RUBY:

Paul Bongiorno, how are you?

PAUL:

Well, considering my age and other infirmities, I'm well.

RUBY:

Speaking of age, it is the 400th birthday for 7am!

PAUL:

Yes, well, happy birthday, 7am!

RUBY:

Haha.

PAUL:

Only Methuselah was older.

RUBY:

Does it feel like four hundred episodes to you?

PAUL:

Well, I haven't done four hundred, have I?

RUBY:

You've probably been on the show more than anyone else.

PAUL:

Is that right?

RUBY:

Mmhm.

PAUL:

Well, that's good.

RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

Today’s episode is slightly different. We’re celebrating 400 shows since we launched in 2019.

Every week since then, Paul Bongiorno has spoken to us about his column in The Saturday Paper.

In this episode, we follow Paul through his week - up at Parliament House, at press conferences, and back at home, writing.

It’s a story about how stories happen - about how Canberra has responded to the alleged assault of former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, in an office just beside the prime minister’s, and how the prime minister has tried to manage the story.

So here it is. Episode 400 of 7am.

Thanks for listening to us as we got here.

---

RUBY:

So, Paul, it's Tuesday afternoon now and you have spent the day in Parliament. Can you tell me about what happened at your first briefings?

PAUL:

Well, there were two briefings, of course, the Liberal and National Party Room and of course, the Labor Party room. But you know what, Ruby, before the party room meeting, the Prime Minister was at an event mainly discussing ovarian cancer -

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“I’m sure you’d all agree that what we’ve just witnessed from Kaitlin is incredibly overwhelming, and as a government…”

PAUL:

But in the doorstop after that, he then discussed the whole issue of the alleged rape of a Liberal Party minister staffer, Brittany Higgins.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“I said yesterday in the Parliament that we had to listen to Brittany. I have listened to Brittany.”

PAUL:

The Prime Minister obviously has been deeply affected by this because in the party room, he spent some time talking about this alleged event, the issue, the handling of it, and that they’d all have to do better. Now, the interesting thing for me was that umm…

[Phone rings]

Just a minute Ruby, sorry, I’ll just get rid of this phone.

RUBY:

Yeah no worries. And so, Paul, is this issue, this issue of how women are treated at parliament, is it, do you think, going to become the dominating political story of the week?

PAUL:

Well it will be interesting to see what happens from here, because you have the relevant mini-...
(Phone rings)
Sorry, I must be more popular than I realise.
(Paul racket)

RUBY:

Umm I was wondering, Paul, if you think that this issue, which has come out of this one woman, Brittany Higgins, talking about what happened to her and making these allegations public. But it's really it's a broader issue that's been talked about for a while now, the issue of how women are treated in parliament. Do you think that this will be the main political story of the week here?

PAUL:

Yeah well, there is that issue. And as I say, it was in the news conferences, in the briefing from the party room and then in parliament itself, where he, you know, as we used to say, put on the sackcloth and ashes and said ‘yes, we have to do better’ and apologised. The other issues that are running, of course, the prime minister held a courtyard press conference, which I went to, and that was to announce the AstraZeneca vaccine and the roll out of it.
But interestingly, there, even though people were interested in the ins and outs of that, again the Brittanys Higgins issue dominated that press conference.

RUBY:

So a lot going on then, Paul. I'll let you get back to it, but I'll call you again tomorrow to check in and see how your piece is coming along.

PAUL:

Thanks very much, Ruby. You've got to be working very hard this week.

RUBY:

Ha ha ha.

PAUL:

I should put in for a payrise.

RUBY:

Look, that's that's not my call. You have to go higher than me to get one of those. But thank you. I really appreciate it. And yeah, I'll check in again tomorrow.

PAUL:

See you later. Bye

RUBY:

Bye!

---

RUBY:

Paul, when I spoke to you on Tuesday you were looking at a few things, you were tracking the political fallout from the rape allegation made by Brittany Higgins and also the AstraZeneca announcement. Tell me how the two things seem to you, now you’ve had time to look back at them.

PAUL:

Ah well, Ruby, there’s a bit of wisdom in politics that when bad news is crowding in on you, the best thing you can do as Prime Minister is to come up with an even bigger good news story. And that couldn’t have been far from Scott Morrison’s mind as he went to announce on Tuesday that the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine was now approved for roll out in Australia.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“This is an enormous exercise. There has been meticulous planning undertaken for an extensive period of time…”

PAUL:

Never mind that Australia hasn’t exactly led the world as promised in providing this protection for its citizens. As we know, the rest of the developed world is well ahead of us in terms of vaccine roll out.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“This is an enormous exercise which requires many steps. The planning of the strategy, the securing of the vaccines, going through the important approvals process which can give Australians confidence. I said this morning when we take our children to be vaccinated…”

PAUL:

But for Scott Morrison, what was important was having something to grab headlines. And what better than news we have all been desperately waiting for a year to get.

RUBY:

Right but Paul, Brittany Higgins’ story and, by extension, the story of the treatment of women in politics that was not going away. No matter how big Morrison’s announcement was intended to be.

PAUL:

Not going away, Ruby, and nor should it. This is yet another story about the culture of sexism and misogyny at Parliament House - Brittany Higgins broke two years of suffering in silence to allege - in her case - a story of rape, cover up and disregard.

So many of the elements of this sad saga had the recurring features of a government that “humbly”, to quote the prime minister, promises accountability and transparency, only to do its best to hide from view its failures and disregard for earlier conventions and behaviour.

RUBY:

We’ll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Hello, Paul.

PAUL:

Hello, is that you?

RUBY:

It is me, hi! it's one o'clock on Wednesday right now I'm just calling to check in and see how it's all going.

PAUL:

Well, it's always, always a bit tense on Wednesday because this is the day when I really have to write my column for the weekend and then there’s a fair bit happening because parliament's sitting. But on Wednesdays I’m very panic-stricken.

RUBY:

Why are you panic-stricken?

PAUL:

Cos I have to come up with 1500 words by 4 o’clock. Although I’d like to think I’m a bit like Winston Churchill who said ‘every great speaker feels sick before he gives a speech, I feel positively vomitous’.

RUBY:

Okay that doesn’t sound great. Umm I hope you’re ok. How are the issues that we talked about yesterday developing, Paul?

PAUL:

Um there are questions today which are in parliament as to what the prime minister knew and and when he knew. Also questions then if he didn't know, how come his office, which clearly knew before him, didn't let him in on what was happening.

You know, often governments under pressure prefer to be seen to be incompetent rather than dishonest or covering up something that they'd rather the world not see.

RUBY:

So he's facing quite a bit of pressure then. And what is the...what are people you're talking to saying about how he's handling this?

PAUL:

Well yeah, I've spoken to a couple of Liberal MPs who are absolutely appalled at Scott Morrison's, as it were, hiding behind his wife's skirts on finally realising how bad it is that a young woman alleges rape, and something real needs to be done about it.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“Jenny and I spoke last night, and she said to me ‘You have to think about this as a father first. What would you want to happen if it were our girls’”

PAUL:

Ten’s Tegan George spoke for a number of people when she asked why he needed his wife to tell him how serious this all was.

Archival Tape -- Tegan George

“You said this conversation really hit home when you had it with Jenny, you thought about it as a husband and a father, shouldn’t you have thought about it as a human being? What happens if men don’t have a wife and children…”

PAUL:

Well that flummoxed the Prime Minister - he replied that he was who he was, and he couldn’t follow the question.

Archival Tape -- Scott Morrison:

“In my own experience being a husband and father is central to me, my human being. So I just can’t follow the question you’re putting…”

PAUL:

Others I spoke to off the record, particularly on the backbench, were scathing in their criticism. People are pointing out discrepancies in timelines, what's being said by the prime minister, what's been said by other ministers, and the opposition picked up on this in a series of interviews and is planning to highlight it in its parliamentary tactics today.

RUBY:

OK, Paul. Well, I will let you get back to the column and get all of that down on the page before deadline. Thank you for making the time, and we'll call you-... I'll call you tomorrow, tomorrow morning, if that works?

PAUL:

See you later in the week, see you later in the week.

RUBY:

OK, goodbye.

PAUL:

Thank you very much. Goodbye!

---

RUBY:

Paul, it’s Thursday now. How did the week come together?

PAUL:

Well Ruby, much as Morrison thought he was getting away from the Higgins story, he couldn’t. And it is right for him to be held to account. You know this happened 50 metres from his office. It looks very much like senior people in the Liberal Party - politicians and staffers - knew and were trying to conceal it.

RUBY:

Right - and what is Morrison doing to deal with this alleged assault?

PAUL:

Well initially Morrison announced he was asking two women, a senior public servant and the new Liberal MP and former vice chancellor of Notre Dame university in Perth, Celia Hammond, to work on ways of improving standards and procedures. Now this in itself is controversial. Hammond has railed against sex before marriage, contraception, feminism and sexual freedoms in the past. The broadcaster and journalist Julia Baird, for example, has described Hammond as “a staunch anti-feminist.”

Labor and the independents on the cross bench in the House of Representatives are calling for an independent review and a new agency to handle complaints free from departmental or ministerial oversight. Even former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said there needs to be an independent review - not like the ones Morrison initially announced.

Archival Tape -- Malcolm Turnbull

“Frankly I think a review of this kind should be done by somebody or some people that are absolutely independent…”

PAUL:

Turnbull said it was incredible Morrison’s office wasn’t aware of the alleged assault

Archival Tape -- Malcolm Turnbull

“I find it inconceivable that that wasn’t well known to at least key members of the Prime Ministers staff. And if it wasn’t then there was clearly an absolutely baffling breakdown in communications. It just strains credulity.”

RUBY:

And will this review do any good? I mean, will it change anything?

PAUL:

Well I’ve got to tell you, the precedents aren’t good. You may remember - probably you don’t, because that’s the idea - Morrison promised two earlier probes: one after two Liberal MPs complained of bullying from their colleagues in that coup that toppled Turnbull, and the other after the Four Corners revelations on the behaviour towards women by ministers Alan Tudge and Christian Porter.

Both of those reviews have disappeared without trace.

RUBY:

I suppose we can just hope that the outcome here is different.

PAUL:

Well Absolutely. It’s long overdue, and we can only trust and hope that the courage of Brittany Higgins is the circuit breaker we all so desperately need here.

RUBY:

Paul, thank you for your time today, and thank you for your time over the last 400 episodes. It’s been great!

PAUL:

Well thank you, Ruby. How time flies when you’re having fun. Bye.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today, Facebook has blocked users in Australia from sharing any news articles, in response to the federal government's proposed media bargaining laws.

A range of non-news sites have also been affected by Facebook’s ban, including government health sites and not-for-profit organisations.

Victoria has recorded no new local COVID-19 cases for the second day in a row. Meanwhile NSW has achieved its 32nd day in a row without a local case.

7am is a daily show from The Monthly and The Saturday Paper. It’s produced by Ruby Schwartz, Atticus Bastow, Elle Marsh, Michelle Macklem, and Cinnamon Nippard.

Brian Campeau mixes the show. Our editor is Osman Faruqi. Erik Jensen is our editor-in-chief.
Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio.

New episodes of 7am are released every weekday morning. Subscribe in your favourite podcast app, to make sure you don’t miss out.

I’m Ruby Jones, see you next week.