In the #MeToo moment,all women had begun to reflect on their treatment by powerful or simply entitled men and many had discovered that experiences they thought they’d brushed off still burned. Time was being called on the casual sexual entitlement of men. A swirling feminist anger,locked up within during COVID lockdown,was ready to make change.
Brittany Higgins and Lisa Wilkinson outside Parliament House in March 2021.Dominic Lorrimer
Liberal women were angry that the party couldn’t seem to preselect them and recognise their contribution. Illiberal women were angry that Scott Morrison had won an election that was supposed to be in the bag for Labor. Then on February 15,2021,former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins went to air with that she had been raped in Parliament House and that her rape was hushed up for political reasons.
The interview channelled the anger of women over slights and humiliations,grabby bosses and sleazy peers,which they had for decades been told to brush aside. A couple of weeks later,ABCFour Corners screened,a follow-up from a November show which pointed out sexual indiscretions in the capital but hinted at something more sinister by an unnamed minister.Burstingaired on International Women’s Day,after attorney-general Christian Porter,who had been accused of raping a girl when they were teenagers (which he vehemently denies) as the unnamed minister subject to serious allegations.
In the politically charged atmosphere,Melbourne “academic,designer,entrepreneur and mother” in a tweet about whether it would be possible to surround Parliament House with women linking arms. Her thought bubble took off. On March 15,the first parliamentary sitting day after International Women’s Day,4000 women marched on Parliament House in the “March4Justice”. Brittany Higgins spoke at the event,supported by Lisa Wilkinson,who had broken the allegations onThe Project.
that a “thunderous roar for change rings out across the nation” and “tidal wave of tears and rage sweeps the land”. Prime minister Scott Morrison,who had frankly always given a lot of women the icks,chose not to face the marching mob. His government,tested by fire and plague,and led by a man who never met a principle he liked better than a polling result,lost the female vote and would never recover.
March4Justice organiser Janine Hendry. “Her Twitter stream suggests she is still grumpy,but mainly at Coalition MPs.”Alex Ellinghausen
But where are the women now? Where is the feminism? Where is the March4Justice movement that swore it would not rest until ALL women were safe in Australia,gendered violence was ended and gender equality achieved?
Janine Hendry is,her Twitter stream suggests,still grumpy,but mainly at Coalition MPs. Her fire seems to have died out. Oh,and shehearts Prime Minister Albanese’s Hallmark-endorsed to his girlfriend.
After a devastating,emotional and politicised trial,juror misconduct has left Brittany Higgins and Bruce Lehrmann in legal limbo,neither able to say that a jury found the alleged rape proved beyond a reasonable doubt,or otherwise.
Meanwhile,a defamation suit brought by Lehrmann against Channel 10,live-streamed in the interests of open justice,has revealed the partisan decision-making around the way Higgins’ allegations were framed and aired. This is completely incidental to the question of whether Lehrmann was defamed or not (which is currently with a judge to decide) but we now know from texts sent by Higgins’ boyfriend,David Sharaz,that the couple wanted to influence the timing of the interview,possibly to inflict maximum political damage. Sharaz was lining up Labor MPs to ask questions and create an issue for the Coalition government.
Lisa Wilkinson outside the Federal Court in Sydney with barrister Sue Crystanthou. Ms Wilkinson and Network Ten are being sued for defamation by Bruce Lehrmann.Dion Georgopoulos
The Project interview led off claims that there had been a politically motivated,systematic cover-up of the alleged rape,starting in Senator Linda Reynolds’ office,implicating her chief of staff Fiona Brown,and going right up to the prime minister.
But in the course of the defamation trial,it became clear that there is little evidence of a cover-up. Rather,it seems that processes were meticulously followed to offer Higgins the agency any rape victim is due in deciding whether to report to police or not. “The story wasn’t about the politicians,” Brown the judge. “These were two 23-year-olds and there was no cover-up. The police were consulted,the Department of Finance was consulted,the DPS (Department of Parliamentary Services) knew.” In fact,Reynolds wanted the matter to go to police,but Brown stood her ground on protecting Higgins’ right to decide.
Lisa Wilkinson,the journalist who conducted the interview forThe Project,has since argued that she did not have sole responsibility for checking these facts. Mounting a paper doll defence,she pointed to the experienced team of producers around her,who she said she relied on to verify the claims she was airing. But she was not unmoved by political considerations either. In,she can be heard detailing her feud with the senator caught up in the allegations.
The Higgins case was used to create a political storm. The March4Justice kicked its political goal,helped to remove the Coalition government,and subsided. The sisterhood failed to show up on behalf of the female chief of staff who tried to do the right thing in the face of a rape allegation when the blame for a cover-up was sheeted home to her.
The women have dispersed,leaving a terrible conclusion:feminism wasn’t championed,it was merely co-opted. Feminism faced its own nemesis and lost to political calculation.
Whether they personally endorse the political outcomes or not,that is something which should make women extremely angry.
Parnell Palme McGuinness is managing director at award-winning campaigns firm Agenda C. She has done work for the Liberal Party and the German Greens.