836 This is not to say no steps were taken. The rape allegation involved two people in a Minister's office and, apart from properly assessing Ms Higgins' credibility, the scope of available enquiries was relatively limited. Mr Llewellyn did: (a) seek confirmation as to whether the incident had been reported to others and investigated in 2019; (b) look up Mr Lehrmann online and on social media; (c) confirm the identity and positions of persons; (d) confirm with Ms Cripps that Ms Higgins had seen her for counselling; (e) spoke to Ms Higgins' then flatmate at the time of the rape (who confirmed that Ms Higgins' mood had changed following the incident); and (f) asked Ms Higgins (mainly through Mr Sharaz) to send him various documents.
837 But the story came as a coherent whole and Ms Higgins' credibility was critical. The steps he could have taken to investigate what he and others regarded as the most important part of the story (and which would perforce reflect upon the general credibility of Ms Higgins as to the rape allegation), were far from limited.
838 Mr Llewellyn gave evidence that at the first meeting (Llewellyn (at [127])):
It was clear to me that Ms Higgins had called off the police investigation because the Australian Federal Police's (AFP) sexual assault unit had told her they had hit roadblocks with obtaining the CCTV footage from Parliament House.
839 Mr Llewellyn had conducted internet research and contacted a former Clerk of Senate and constitutional experts, including Professor George Williams, who provided information as to the workings of Parliament. Mr Llewellyn said (Llewellyn (at [189], [193])) he thought the fact "that two elected politicians were the ones who granted police access to Parliament House, sounded bizarre" and "anachronistic" and that he thought (oddly) he was in "Charles I territory". I say oddly, because the only sovereign to provoke a Civil War by Executive overreach (during the Eleven Years' Tyranny) was not exactly open to assertions of Parliamentary power.
840 The view of Ms Wilkinson that the system of policing within Parliament House was "archaic" led to the conclusion that the AFP police "operated at the directive of the parliamentarians themselves" and "no one was independently policing potentially criminal behaviour within Parliament House" (Wilkinson 28 July 2023 (at [83]))–needless to say (as I explained earlier (at [738])) this is a wrongheaded characterisation of the practical arrangements made for policing within the Parliamentary precincts in Canberra, and, for that matter, State Parliamentary precincts and, as far as I am aware, other Parliaments around the world that are
