Brittany Higgins announces return to the workforce after four years as she seeks her 'own identity' outside of media interest

Sky News AU

03-06-2025

Brittany Higgins is returning to the workforce four years after the ex-political staffer quit parliament, joining the same company currently employing her husband.
Ms Higgins, 30, has been appointed public affairs director at independent public relations agency Third Hemisphere, the Australian Financial Review (AFR) reported on Wednesday.
It comes after the former Liberal Party media adviser's husband David Sharaz also joined the boutique Sydney agency as a director in April.
Ms Higgins' will head strategic advocacy and reputation management for target clients and oversee stakeholder engagement, media relations, and public affairs initiatives aimed at moulding public perception and change.
Her female-focused clients include non-profit organisations, women's advocacy and support groups, and female leaders at large organisations.
The clients represent an extension of Ms Higgins' advocacy for workplace safety, gender-based violence, and cultural reform in politics.
Third Hemisphere founder and CEO Hannah Moreno is also a rape survivor, and her social justice advocacy helped convince Ms Higgins to join the firm.
'There was this general feeling of 'how long do I have to be the story for?' At what point do I get to put it to rest and actually get on the tools and be a working person again, and have my own identity outside this narrative of Brittany Higgins,' the former parliamentary staffer told the AFR.
'Who I was was really founded in my work. I was the most intense person back in the day – the first one in and the last one out – I had no work-life balance, and it was exactly how I liked it.
'To lose that was really quite tough. To start to reclaim that sense of identity feels good.'
Ms Higgins, who in March welcomed her first child with Mr Sharaz, a boy named Freddie, said she has a "brand reputation" to uphold and did not want to associate herself with an "untoward" new workplace corporately.
Instead, the first-time mother wished to join a team she believed in and one that believed in her, too.
Alongside her career in government, Ms Higgins helped advance feminism and influence national legislative reform.
In 2021, she was appointed as the inaugural Visiting Fellow at The Australian National University's Global Institute for Women's Leadership.
Her lobbying was key to prompting Australia's Sex Discrimination Commissioner's historic review of parliamentary workplace culture.
The review led to the federal government's commitment to implement the full slate of recommendations of the Set The Standard report.
Reflecting on her efforts to the AFR, Ms Higgins said she's passionate about advocacy, but "it's not forever" nor a "self-sustaining career."
She said she aspires to follow in the footsteps of gender equality advocate Sam Mostyn, social activist Tanya Hosch and business executive Christine Holgate and hopes her new role is the first step.
"To feel sidelined and forever be living in your trauma is really reductive,' she said.
Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz, 33, will work from home full-time as they navigate being parents to three-month-old Freddie.
Mr Sharaz previously worked as a journalist and media advisor and it is understood his role at Third Hemisphere entails boosting the agency's political media engagement.
The ex-reporter proposed to Ms Higgins at Byron Bay on New Year's Eve in 2022, months after the former political staffer was paid compensation after Bruce Lehrmann raped her in Parliament House.
Ms Higgins received a $2.4 million payout from the Commonwealth in 2022.
The newlyweds were previously living in France in a home purchased by Ms Higgins to start afresh following intense media coverage in Australia.
However, they listed their chateau in the south of France and returned to Australia, where they have set up a home in Melbourne.