Gallagher breaks silence on Higgins claim

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher has broken her silence at a Labor conference in Fremantle to “categorically deny” she misled parliament on her knowledge of Brittany Higgins’ rape allegation.

Ms Gallagher addressed reporters outside an event in Perth on Saturday afternoon to say she’d been “clear” and “honest” at all times.

Senator Gallagher was previously quizzed in Senate Estimates in June 2021 about the extent of her knowledge on the allegation before the story broke.

During the June 2021 Senate Estimates hearing, then-Defence Minister Linda Reynolds accused Labor senators of being secretly briefed on the rape allegation.

“I was told by one of your senators two weeks before about what you were intending to do with the story in my office. Two weeks before,’’ She said.

In response to the claim, Senator Gallagher said: “No-one had any knowledge”.

But this week, leaked texts obtained by The Australian, suggest Ms Higgins’ boyfriend, David Sharaz, was in contact with Ms Gallagher before the allegations of rape were made public.

Addressing the texts, Ms Gallagher said she had been made aware of “some allegations” in the days leading up to Ms Higgins’ explosive interview in February 2021.

“I‘ve been clear, I’ve been honest and at all times I’ve been guided by the bravery and courage of a young woman who chose to speak up about her workplace and from that we have had massive changes to that workplace,” she said.

“(I was told) There was going to be some public reporting that a young woman making serious allegations about events that occurred in a minister’s office … were going to become public.

“I categorically rejected, and you see that in the footage of the committee, I categorically rejected the assertion she was putting, which was that we had chosen to weaponise that information weeks ahead of being told about this.”

Questioned by reporters whether she misled parliament in 2021, Ms Gallagher said; “no”.

“The answer to the question about the allegation of misleading is no, I did not mislead the parliament,” she said.

“I was responding to an assertion that was being made by the Minister, Reynolds, at the time that we had known about this for weeks and had made a decision to weaponise it.

“That is not true, it was never true … I explained that to Senator Reynolds that night and she accepted that explanation, and that was some two years ago.

“I did nothing with that information and I know I was clear about that at the time.

“I was clear about that two years ago so there’s absolutely no issue here at all.”

Her comments come after Ms Reynolds claimed Ms Gallagher and now-Foreign Minister Penny Wong told her they knew about the allegations before they were made public.

“Penny did know about it ­before it went public – she said so at the meeting,” Senator Reynolds told The Australian on Friday.

“Katy did confirm with me she knew both David and Brittany, and he had told her what was going to happen before it happened.”

Earlier on Saturday, at the same event, Senator Wong addressed reporters to confirm she did have prior knowledge of the allegations, despite claiming during the same 2021 Estimates hearing she “had no knowledge” until the night the story broke.

“(I knew) serious allegations were made by a Liberal staffer about an alleged rape which occurred meters from Prime Minister Morrison’s office,” she said.

“I want to make clear I did not know the full details of the allegations before the story became public.”

Ms Wong took aim at the former Coalition government, saying there were ministers at the time “who did know a lot of detail”.

“They have still failed to account for what they did with that information,” she said,

“To this day, the Australian people do not know what Mr Morrison’s office knew and when they knew because the report he commissioned by his former chief of staff Mr (Phil) Gaetjens, has never been made public.

“I do want to make this clear, President (Scott) Ryan, the former President of the senate, made a statement to the senate some time ago in which he indicated that a number of senators, including me, were aware of some details as early as 2020 when an anonymous complaint or anonymous complaints were made.”