ABC chief grilled over documentary featuring ‘false’ Brittany Higgins’ claim: estimates
The ABC has been in controversy over a documentary obtained by the national broadcaster in which a Liberal senator allegedly portrayed Brittany Higgins’ claim as “false”.
Silenced premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and is available in the United States but not Australia.
The film documents an international human rights lawyer’s “fight against the weaponization of libel laws to silence survivors” and features actress Amber Heard and Brittany Higgins, according to a synopsis, but has already been met with a warning from lawyers for former Liberal senator Linda Reynolds.
Ms Higgins’s former boss, Ms Reynolds, successfully sued the former employee last year over a series of social media posts made in 2022.
Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson told a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday that she was concerned about the documentary’s assumption that “Brittany Higgins and other women have been silenced by the weaponisation of libel laws”.
“This is a false allegation as far as Ms Higgins is concerned.”
Senator Henderson said at the hearing that two courts had concluded that “Ms. Higgins was not silenced.”
ABC chief executive Hugh Marks, who had not seen the script, said he understood that the documentary “deals with issues that are more general in nature around the world” and that it “will undergo all appropriate reviews (legal reviews and editorial reviews)”.
“Frankly, insult is something we cannot conceive of,” he said.
“I imagine it addresses general issues related to the experiences of women around the world.”
He also added that he was “confident there was no mention of Fiona Brown (Ms Reynolds’ former chief of staff) or Linda Reynolds in the documentary.”
“So I can only assume that these issues were not included in the documentary,” he said.
Mr. Marks said ABC was not the film’s broker or the broadcaster who launched the film, but was instead “a participant in the production.”
He told the investigation that ABC contributed $340,000, or about 14 percent of the film’s budget.
In response to questions, ABC editor-in-chief Gavin Fang said the documentary had gone through the broadcaster’s editorial processes, but admitted that he had not seen the script.
“But I can assure you that all commission and work carried out on these documentaries will ensure that they meet our editorial standards,” Mr. Fang said.
“I think a documentary like this will explore some of the issues you raise.”
Discussion of the film led to numerous verbal exchanges between Senator Henderson and Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.
Senator Henderson denied “going after a rape victim” as Senator Hanson-Young claimed.
“I’m not doing that, Senator,” he said.
“My concern is that these appallingly false allegations that former senators Linda Reynolds and Fiona Brown… both covered up rape in Parliament House are proven to be completely false,” he said.
