The federal anti-corruption watchdog has found there was “no corruption issue” regarding the $2.4m settlement paid to Brittany Higgins after her alleged rape within Parliament House.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission released the findings of its preliminary investigation into the matter on Thursday, concluding there was “no inappropriate intervention” by the Labor government.
In December 2022, Higgins signed a deed of settlement with the commonwealth when Labor’s Mark Dreyfus was the attorney general. The outgoing Liberal senator Linda Reynolds later accused Dreyfus of “seeking to silence” her for not allowing her to defend herself against Higgins’ claims.
The Nacc found there was “no material difference” in legal advice received by the former Coalition government before the May 2022 election and advice subsequently received by the newly elected Albanese government.
The Nacc concluded: “There was no inappropriate intervention in the process by or on behalf of any minister. The then attorney general approved the settlement in accordance with the departmental advice.
“There is no evidence that the settlement process, including the legal advice provided, who was present at the mediation, or the amount, was subject to any improper influence by any Commonwealth public official.
“To the contrary, the evidence obtained reflected a process that was based on independent external legal advice, without any inappropriate intervention by any minister of either government. There is therefore no corruption issue.”
In a statement on Thursday, Reynolds said she was “bitterly disappointed” by the decision, questioning how the settlement “could possibly settle unsubstantiated and statute-barred claims made against me” without “taking a single statement from me or speaking to me at all”.
Dreyfus responded that he regretted “the baseless allegation of corruption has been so widely publicised ahead of this finding and hope future matters can be resolved in a more timely manner”.
Guardian Australia reported in September 2024 that Reynolds had referred the matter to the Nacc in October 2023 and was provided commonwealth assistance to fund the referral.
The deed, released during Bruce Lehrmann’s failed defamation case in December 2023, compensated Higgins for her loss of earning capacity, legal costs, medical expenses, domestic assistance and “$400,000 for hurt, distress and humiliation”.
As part of Higgins’ claim, she alleged the commonwealth had breached its duty of care because Reynolds and her staff mishandled the matter and did not adequately support her.
The Nacc’s finding comes as the Western Australian supreme court prepares its judgment on Reynolds’ defamation case against Higgins over a series of social media posts, published in July 2023, which the former minister claims damaged her reputation.
In court in August 2024, Reynolds accused Dreyfus of “seeking to silence” her.
She said the claims that she had not given Higgins adequate support after her alleged rape in March 2019 were “utterly defendable”.
“My defence was to be no defence … I was outraged.”
Reynolds is separately suing the commonwealth over Higgins’ settlement for taking over her defence in the mediation, which she publicly claimed amounted to “egregious conduct”.
Higgins alleged that she was raped by Bruce Lehrmann in the ministerial suite of the then defence minister, Reynolds, in 2019. The accusation spawned more than a dozen legal cases.
In a criminal trial in 2022, Lehrmann pleaded not guilty to one charge of sexual intercourse without consent, denying that any sexual activity occurred. The trial was aborted after a juror obtained information outside the evidence presented in court and, in December of that year, prosecutors dropped charges against him for the alleged rape of Higgins, saying a retrial would pose an “unacceptable risk” to her health.
A federal court judge overseeing a defamation case launched by Lehrmann against Network Ten found in 2024 that Higgins was, on the balance of probabilities, raped by Lehrmann in the office. Lehrmann is appealing against that verdict.
