Andrew L. Urban
Was the Commonwealth negligent to pay Brittany Higgins $2.4 m in response to her claims that have now been found to be false by two judges, and will the commonwealth take steps to recoup the taxpayers’ money, asks lawyer/columnist Janet Albrechtsen (The Australian, Sept 3, 2025).
Albrechtsen isn’t the only one asking. In the wake of Justice Paul Tottle having found that Higgins did defame Linda Reynolds, after Higgins’s claims against Reynolds and Brown were, at minimum, highly contestable and, as Justice Michael Lee found, false?
Albrechtsen doesn’t widen her questions to include the settlement Reynolds paid complete with an apology, for a private comment calling Higgins a “lying cow” in reference to the very same issues that have been found to be, indeed, lies.
A pertinent question Albrechtsen lists at question No 2 (of 7), is: “What regard, if any, did the commonwealth and its various legal and bureaucratic advisers have for the evidence given in the criminal trial of Bruce Lehrmann that occurred prior to the settlement or to the evidence held in its own files, concerning the treatment of Higgins by Reynolds and Brown? In particular, did it review the evidence given by Brown and Reynolds in the criminal trial, or its internal emails from Lauren Barons from the Department of Finance and others that contradicted Higgins’s claims about her treatment by Reynolds and Brown? If the commonwealth and its advisers paid no regard to that evidence that contested Higgins’s claims, why not?”
And she points out that “It’s not too late for the NACC and the Auditor-General to demand answers to these questions either.
After Tottle’s findings that some of Higgins’s key claims about a political cover-up and lack of support involving Reynolds and Brown were not merely false but “dishonest”, isn’t it time for the NACC to reopen its investigation into the payment to Higgins?”
You’d have to be a Labor minister not to agree with Albrechtsen….