Four investigations and counting, and none have a hope in hell of getting to the bottom of how a young woman’s rape was so shockingly mishandled.
It’s a measure of how worried Scott Morrison is about the fallout from the mistreatment by his government of Brittany Higgins that in the space of five days — after his disastrous “I checked with Jen” response — the prime minister announced not one, not two, not three, but four inquiries and reviews.
The first two — announced last week in an effort to put the Higgins revelations into a political siding — are one by Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) deputy secretary Stephanie Foster examining the processes in place for supporting people who come forward with complaints in the future. The second is an internal Coalition review by Liberal MP Celia Hammond looking at staffing issues.
A third — called in a panic when Morrison’s story that his office knew nothing of what happened to Higgins began to fall apart — is being conducted by PM&C head Phil Gaetjens to find out who inside the PM’s office knew about the alleged rape. It’s confined to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and it’s not clear it will ever be made public.
Read more about just how badly the government has handled the Brittany Higgins scandal.
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