Brittany Higgins' new role is the start of a system overhaul

*CONTENT WARNING: This article discusses rape

Brittany Higgins isn’t a hero for enduring rape, but for speaking out about it over voices determined to drown hers out, writes Zayda Dollie.

FORMER LIBERAL STAFFER Brittany Higgins, who came forward with rape allegations against Bruce Lehrmann in 2021, has just announced her return to public life.

The 30-year-old former media advisor to the Liberal Party has been appointed as the new director of public affairs for PR agency Third Hemisphere. Higgins' return to the space where private and public discourse intersect is as deliberate as her initial step into the media spotlight years ago.

It seems fitting that Higgins would be invited back into the arena to shape how the public thinks, talks and acts on institutionalised sexual harm. It appears that rather than run from her past, she chooses instead to platform off her ordeal, using it as a talking point for a dialogue in need of voices.

According to Third Hemisphere:

'The right message, at the right time, can shift public dialogue and drive real-world results.'

#1 TOP STORY OF 2023: Dirty little secrets outed in Higgins' case against Lehrmann

And here it is! The most popular story of 2023, even though it was published in December 2022. This story about a ghastly new episode in Australia's chequered history struck a chord amongst so many of us and continues to attract readers to this this day.

Higgins, earlier this week, described the cultural regression she saw taking place in Australia following the #MeToo movement.

She said:

Movements don’t just provoke change. They also promote backlash. And if we look around today in 2025 it’s clear we’re witnessing a concerted pushback, not only against survivors, but against the very idea that sexual violence deserves to be taken seriously is a systemic cultural crisis.

[Such backlash is] well-funded, sophisticated and at times, deeply embedded within the institutions, which are meant to protect us.

Higgins was working as a media advisor under Senator Linda Reynolds when she was raped by senior colleague, Bruce Lehrmann, inside Parliament House in 2019.

Higgins continued working for the Liberal Party for two more years in silence before going public with the allegations in February 2021.The decision to approach the media herself was steeped with intent. Over the five years of legal action that ensued, Higgins never faltered.

Higgins said she received no support from the Liberal Party privately in the immediate aftermath of the rape and even less after it became public. She was openly discredited by her boss, Senator Reynolds, and deliberately misrepresented by mainstream media outlets, which gave undue focus to Higgins' actions and her cross-examination rather than decisions made by senior management after the alleged rape.

Federal Court Justice Michael Lee found, on the balance of probabilities, that Lehrmann had raped Brittany Higgins. Despite this finding, Senator Reynolds sued Brittany Higgins for defamation with a five-week trial concluding in September last year. The verdict has not yet been handed down. Reynolds has also recently launched a lawsuit against the Commonwealth, claiming it breached its duty to act in her best interests by awarding Higgins $2.44 million in compensation.

Reynolds has alluded to the personal damage she felt was inflicted on her by Higgins' rape allegations, prompting Labor Senator Penny Wong to ask her, "So you're the victim, not Ms Higgins?"

Higgins went public with her allegations in the first place because the existing support structures seemed more inclined to cover them up. Higgins wanted to expose the way sexual assault was mishandled in an attempt at reforming it — to uncover the flaws in a system that fails victims rather than helps them.

Lehrmann's lawyers contort themselves in effort to discredit Higgins

In closing submissions, lawyers representing Bruce Lehrmann in his defamation suit against Network Ten have presented a tangled web of inconsistent scenarios.

In 2022, Higgins told the media outside court:

"My life has been publicly scrutinised, open for the world to see. Many of you in the media have been called out for labelling the last few weeks, 'The Higgins Trial'. But I don't blame you because it's very clear who has been on trial."

Higgins spoke again this week in a public address about the need to transform the media narrative around sexual assault.

She said about the media scrutinising her clothing, alcohol consumption and sexual motives:

"...inadvertently, they [other survivors] were seeing the same old rhetoric that taught them to be shamed in the first place. Suddenly, they saw subsections of the Australian public discount their pain, whether their rape, assault or harassment would or could be attributed to their actions.”

Higgins' appointment by the female-led PR agency represents a much-needed shift away from the structural roadblocks that empower all the wrong people to use their voices.

She said this week:

"This work will be difficult. It will be uncomfortable. It will involve letting go of centuries of inherited legal thinking... We must demand transparency...and make silence impossible.”

There are many voices like Higgins' that deserve to be amplified — it's about time the public heard them.

If you would like to speak to someone about sexual violence, please call the 1800 Respect hotline on 1800 737 732 or chat online.

Zayda Dollie is an IA assistant editor who believes in the power of stories and in having female voices heard. You can follow her on Instagram @zayda_dollie_hendricks, X @ZaydaD or Bluesky @zaydadollie.