The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has insisted Christian Porter and Linda Reynolds will continue to play an “important role” in his cabinet and declared he would not “condone” any negative briefing against Brittany Higgins.
Morrison confirmed on Thursday evening there would be a process for establishing whether members of his media team had briefed against Higgins – the former Liberal staffer who triggered the Australian parliament’s #MeToo moment by going public with her allegation of rape by a colleague.
With a reshuffle triggered by the escalating political crisis imminent, Morrison also indicated, during an interview on the Nine Network, that Porter and Reynolds would remain in the cabinet, but likely not in their current roles as attorney general and defence minister.
“They will continue to play a very important role in my cabinet,” he said.
Morrison was pressed in the interview about his initial failure to comprehend the societal reckoning that has been triggered by the Higgins complaint, and by a separate allegation of rape levelled against Porter from 1988 which the attorney general denies.
The prime minister said the Higgins complaint had “taken me deeper into this issue than I have appreciated before”.
Morrison was also challenged by journalist Tracy Grimshaw about why, in recent examples where there have been conflicting accounts between men and women, “the women are always the liars”.
Morrison rejected the line of questioning. “I don’t agree with your assessment. In this country, people will make allegations and we have ways of dealing with it,” he said.
Guardian Australia revealed on Thursday that Higgins initiated a formal complaint with Morrison’s chief of staff, John Kunkel, in an effort to establish whether members of the prime minister’s media team had supplied negative information to journalists about herself or her partner.
Responding to Thursday’s appeal to Kunkel, Morrison told parliament that separately to Higgins’ complaint, a “primary source” had also approached his chief of staff with information about the alleged backgrounding, and there would now be a process to establish the facts. He said that process had been initiated on Thursday.
The government continued to battle dramas about misconduct on multiple fronts. It also foreshadowed further disciplinary action against Coalition staffers allegedly involved in sharing images and videos of sex acts in parliament via Facebook Messenger.
Those incidents were revealed in a report on Network Ten on Monday night. In a statement on Thursday, the finance minister, Simon Birmingham, noted the government had shown the “disgusting and inappropriate” behaviour alleged “won’t be tolerated” when it dismissed one staffer on Monday for allegedly masturbating on a female MP’s desk.
“The government is working to resolve these issues and get to the bottom of these allegations,” Birmingham said.
In question time, Morrison dead-batted a question about progress in identifying the other suspected participants, refusing to provide a “running commentary” on the “serious issues”.
Earlier on Thursday, members of Birmingham’s staff met the whistleblower, a member of the group who engaged in the conduct but went public on condition of anonymity. Names were also provided to the shadow government accountability minister, Kristina Keneally.
“We have been pursuing these investigations and I thank those who have been able to assist us with information to date,” Birmingham said in his statement.
As parliament adjourned on Thursday, Liberal MP Andrew Laming also apologised to two women who had accused him of online abuse.
“I want to express my regret and deep apologies for the hurt and the distress that communication may have caused,” he told the lower house. “I want to retract those comments and issue a public unreserved apology.”
Laming issued a cover-all apology to “any person who has received correspondence from me which fell short of what they expect from an MP” and promised to “own that failure and apologise without hesitation”.
