DirectionFreeNews | Commonwealth settles workplace lawsuit brought by Fiona Brown over Brittany Higgins allegations

Key Points

Fiona Brown’s lawsuit against the Commonwealth over psychological injury has been settled.
The claim related to her handling of Brittany Higgins’s 2019 rape allegation.
Settlement terms are confidential with no admission of liability.
The case highlighted workplace safety issues in political offices.

Background History

Fiona Brown was a senior adviser to Linda Reynolds when Brittany Higgins alleged she was raped by colleague Bruce Lehrmann in Parliament House in 2019. Brown was involved in the initial response. The allegation led to a police investigation, a trial that was aborted due to juror misconduct, and a subsequent inquiry into workplace culture. Higgins settled her own compensation claim in 2022. Brown’s lawsuit argued the Defence Department failed to provide a safe workplace, causing her psychological harm.

The Commonwealth has reached a settlement in the workplace lawsuit filed by Fiona Brown, a former staffer to then-defence minister Linda Reynolds, over psychological injury related to the handling of Brittany Higgins’s rape allegations. The settlement, announced on Tuesday, resolves a legal action that claimed the Department of Defence failed to provide a safe workplace after Brown was involved in the response to Higgins’s 2019 complaint. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but the government confirmed it was final and without admission of liability. The case had drawn attention to the treatment of staffers in ministerial offices and the pressures they faced during the Higgins affair. Brown’s lawsuit was separate from Higgins’s own compensation claim, which was settled in 2022. The outcome effectively closes another chapter in the long-running saga that reshaped Australia’s political landscape and sparked broader discussions about workplace safety in Parliament House.