Extract from ABC News
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) took almost two years to inform the government about the alleged rape of a staffer in Parliament House, briefing Minister Peter Dutton just days before the story went public.
Key points:
- Mr Dutton says he first learned about the rape on February 11 and received updates last week
- Brittany Higgins says she met with police shortly after the alleged rape in March 2019
- The AFP's guidelines says it has to report "politically sensitive" investigations to the Home Affairs minister
Former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins alleges she was assaulted by a colleague in the office of her then-boss, defence minister Linda Reynolds in March 2019.
Ms Higgins met with the AFP shortly after the incident, but asked officers not to pursue an investigation in April 2019.
She went public with her story last week, and made a formal complaint about the alleged sexual assault on Wednesday.
Mr Dutton was asked in the House of Representatives when he first learned of the alleged rape.
That date is just four days before Ms Higgins's story was published.
Mr Dutton's frontbench colleague, senator Michaelia Cash provided a more detailed answer in the Senate, saying the briefing came from the AFP Commissioner, Reece Kershaw.
"This was the first time the minister (Mr Dutton) was advised of Ms Higgins's allegations," she said.
"I'm advised that the minister's office was not aware of Ms Higgins's allegations prior to the minister's briefing."
Senator Cash said how the AFP managed investigations, including when it briefed the government, was entirely a matter for the agency.
"Nevertheless, the minister has sought and received assurances from the Commissioner of the AFP that the investigation will leave no stone unturned," she said.
Dutton told after meeting of AFP 'sensitive investigations' board
A government source has told the ABC that the AFP briefed the Minister after Ms Higgins flagged with officers a few days earlier that she was considering going public with her story.
In the wake of the AFP's raids on media outlets in 2019, it had established a new group known as the Sensitive Investigations Oversight Board (SIOB), which considers matters that should be brought to the Minister's attention.
The SIOB, chaired by AFP Deputy Commissioner Ian McCartney, met after Ms Higgins contacted the police, and made the decision to contact Mr Dutton.
Mr Dutton's office passed on the information to the Prime Minister's chief of staff the following day, Friday February 12.
The suggestion is that because Ms Higgins had originally told the AFP not to pursue her complaint in 2019, it had not met the threshold to alert Mr Dutton.
Delay could be breach of AFP policies
The questioning in Parliament follows reporting in The Guardian, pointing to the AFP's own guidelines about "politically sensitive" investigations.
The policy was provided to the Senate in August 2019 as part of a parliamentary inquiry into press freedom in Australia.
A "politically sensitive matter" is defined as an investigation "likely to be of particular interest to" the government, members of parliament, foreign governments, the media and the community.
Such an investigation would include those that "have potential adverse implications concerning" a member of parliament or an MP's staff.
The ABC has contacted the AFP for comment about why it waited to brief Mr Dutton, in light of his statement in Question Time.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has repeatedly stated he was not made aware of the complaint until Ms Higgins's story was published on Monday February 15.
Labor has applied significant pressure to the government in Parliament over its handling of Ms Higgins's complaint every day since she spoke out about the incident.
There are now three investigations into the incident, including an internal probe looking into which members of the Prime Minister's staff knew about the complaint and failed to inform Mr Morrison.
Text messages between Ms Higgins and another Liberal staffer show she asked her colleague to raise the matter with the Prime Minister's Office, and a staff member in Mr Morrison's team was "mortified" to learn of the alleged sexual assault.
Two other women have come forward since Ms Higgins shared her story, making allegations of sexual assault against the same man in The Australian newspaper.
A fourth woman told the ABC she had made a formal police report about a 2017 incident, when she says the same man stroked her thigh at a Canberra bar.
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