'No one cares what happened to you - you are not Brittany Higgins': Political staffer with a disturbingly familiar story exposes $2.4m taxpayer funded compo double standard

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

A parliamentary researcher who allegedly suffered a similar rape and bullying ordeal to Brittany Higgins says the government treated her completely differently.
Anna Hough, 46, alleges she was raped as a young woman in politics and then bullied and discriminated against by her bosses after she raised it with them.
Ms Hough claims she was sexually abused and raped by a political staffer while volunteering for the Australian Democrats between 2000 and 2001.
When Ms Higgins went public in 2021 to famously disclose her alleged rape by Bruce Lehrmann, Ms Hough said it triggered her trauma from her own experience years earlier which led her to finally tell her bosses.
But Ms Hough alleges that instead of being offered support by the Department of Parliamentary Services, she was sidelined and bullied by her managers.
The mother-of-three from Canberra lodged a legal claim against the Federal Government in September 2023 covering both the alleged historic assaults and alleged bullying.
But while Ms Higgins was given a $2.4million settlement after one day of mediation, Ms Hough claims she was instead treated like a 'second-class victim'.
She told Daily Mail Australia she has been twice asked to sign non-disclosure agreements by the Labor Government and was given low-ball cash offers to settle.
Now, after the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) found on Thursday there was 'no corruption issue' with Ms Higgins' huge settlement - which was signed after a day partly to avoid 'ongoing trauma' - Ms Hough has spoken out.
'I was a victim of alleged parliamentary workplace rape, sexual assault, bullying and discrimination but the Commonwealth has shown no concern about ongoing trauma to me,' Ms Hough told Daily Mail Australia.
'Instead, I have been offered a tiny fraction of the compensation, told repeatedly by lawyers and journalists that "no one cares what happened to you because you are not Brittany Higgins", and pressured to sign NDAs.'
Ms Hough said some of the reasons she had been given by lawyers for the dramatic difference in settlement figures included that, 'you weren't a Liberal staffer', and 'that was a political decision'.
'(But) we are supposed to have equality before the law in Australia,' she said.
'That should mean that if the Prime Minister, say, gets a speeding ticket he has to pay it the same way you or I do.
'And that if I am mistreated in the workplace, I get the same compensation as someone else who is similarly mistreated, whether they are the CEO or the cleaner.'
Ms Hough stressed that her issue was with the government's handling of her own case, not how Ms Higgins' was treated.
'To be clear, I am not attacking Brittany Higgins, I am attacking the government and its inconsistency,' she said.
The NACC said on Thursday that 'a critical consideration during the settlement process was avoiding ongoing trauma to Ms Higgins'.
The former Liberal Party staffer's claim for alleged bullying and victimisation - not the rape itself - took about 11 months before it was resolved after a single day of mediation.
'But mine has now taken 20 months and counting,' Ms Hough said.
'The Commonwealth took four months just to respond to our first settlement offer.
'No one has shown any interest in avoiding ongoing trauma to me.'
On Thursday morning, the NACC took the extraordinary step of revealing its preliminary findings into Ms Higgins' case to 'clear the air' around the 'scrutiny and speculation' surrounding the payout.
It found that there was 'no corruption issue' involving any public officials.
It also stated that the resolution of mediation after just a day was 'unexceptional' and revealed that Ms Higgins actually received less than the maximum amount recommended by external legal advice.
Ms Higgins' former boss Senator Linda Reynolds, who lodged the original complaint, said she was 'bitterly disappointed' by the findings.
'My primary concern has always been how the Commonwealth could possibly settle unsubstantiated and statute barred claims made against me, alleging egregious conduct on my part without taking a single statement from me or speaking to me at all,' she said.
Senator Reynolds has also launched legal action against the Commonwealth over the compensation payment, alleging that government lawyers were 'hopelessly conflicted'.
The NACC said the question of whether Ms Higgins told mistruths during the pay-off talks was outside of their remit.
'Whether Ms Higgins made misrepresentations during the negotiations is not within the scope of the Commission's jurisdiction, as at the relevant time she was not a Commonwealth public official,' the NACC statement said.
In his judgment in the Bruce Lehrmann defamation case last year, Federal Court Judge Michael Lee found that Ms Higgins made at least nine untrue representations when negotiating her settlement with the commission.
Senator Reynolds noted that 'the NACC highlighted that whether or not a corruption issue exists is a different issue from whether there has been any breach of duty, misfeasance or negligence by the Commonwealth or its lawyers in relation to the settlement'.
'This distinction further reinforces the importance of my decision to pursue these issues in the Federal Court,' she added.
Ms Reynolds is also awaiting the outcome of a blockbuster defamation claim she brought against Ms Higgins and her husband David Sharaz over social media posts the pair made about her.
A judgement is expected to be handed down in the Supreme Court of Western Australia later this month.
Ms Hough first went public with her allegations in an interview with Sky News in April.
Ms Hough said her motivation was the 'principle that all survivors deserve justice - regardless of their profile, role, or the media attention their case attracts'.
'I've been silenced for too long,' she added.
'Given the ALP's response to an alleged Parliament House rape cover up last election, the hypocrisy on display in their treatment of me, particularly in trying to silence me, is quite something.'
Ms Hough has not had an affiliation with a political party since 2012 and has never been a member of the Liberal Party.
She was a 21-year-old university student working as a volunteer for the Australian Democrats when she alleges she was raped and sexually assaulted by a political staffer between April 2000 and May 2001.
'The power imbalance, combined with a total lack of reporting mechanisms and a culture of silence, made it impossible for me to speak up,' she told Sky News.
'When I sought help outside the party after the first assault, I was made to feel that it was my fault. No one suggested I report the assault, seek counselling, or speak to the police.'
It was later, during the MeToo era, when Ms. Higgins came forward with her own trauma, that Ms. Hough started suffering PTSD symptoms.
At that stage, she had been working in the Department of Parliamentary Services since 2016.
She disclosed her trauma to her bosses who allegedly failed to offer support.
'Instead of being supported, I was pressured to step down from a more senior acting role, denied a promotion, and treated as a burden,' she added.
'The bullying and discrimination I faced at DPS were re-traumatising.'
She quit her role in April 2023 and filed her legal claim against the Commonwealth five months later.
Ms Hough claims she was twice asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement during settlement negotiations.
But a spokesperson for the Attorney-General's Department has previously denied that they would ask any victims to stay silent with the use of non-disclosure agreements.
Daily Mail Australia approached the Attorney-General's department for further comment.
During her time working in parliament, Ms Hough contributed to the Set the Standard report, which examined workplace behaviour and culture in the corridors of power.
She has also continued to call for the establishment of a redress scheme for survivors of abuse in Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces.