Who knew? When did they find out? And what, if anything, did they do about it?
It's nearly a week since former Liberal Party staffer Brittany Higgins went public with her bombshell allegation she was raped by a colleague in a minister's office.
But many questions remain unanswered, and some assertions are hotly contested. This has fuelled a perception that the incident was seriously mishandled by the Federal Government and parliamentary authorities.
The Opposition has claimed the handling of the incident points to a "culture of cover-up". Ms Higgins says she felt pressured to choose between going to the police or continuing a promising career in politics.
Some of the Prime Minister's closest and most trusted advisers are now in the public spotlight, and there are a number of government backbenchers who believe the Defence Minister Linda Reynolds must resign or be sacked.
Disturbingly, there is also a fresh accusation reported in The Weekend Australian the alleged rapist sexually assaulted another woman late last year.
The allegations this week have added to sustained and persistent calls for sweeping changes to the workplace culture in the corridors of power.
As media coverage of this case rolls into a second week, here's what we know and, more importantly, some of the big questions left unanswered.
What do we know about the alleged rape?
The alleged rape occurred in the early hours of March 23, 2019, and the information we have about it comes largely from Ms Higgins's recollection of events.
She told Channel Ten she had helped organise Friday night workplace drinks at a popular Canberra establishment. She was just a few weeks into a new job as a media adviser with the then-defence industry minister, Senator Reynolds, and wanted to get to know her new colleagues better.
Ms Higgins remembers being bought a lot of drinks by a male colleague who she says was regarded as a "rising star" within Liberal Party politics.
She became very drunk and at one point fell over. Ms Higgins says the man offered to drop her home in a taxi, however, he took her to Parliament House instead.
She remembers entering the office and lying down on the Minister's couch. She claims waking up "mid-rape" and half-dressed, before crying and urging him repeatedly to stop.
Photos of her leg from the time appear to show a bruise that Ms Higgins says came from her leg being crushed during the assault.
How was the incident initially handled?
The following week, Ms Higgins was called into a formal meeting.
The defence industry minister's office contains classified information, and the incident was initially treated as a potential security breach, as well as a breach of the code of conduct that applies to ministerial staff.
Ms Higgins said it was on that day she learned the alleged rapist had been dismissed over those "breaches".
However, when she later spoke to Senator Reynolds about her version of events, she said she felt the mood change — as though she, and her sexual assault allegation, were suddenly political problems to be managed.
That meeting was held in the same room where the alleged rape took place, a decision the government now concedes was a mistake.
Senator Reynolds has repeatedly said she encouraged Ms Higgins to go to police and had only ever wanted to respect her wishes and desire for privacy.
"My sole desire was to let Brittany herself determine how this matter would be dealt with," she told the Senate last week.
Although Ms Higgins did speak with officers soon after the incident, she ultimately decided not to pursue a formal complaint at the time.
It occurred just a few weeks before the federal election was called. Ms Higgins feared the offer of support wasn't genuine and felt going to authorities would have jeopardised her career and job.
Two years on, she says she still has many questions about what happened that night in one of the most heavily guarded buildings in Australia.
"I have only been made aware of key elements of my own sexual assault as a result of coming forward publicly with my story," she said in a statement this week.
"I didn't know security guards let me into Minister Reynolds' suite. I didn't know that security guards came into the office multiple times seeing me in a state of undress. I didn't know they were undertaking an internal review into how the matter was handled at the time. I didn't know that they debated calling an ambulance at the time of the incident," she said.
Will Defence Minister Linda Reynolds resign or be sacked?
Senator Reynolds is now under enormous pressure over her handling of the incident, and a number of Coalition MPs and senators think she should resign or be sacked.
Several backbenchers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, argue that at a minimum, Senator Reynolds should have offered to go with Ms Higgins to the police immediately following the incident and formally reported it to the Prime Minister's Office.
"It didn't have to be like this," one Liberal told the ABC.
"This is another example of her lack of judgement and another sign she's just not up to the job."
It's often the case in Canberra that when a minister is under pressure, colleagues sense an opportunity for advancement and start jostling for position. Senator Reynolds had already been facing some internal grumbling over her handling of the Brereton war crimes investigation and her general parliamentary performance.
However, some of the minister's supporters insist she has no intention of going anywhere.
There has long been a concern within sections of the Liberal Party that there are not enough women in senior roles. Her supporters point out that other men in the Morrison government who have been embroiled in scandal have not been sacked or moved on.
Not long after Senator Reynolds' teary performance towards the end of Senate Question Time on Thursday, the Prime Minister was seen walking from the blue carpet of the ministerial wing to the red carpet of the Upper House.
It's understood he went to see the senator who, instead of returning to her ministerial office, had sought to compose herself in the company of trusted colleagues.
Her allies say Senator Reynolds feels she had been hung out to dry by Morrison last Tuesday when he said he'd made his unhappiness known about not being informed earlier about Ms Higgins' claim of sexual assault.
This was widely assumed to have been a dig at Senator Reynolds, although Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton suggested the Prime Minister's annoyance was broadly aimed.
"He was angry this week, I can tell you, behind the scenes at his staff and the way in which he wasn't briefed and provided that information," Mr Dutton told the Today show.
"He was right to be angry, if he has been misled then that's a different level for him to deal with."
It is not known what the Prime Minister and Senator Reynolds discussed but on Saturday, the Prime Minister was asked whether she still had his support.
"Of course she does," he replied.
What did the Prime Minister's Office know and when?
A lot of focus right now is on what the Prime Minister's team knew about this incident.
Mr Morrison has repeatedly insisted his office did not find out about the alleged rape until February 12 this year.
It is an assertion doubted by two former prime ministers. Ms Higgins believes at least four people in the Prime Minister's Office had prior knowledge of the incident.
She claims the Prime Minister's principal private secretary, Yaron Finkelstein, spoke with her after the ABC's Four Corners program aired a piece about the workplace culture in Parliament House. That is something the Prime Minister's office denies. One of Senator Reynolds' senior staffers at the time of the alleged assault now works with Mr Morrison's team, though according to the Prime Minister, she didn't discuss the incident in her new office.
Some members of Mr Morrison's staff were involved in firing the man alleged to have assaulted Ms Higgins, though they apparently didn't know about the rape allegation at the time.
There are also text messages that appear to show a senior member of the Prime Minister's staff was "mortified" after hearing of the incident in April 2019, though that staff member now says he doesn't remember a rape allegation being made.
Faced with the evidence, Mr Morrison has asked his most senior bureaucrat, secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Phil Gaetjens, to test whether the advice he's been given by his staff is correct.
Mr Gaetjens has held some of the nation's most senior political and bureaucratic jobs in the nation and served as chief of staff to Mr Morrison when he was the treasurer.
Many of those he is now tasked with investigating are people he has worked closely alongside.
He is expected to interview Mr Finkelstein, the Prime Minister's chief of staff, John Kunkel, and senior adviser Julian Leembruggen.
The Opposition argues it's beyond belief the Prime Minister or his team couldn't have been told a serious crime had potentially occurred only metres away from his office.
Who else in Parliament House knew an incident had occurred?
We now know a number of people in other parts of Parliament House knew some sort of incident had occurred, well before Ms Higgins spoke publicly.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate were informed of after-hours access to the minister's suite, but they were not told there had been an alleged sexual assault. That's because the Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS) says that at that stage it didn't know. In fact, DPS claims it wasn't made aware of an alleged sexual assault until April 18 — almost four weeks after the incident.
Neither the President nor the Speaker told the Prime Minister's Office an incident had occurred.
DPS said it learned of the alleged rape when the Australian Federal Police (AFP) sought security camera vision. The department was investigated over its decision to clean Senator Reynolds' office, the scene of the alleged crime, but was ultimately cleared of wrongdoing.
"The AFP was able to establish that both DPS and Parliamentary Security Services (PSS) staff were involved in the response to this incident, and that there were no disclosures of sexual assault made on the day of the incident and therefore actions taken by them were not in response to a suspected crime," the AFP wrote in correspondence to Senate President Scott Ryan and House Speaker Tony Smith in June last year.
A Senate committee, which is reviewing the work of DPS, also heard about the incident via an anonymous submission last year. It is understood that much of the information in the original whistleblower's submission was unsubstantiated. Some of it was plain wrong.
After the 2019 election, Ms Higgins went to work with Employment Minister Michaelia Cash who knew an incident involving her young staffer had occurred as far back as October of that year, but insists that it was only in February this year that she found out it was an alleged sexual assault.
The minister for women at the time of the incident, Kelly O'Dwyer, who retired from politics at the 2019 election, wasn't told of the alleged assault.
Will change come out of this?
There are now four reviews taking place that all have the stated aim of improving the workplace culture within Parliament House.
The first is being led by Stephanie Foster, a deputy secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. It will look at the processes in place for dealing with complaints from staff.
The second is being run by Liberal backbencher Celia Hammond. She is examining what can be done to improve working conditions for parliamentary staff in the Coalition.
The third is a cross-party process that will examine what can be done to better support staff in Canberra.
The fourth is the internal inquiry led by Phil Gaetjens. He is aiming to find out what and when staff in the Prime Minister's Office knew about Ms Higgins' complaint, potentially going so far as to look at phone records.
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said the reviews were welcome but warned that, "there is no substitute for action" and that change would only come if there was zero tolerance for bad behaviour.
"Ministers, and indeed prime ministers, need to set the standard and enforce it," he said.
"At the heart of this, is a lack of respect for women."
Although there has been some action by the government this week, there is also some scepticism about how much things will change, given sexism and misogyny have been debated in Parliament House many times before — including as recently as November, when the ABC's Four Corners program went to air with allegations against ministers Alan Tudge and Christian Porter.
Mr Porter strongly denies any wrongdoing.
Will charges now be laid?
On Friday, Brittany Higgins announced she had "re-engaged" with police and was proceeding with a formal complaint.
She asked that they handle their investigations in a "timely manner as to date, I have waited a long time for justice".
"I want a comprehensive police investigation … and for my perpetrator to face the full force of the law," she added.
Ms Higgins also now wants a role in reviewing the protections given to political advisers and says she is determined no other person goes through the trauma she experienced.
Media reports suggest, however, something similar may have already occurred.
Mr Morrison says he is "sickened" by allegations, first published in The Weekend Australian, that the former Liberal adviser allegedly raped a second woman last year.
"I think we have a problem in the Parliament and the workplace culture that exists there," he said.
"I am seeking to try and address this as swiftly and effectively as we possibly can."
The Opposition says parts of the government's response to the issue have not been credible so far.
It plans to make the issue the focus of Question Time in Parliament again during this next sitting week.
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2021-02-20 19:19:03Z
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