Extract from The Guardian
PM fumbles press conference to reassure Australian women by trying to weaponise complaint.
Last modified on Tue 23 Mar 2021 20.32 AEDT
News Corp has rounded on Scott Morrison after the prime minister claimed the company was dealing with an active claim of workplace harassment in order to rebut a line of questioning from a Sky News journalist.
The prime minister had intended to use a press conference on Tuesday morning to reassure Australian women he was listening after a month of controversy about the government’s handling of a rape allegation levelled by former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins.
Acknowledging that “many had not liked” his response to both the Higgins rape case and the March 4 Justice at Parliament House last Monday, Morrison said he had been “listening carefully” over the past month to the experience of women, including from colleagues, friends and family.
Morrison also signalled a shift on how the government would manage beleaguered attorney general Christian Porter – who has denied an historical rape allegation and is currently on leave – saying advice from the solicitor general would inform Porter’s fate on the frontbench.
But Morrison fumbled his mea culpa by asserting that Sky News journalist Andrew Clennell’s employer was “dealing with a person who has had a complaint made against them for harassment of a woman in a women’s toilet”.
The prime minister declared “that matter [was] being pursued by your own HR department”.
After concerns were raised that the prime minister had weaponised a private complaint in order to make an abstract debating point about media organisations living in “glass houses”, News Corp Australia – which owns Sky News – issued a statement saying Morrison was wrong.
News Corp Australasia’s executive chairman, Michael Miller, said no complaint had been received by either Sky News or by his organisation.
Miller acknowledged the company had given its employees an opportunity to raise any issues “following the reporting of matters of sexually inappropriate behaviour at Parliament House”.
He said during those HR-led conversations, the company learned “of a verbal exchange between two News Corp employees in Parliament House in Canberra last year”.
“The exchange was about a workplace-related issue, it was not of a sexual nature, it did not take place in a toilet and neither person made a complaint,” Miller said.
“Following those inquiries, our HR team wrote to one of the people involved and the matter was resolved. The prime minister appears to have joined these two matters and conflated them into an episode of harassment in a toilet that is under current investigation.”
Miller said Morrison’s public statement on Tuesday morning was “simply untrue and it undermines the principle that people must be able to raise issues safely and in confidence”.
The prime minister had tried to draw a line under the political crisis that escalated on Monday night when the government was forced to sack an adviser after reports aired, with pixelated images, of unnamed staff allegedly performing lewd sex acts on the desks of female MPs.
Morrison also continued to face questions about the handling of the Higgins allegation. On Monday night, a security guard on the ABC’s Four Corners program queried the government’s longstanding account that the staffer alleged to have assaulted Higgins was terminated for a security breach.
Higgins alleges a former colleague raped her on a couch in the office of the then defence industry minister Linda Reynolds in March 2019. The allegation is subject to a police investigation and no charges have been laid.
The government has been saying for weeks that Higgins’ colleague was sacked for a security breach after the incident – with Higgins raising the alleged assault after her colleague’s termination.
But a Parliament House security guard, Nikola Anderson, who signed the staffers in on the night of the alleged assault, told the ABC: “What was the security breach?
“Because the night that we were on shift, there was no security breach. Their pass enables them to be where they want to be within Parliament House.”
Asked on Tuesday to identify what the security breach was given that parliamentary staff often access the building after hours, Morrison said “the security guard in question doesn’t have the full information about this case and other contributing incidents that preceded this case”.
Morrison said the termination “followed an earlier security breach by the male staff member that related to the handling of classified documents in what is clearly a highly sensitive portfolio area”.
He said the staffer was terminated for serious misconduct because “he had some form when it came to the security issues regarding that office, and this was the final straw”.
Labor sought to pursue the circumstances of the termination later in the day with officials from the Department of Finance in Senate estimates, but officials responded by saying police had advised them to proceed “with caution” in answering questions related to the Higgins matter, given there was an active criminal investigation.
The department did, however, confirm that the then special minister of state Alex Hawke had been advised “in general terms” that a staff member had been terminated on 26 March. Officials said the prime minister’s office was not advised.
The finance minister, Simon Birmingham, conceded that it was not unusual for staffers to access the building late at night, and referred senators to Morrison’s comments about the staffer having previous issues with the handling of classified material.
Labor and Green senators expressed frustration that this week’s Senate estimates process is yielding only partial accounts of the events surrounding the Higgins allegation because of the ongoing police investigation.
A number of officials, including the Senate president, Scott Ryan, and senior players in the Department of Parliamentary Services, have said they will only respond to questions on notice because of police caution.
The Labor senator Tim Ayers on Tuesday urged Birmingham, the minister at the table, to be more transparent. He said the government’s credibility was connected to its preparedness to be accountable. “You really should take a minute,” Ayers told Birmingham.
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