Brittany Higgins says she was disappointed by Scott Morrison’s response to her allegation of rape by a colleague in Parliament House because she didn’t want his sympathy as a father, but action from him as the Prime Minister.
In a nationally televised address on Wednesday with Grace Tame, Ms Higgins took aim at Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s address last year in which he said his wife Jenny told him to imagine if it were his daughters.“What bothered me most about the whole ‘imagine if it were our daughters’ spiel wasn’t that he necessarily needed his wife’s advice to help contextualise my rape in a way that mattered to him personally ... I didn’t want his sympathy as a father.
Ms Tame said after she criticised Mr Morrison’s comments regarding Ms Higgins, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet conducted a review into the National Australia Day Council, which she described as “a transparent intimidation tactic, designed to rattle the cage of an organisation whose funding it mostly comes from the federal government”.
Mr Higgins criticised the vagueness of the national action plan to end violence against women and closed her speech by affirming her faith in Australia and democracy. She laid out three key asks: one was for the government to take the issue of abuse “in all its forms” more seriously, the second was for adequate, preventative funding to be actually implemented, “not just announced or committed to”. The third was for national, consistent structural change and resolving inadequate legal frameworks.
Her review was sparked by Ms Higgins making public nearly a year ago allegations a colleague raped her in Parliament House. The case is going to trial in June. “What you saw yesterday was, I think, a very sincere apology, and that call for further action and commitment to further action from the PM,” he said.
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