Note: this article mentions sexual assault
Former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins and 2021 Australian of the Year Grace Tame fronted Canberra’s National Press Club today to address the government’s response to the reckoning around sexual assault and abuse in Parliament.
Introduced by National Press Club president Laura Tingle, Higgins spoke first, walking to the stage to cheers and applause. Wearing all white — as she did during the March4Justice protests — she opened by recounting her abuse.
“I was raped on a couch in what I thought was the safest and most secure building in Australia. In a workplace that has a police and security presence 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Parliament of Australia is safe, it is secure — except if you’re a woman,” she said.
“If what happened to me can happen there, it can happen anywhere. And it does.”
Higgins said she faced judgement, vitriol and abuse and had to quit her job to go public — but did so because “the alternative was to be part of the culture of silence inside Parliament House”.
In sharing her story, Higgins said, she hoped to make it easier for others to share theirs. Despite her advocacy, though, too little has changed. After the March4Justice rallies in March last year, she said, there was “a feeling of unstoppable momentum” that would “not be turned aside by tired old platitudes from father of daughters”.
But, she added, “I stand here today fearful that this moment of transformative potential, the bravery of all those women who spoke up and stood up and said ‘Enough is enough’ is in danger of being minimised to a flare-up, a blip on the radar, a month-long wonder in the national conversation. Or, worse, just a political perception problem neutralised and turned into a net positive.”
Criticising neutral language used by the media when discussing assault — “we have this passive, anonymous language vaguely talking about ‘wrongs done’ as if sexual violence falls out of the sky. As if it is perpetrated by no one. As if it is inflicted on no one” — Higgins then turned her attention to Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
His comments on “imagine if it were our daughters” were bad, Higgins said, but wouldn’t have been so terrible if followed by action: “I didn’t want his sympathy as a father. I wanted him to use his power as prime minister.”
Higgins criticised the failures of Australia’s national plan to reduce violence against women and their children — especially given the high rates of abuse of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and women with disabilities — saying its aims are “lofty and vague … filled with warm sentiments and platitudes”.
“Without clearer action and firm targets, there can be no accountability,” she said.
Higgins received a standing ovation, although Government Services Minister Linda Reynolds, Social Services Minister Anne Ruston and Liberal Senator Jane Hume, who were in attendance, remained seated.
Tame spoke next, her arm wrapped in a sling following a biking accident. She too went hard on Morrison, dropping a bombshell on the government’s attempts to silence her.
“On the 17th of August last year, not five months after being named Australian of the Year, I received a threatening phone call from a senior member of a government-funded organisation, asking for my word that I would not say anything damning about the prime minister on the evening of the next Australian of the Year Awards,” she said.
“‘You are an influential person. He will have fear,’ they said.
“‘Fear? What kind of fear?’ I asked myself. A fear for our nation’s most vulnerable? A fear for the future of our plan? And then I heard the words ‘With an election coming soon…’.
“What is the point of awarding someone for their work only to stifle them while they do it when it gets too real?”
Morrison’s review into the National Australia Day Council after she was awarded Australian of the Year was a “transparent intimidation tactic,” she said — saying politicians could either be constructive or destructive.
“I would rather go down as a disappointment to an institution than sell out as a pandering political puppet to the corrupt forces that coercively control it.”
Tame pointed to $90 billion spent on submarines, but just $1.1 billion on violence against women — with just 11 cents spent per student per year on prevention education.
“We currently have a government that is primarily concerned with short-sighted, votes-based funding, not with long-term, needs-based funding,” she said.
Liberal backbencher Bridget Archer, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, was given a last-minute ticket to attend after being told her attendance “would be up to the prime minister”.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he was “too busy” to attend or even watch the women’s speeches on TV. “It’s going to be a busy week. I don’t get the opportunity to listen to all these speeches, but I’ll certainly ensure I am aware of what they’ve said,” he said.
Several former staffers and survivors, including Chelsey Potter, Rachelle Miller, Josie Coles and Julia Banks, along with former Australian Post CEO Christine Holgate, were also in attendance.
If you or someone you know is affected by sexual assault or violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au. In an emergency, call 000.
