Andrew Bolt has asked why Brittany Higgins was handed over $2.3 million in compensationpartly based on forty years of lost wages, when she continued to work in politics after coming forward with her rape allegations.
The political commentator asked the question in a column in the Herald-Sun on Wednesday evening.
Ms Higgins secured the hefty payment in December last year after the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions dropped charges against Bruce Lehrmann, citing fears for her mental health.
The payment was settled with the Labor government after just one day of mediation.
Higgins claimed she was not supported by her former Parliament House bosses, Linda Reynolds and Michaelia Cash, after she revealed her alleged rape to them.
Ms Reynolds and Ms Cash have denied any wrongdoing but were not given the opportunity to defend themselves during the mediation.
Bolt pointed out that she secured a job as a media adviser for Victoria's First Peoples Assembly in February 2021 – when she first went public with her allegations about The Project.
She was also given a $108,000 advance to write a book about her rape allegations a month later in March 2021, and would get another $200,000 once the book was finished.
She later interned at the United Nations in Geneva, but told the court it was unpaid.
“This mega payout stinks,” Bolt claimed.
“Higgins got the job. And she got the money. Why?'