, to discuss the issue. In late September, Reynolds met Jenkins again for an extended interview for her report that was precipitated by the Higgins scandal. “She (Jenkins) was unable to advise me what more I could have done.”
On the ABC’s Insiders program in March 2021, Jenkins confirmed that a victim-centric approach means respecting the agency of women as to whether they wish to make a police complaint. Jenkins alluded to the “very wicked problem” that ministers face when confronted with these issues.
Reynolds was attacked day in, day out for her handling of this matter, including for not informing prime minister Scott Morrison. But she maintains she was respecting Higgins’ agency.
“Was I going to tell the prime minister? No,” she insists. “If you were a staff member in BHP, if you were thinking about whether you were going to make a complaint, if you were talking to police and counsellors, would you want someone else to tell the CEO? Doing so without their permission is a violation of their agency.”
The day before her breakdown, Morrison had very publicly rebuked Reynolds, describing it as unacceptable that she had not told him or his office about the alleged rape in her office.
Reynolds tells me that Morrison expressed regret to her in private the next day when Reynolds was escorted, in a state of collapse, from the Senate chamber into the Senate anteroom, and then into Dean Smith’s office.
“He was clearly sorry for what had happened to me. And I explained to him why I couldn’t and didn’t tell him, and he understood,” she says.
“While she never said the rape word, we had sort of thought she may have had some concerns, something had happened. But it was never my story to tell anyone.”
I ask Reynolds about the extent of the collateral damage done to her, attacked in the Senate, in the media, hung out to dry by her own side. “I could have died,” she says simply.
Reynolds ended up in hospital on the eve of a National Press Club address.
‘I feel sorry for Brittany’
“There are no winners from this,” she says more than once to me.
“I feel very sorry for Brittany Higgins because her personal circumstances should always have been played out in the privacy of the justice system – she was terribly exploited by proponents of the #MeToo movement, by opponents of the government.
heard/news-story/42429034d30d325f498b4882cbcfc796
(the article is lengthy & I have not posted it in full in deference to the rules over copyright.)
'With this week marking the two-year anniversary of the explosive interview with Higgins by Lisa Wilkinson on The Project, Reynolds wants to set the record straight. Once and for all time, she says.
Reynolds spoke with The Weekend Australian last weekend, over more than four hours. As she sat down, she said she would answer every question. No holds barred. She is a no-nonsense woman. There is not a hint of self-pity. Which is remarkable given that Reynolds has been portrayed as a central villain in the Higgins story, a political conspirator who hid the rape of her staffer prior to the 2019 federal election.
At the outset, Reynolds tells me she respects Higgins’ right to tell her story. “I respected her agency and it was her to story to tell. Just because it didn’t match with my recollection of events and my story, it doesn’t invalidate her right to tell her story, which she has,” Reynolds says.
“But it didn’t accord with my recollection of what had happened two years ago.”
Reynolds was not able to tell her story during the criminal trial last year; prosecutor Shane Drumgold treated her as a hostile witness during the trial. Reynolds was prevented from telling her story during the civil claim where Higgins made serious allegations against her former boss and also against Reynolds’ chief of staff, Fiona Brown; Labor Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus used his powers to muzzle Reynolds, instructing her not to attend the mediation in return for the commonwealth paying her legal fees.
Reynolds recounts watching the Project interview in her office with her staff. “It was just like a bomb went off in my head. It was like, what is, what is Lisa saying? What is this conversation about me and about Fiona?” Reynolds says. “Because almost everything that was said did not accord with my recollection of what had happened two years previously.
“I actually couldn’t believe what I was hearing and seeing. It was just such a shock. Being accused of covering up the rape of a young woman for political purposes. It was like a stake through my heart.
“It hurt,” she says, quietly.
That pain is still not far from the surface. The 57-year-old former defence minister recalls how Labor senators “just kept at me asking me questions day after day, essentially saying that I covered up the rape of a young woman. And that was one of the most distressing and confronting things in your workplace, having your colleagues not only in your workplace, but in front of the entire nation, accusing you day after day of covering up the rape of a woman.”
Labor senators Penny Wong and Katy Gallagher led the charge, using a pincer movement in the days and weeks that followed the Project interview. Between them they asked Reynolds eight questions in the Senate on February 15, 2019, the night the Project interview aired. With no clue about what was about to explode that night, Reynolds didn’t have immediate access to notes or files. The next day, February 16, another six questions were fired at Reynolds; the next day, another nine.
Reynolds gave a statement in the Senate on February 18, setting out how, during a meeting with Higgins, she offered her young staffer full support in whatever course of action she chose. In that statement to her Senate colleagues, Reynolds asked that this very serious issue be dealt with “away from politics”.
Not a chance. Labor senators lined up the next day, posing nine questions to her, then a dozen more the following day.
Reynolds maintained then what she maintains now: she did the right thing, supporting Higgins, encouraging her to speak with AFP officers in Parliament House and to seek counselling if that’s what she wanted. “Parliament is the last place, and the media is the last place that these matters should ever be discussed,” she says to me. “Having supported family members and friends, and a colleague in the parliament as well, a staffer in previous years … I understood the concept of agency from those personal experiences. Anything relating to sexual assault … these are not matters that should be played out in public.”
After the Higgins allegations exploded on the national stage two years ago, Reynolds recounts that she requested a private meeting with Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins on February 23, 2021, to discuss the issue. In late September, Reynolds met Jenkins again for an extended interview for her report that was precipitated by the Higgins scandal. “She (Jenkins) was unable to advise me what more I could have done.”
On the ABC’s Insiders program in March 2021, Jenkins confirmed that a victim-centric approach means respecting the agency of women as to whether they wish to make a police complaint. Jenkins alluded to the “very wicked problem” that ministers face when confronted with these issues.
Reynolds was attacked day in, day out for her handling of this matter, including for not informing prime minister Scott Morrison. But she maintains she was respecting Higgins’ agency.
“Was I going to tell the prime minister? No,” she insists. “If you were a staff member in BHP, if you were thinking about whether you were going to make a complaint, if you were talking to police and counsellors, would you want someone else to tell the CEO? Doing so without their permission is a violation of their agency.”
The day before her breakdown, Morrison had very publicly rebuked Reynolds, describing it as unacceptable that she had not told him or his office about the alleged rape in her office.
Reynolds tells me that Morrison expressed regret to her in private the next day when Reynolds was escorted, in a state of collapse, from the Senate chamber into the Senate anteroom, and then into Dean Smith’s office.
“He was clearly sorry for what had happened to me. And I explained to him why I couldn’t and didn’t tell him, and he understood,” she says.
“While she never said the rape word, we had sort of thought she may have had some concerns, something had happened. But it was never my story to tell anyone.”
I ask Reynolds about the extent of the collateral damage done to her, attacked in the Senate, in the media, hung out to dry by her own side. “I could have died,” she says simply.
Reynolds ended up in hospital on the eve of a National Press Club address.
‘I feel sorry for Brittany’
“There are no winners from this,” she says more than once to me.
“I feel very sorry for Brittany Higgins because her personal circumstances should always have been played out in the privacy of the justice system – she was terribly exploited by proponents of the #MeToo movement, by opponents of the government.
heard/news-story/42429034d30d325f498b4882cbcfc796
