Crikey has made the decision today to remove a piece written by Guy Rundle that asserted the consultation process over Brittany Higgins’ compensation was “stunningly rapid”. That is not correct — Higgins lodged her claim in March 2022 while the Morrison government was still in office, and it was not settled until December 2022, seven months after the election of the current government.
The piece also repeats the false assertion that the “figure is believed to be $3 million”. There is no factual basis for the $3 million figure; Higgins has publicly said that figure was her initial claim but that the final figure was much lower than that.
In addition to these factual errors, the tone of the piece did not meet Crikey’s journalistic standards, crucially given that it concerns writing about allegations of sexual assault.
We firmly believe in promoting a space that publishes a plurality of views, and as editors we regularly publish opinion pieces that we may personally disagree with. But this piece doesn’t fall into that category, and we regret publishing it. We have consistently pointed to the flawed coverage of News Corp on this issue, only to then join it in making that same mistake ourselves.
We apologise to Brittany Higgins and our readers and we will update you on a continuing conversation around this issue.
