The commonwealth has settled the lawsuit brought by Fiona Brown, the former chief of staff to Linda Reynolds whose account of the Brittany Higgins saga has been backed by two judges, sparing former prime minister Scott Morrison and his most senior advisers from giving evidence at a trial. The Australian revealed the parties reached an undisclosed settlement at a mediation last week, with court documents recording the matter as resolved.

The trial had been set down for 4 weeks before Justice Nye Perram in the Federal Court from March 2027. Nobody will say what taxpayers are paying Brown, just as nobody has ever shown taxpayers the deed that paid Brittany Higgins $2.4 million.

Fiona Brown was cast as the cover up villain. Two judges found she told the truth

Fiona Brown is not a politician, she was a senior public servant on loan from the Prime Minister's Office, serving as chief of staff to then defence industry minister Linda Reynolds in March 2019, when Higgins was raped by fellow staffer Bruce Lehrmann on the couch in Reynolds' ministerial office.

When Higgins went public in February 2021, she claimed Brown and Reynolds had failed to support her and had covered up the assault to protect the Morrison government. Brown became the unnamed villain of the biggest political story in the country. She was never accused of a crime. She was accused of something almost as damaging: sacrificing a young rape victim for her political masters.

Both judges who have examined that claim found it was false. In the Lehrmann defamation case in April 2024, Federal Court Justice Michael Lee found Higgins had been raped, but that Brown, far from covering anything up, had acted with compassion and integrity and been unfairly "vilified as an unfeeling apparatchik".

In the Western Australian Supreme Court in August 2025, Justice Paul Tottle found Higgins' claims of a political cover up were untrue, identified 26 false or misleading aspects in her media interviews, and ordered her to pay Reynolds $315,000 in damages plus interest.

Scott Morrison told her they had spoken, Fiona Brown's claim says the opposite

In her Fair Work claim against the commonwealth, reported by The Australian, Fiona Brown alleged Scott Morrison falsely claimed the pair had spoken after a hostile question time in which he was asked whether he had talked to her about Higgins. She said Morrison refused to speak to her after the scandal broke except to tell her they had spoken, when they had not, and that she felt "frightened and intimidated" by the encounter.

Her statement of claim alleged Morrison's chief of staff John Kunkel decided to withhold media questions sent to her, that press secretary Andrew Carswell failed to show her statements he issued to the media purportedly on her behalf, and that senior male advisers caught up in the scandal, including principal private secretary Yaron Finkelstein, were protected while she was, in her words, thrown under the bus.

Stripped of her duties overseeing The Lodge and Kirribilli House, Brown was left authorising leave and ordering stationery. Eleven days after Morrison's February 2022 national apology to Higgins in parliament, which Brown says falsely conveyed she bore responsibility for Higgins' treatment, she attempted suicide.

The commonwealth did not deny her account of the Morrison encounter. Its defence said it "does not know and cannot admit" the allegation, cited parliamentary privilege over the apology, and argued the prime minister's dealings with Brown were political decisions that "cannot be characterised as 'employer' functions". It hired one of the country's top silks, Kate Eastman SC, and took more than 6 months to file that defence. Then, at mediation, it settled.

Brittany Higgins got $2.4 million in a single day

The contrast that hangs over this settlement is December 2022. Brittany Higgins' compensation claim against the commonwealth was resolved at a one day mediation, with Linda Reynolds barred from attending to contest allegations made against her. The commonwealth paid Higgins $2.4 million. The deed is confidential.

The claim itself began under the Morrison government. A letter from Higgins' lawyers Blumers to then finance secretary Rosemary Huxtable, dated 21 December 2021 and now on the Federal Court file, claimed serious psychiatric injury caused by the assault and by how her supervisors and senior members of the government responded. But the decision to settle it in a day, and the amount, came under the Albanese government, with attorney general Mark Dreyfus' department overseeing the process. Reynolds later said she was gagged and given no opportunity to defend herself against baseless claims, and that the law firm representing her interests, HWL Ebsworth, never spoke to her during the mediation or showed her the deed.

According to the National Anti Corruption Commission's later disclosure, the payout included about $1.48 million for lost earnings, on the basis that Higgins' career had been destroyed. Higgins was declared bankrupt in 2025 and resurfaced this year fronting the Vida Fund, a campaign vehicle targeting One Nation.

The NACC cleared the payout, then the court findings landed

After referrals pushed by Linda Reynolds and then opposition leader Peter Dutton, the National Anti Corruption Commission examined the settlement and on 12 June 2025 found no corruption issue. It said the one day mediation was "unexceptional", the amount was less than the maximum recommended by external independent legal advice, and there was no evidence of improper influence by any minister or official. That finding stands and this article does not suggest otherwise.

But the NACC ruled on the process, not the truth of the claims the money settled. Just over 10 weeks after it cleared the payout, Justice Tottle handed down the judgment finding Higgins' cover up narrative was a fabrication with 26 false or misleading aspects. The question that leaves is not whether officials followed procedure on the day, it's what taxpayers' $2.4 million was actually compensating, if the people accused of mistreating Higgins did not mistreat her.

One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts put the arithmetic plainly the day Justice Michael Lee's judgment landed.

Labor's defence of the payout is that the claim was lodged under the Coalition, and that the money compensated the rape itself, not only the alleged mistreatment. The claim did start under Morrison. But it was the Albanese government that chose to settle it in a single day, priced it at $2.4 million, and locked Linda Reynolds and Fiona Brown out of the room while it paid out on untested allegations against them.

Scott Morrison, John Kunkel and Yaron Finkelstein will never be cross examined

Had Fiona Brown's case run to trial in March 2027, Scott Morrison was expected to head the witness list, including over claims in Brown's filings that he misled parliament about having spoken to her. John Kunkel, Andrew Carswell and Yaron Finkelstein could all have faced cross examination about who decided Brown would carry the blame. A trial would also have dragged the Albanese government's handling of the Higgins payout back into open court.

The settlement means none of that will happen. A spokesperson for Attorney General Michelle Rowland acknowledged an agreement had been reached but told The Australian it would be inappropriate to comment further, citing privacy, legal professional privilege and confidentiality obligations.

Fiona Brown's settlement terms are confidential. So is the Brittany Higgins deed. Taxpayers funded both outcomes of the same saga and are not permitted to see either number.