Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Birmingham) and the Minister for Defence (Senator Reynolds) to questions without notice asked by Senators Ciccone and Gallagher today relating to industrial relations laws and to allegations concerning ministerial staff.

The Minister for Defence came into this chamber today not on her own initiative but in response to a question asked of her. Do you know what? It's two years too late. She apologises to Ms Higgins for her treatment by herself and her office two years later. Minister, nice words saying the right thing now do not compensate nor forgive two years of doing nothing. Minister Reynolds's apology might be more believable if something—anything!—had been done at any stage to support Ms Higgins following her disclosure. But nothing was done then, and nothing is being done now. Has anyone from this government reached out to Ms Higgins to offer any support? The defence minister said she could see the trauma and hurt to Ms Higgins in the TV interview, but has anyone followed up with her? Has anyone, in any agency, reached out to see if any support can be provided now by her former employer? I doubt it.

Today, the defence minister of Australia, in responding to allegations of a rape occurring on her couch, in her office, hides behind the excuse of a possible police investigation to deny this chamber and Ms Higgins answers that should be provided now. Senator Reynolds, the defence minister of Australia, is accountable to this chamber and, through us, to the people of Australia for her conduct as a minister. The question Senator Reynolds refuses to answer goes directly to her conduct: to what she knew, to when she knew it, to what she did and to the steps she took as a minister to deal with allegations about a serious crime occurring in her office. We will continue to hold this minister to account. This is not some minor political inconvenience; this is about what happens in one of the most senior offices in this country. A full statement outlining exactly what the minister knew, when she knew it and what was done—none of which is subject to a police investigation, to our understanding—is the minimum amount of information this minister should be providing to this chamber.

Some of what the defence minister has said to date in this chamber simply does not add up. She would have us believe that she didn't know the details of what is alleged to have occurred on her couch in her office, but, at the same time, she facilitated the police involvement and terminated the alleged rapist. She would have us believe that some six days elapsed from Ms Higgins's disclosure to the minister's chief of staff before the minister met with Ms Higgins and that, at that meeting, which brought Ms Higgins back to the scene of the alleged rape, the minister was still unaware of any details about the incident.

The minister would have the chamber believe that, despite many others knowing of the incident, including a number of agencies and her chief of staff, who had met with and received a full disclosure from Ms Higgins, she didn't know any of the details, which then leads one to ask: did she not ask? Did she not wonder why one of her close advisers had all of a sudden disappeared? Did she not ask her chief of staff whether she had been given an account of what had occurred? Did she not wonder, coming into her office, why she was meeting with a young woman—just her and the chief of staff? Why was she having that meeting? Seriously, something like this was happening in your own office and no-one said anything—nothing—to you? It's simply unbelievable. The only other explanation, aside from the Senate not being given accurate information to date, is that the minister was therefore wilfully negligent in her duties as a minister and as an employer.

Today we saw the Prime Minister lay the groundwork to distance himself from this, first in the media conference and then in question time. An apology two years too late is not going to make this go away. We need to get the story straight from this minister. She needs to stop avoiding questions and hiding behind investigations. She needs to take responsibility for what happened to Ms Higgins and take responsibility for her position as a minister. (Time expired)