Australian leader apologizes to former staffer who says she was raped in ministerial office

The Australian prime minister apologized Tuesday to a former government staffer, Brittany Higgins, who alleges that she was raped by a more senior colleague in a minister’s office in 2019, The Associated Press reports.

“I am sorry. We are sorry. I’m sorry to Ms. Higgins for the terrible things that took place here,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said before Parliament.

Morrison thanked Higgins for showing courage in coming out with her allegations.

“The place that should have been a place of safety and contribution turned out to be a nightmare. But I’m sorry for far more than that. For all of those who came before Ms. Higgins and endured the same, but she had the courage to speak, and so here we are,” said Morrison according to the AP.

Higgins has alleged that she was raped by a senior colleague, Bruce Lehrmann, in a minister’s Parliament House office, per the wire service. She has said she felt she had to choose between reporting the alleged rape and continuing her career; she quit her job last year before reporting the allegation to police in January.

Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins performed an investigation into the parliamentary workplaces after Higgins’s allegations went public.

A report on the investigation released this week included comments from 1,700 people, including past and present government staffers, and found that 37% of people in parliamentary workplaces had experienced bullying and 33% had experienced sexual harassment, the AP reported.

Morrison’s comments on Tuesday came as presiding officers of the Australian Senate and House of Representatives issued an apology and promised that work would be done to improve the parliamentary workplace culture, according to the wire service.

Lehrmann has pleaded not guilty to a rape charge and will stand trial in a Canberra court in June.