Brittany Higgins: Parliament House security guard on finding alleged rape victim

A Parliament House security guard on duty the night of the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins has revealed her “shock” at finding the Liberal staffer naked and asleep in a ministerial office but questioned the Prime Minister’s claim the incident involved a security breach.

Nikola Anderson, an experienced and veteran security guard who has worked at Parliament House for over a decade, told ABC’s Four Corners how she found Ms Higgins.

“As I opened the door, I noticed that the female was lying on her back, completely naked, on the lounge that was adjacent to the door, for which I’ve gone, ‘Oh’,” she told Four Corners.

“Oh God. And I mean, oh God, because I’ve never come across anything like that.

“The sound of the door or the breeze of the door opening has then made the female open her eyes, look at me. And then she’s rolled over onto her side.

“So, therefore, my [take] on it was that she’s conscious. She’s breathing. She doesn’t look like she’s in distress. She’s just sleeping off her night. And with that, I shut the door, and I exited the room.”

RELATED: Brittany probe sensationally suspended

But Ms Anderson insisted she had no reason to believe an alleged crime had been committed and now fears she could be scapegoated in any inquiry.

“I made sure her dignity was intact by shutting this door … I was trying to do the right thing by keeping her dignity intact.”

Ms Anderson, a mother of three, said she was surprised to learn the Prime Minister’s claim that there was a security breach at Parliament House, because she said security guards had followed the correct procedures.

“What was the security breach? Because the night that we were on shift, there was no security breach,” she said.

“Their pass enables them to be where they want to be within Parliament House. If they hadn’t worked for that minister, that would be a different story because we wouldn’t have allowed them entry because it’s not their office, they have no business being in there.”

Ms Anderson said that Ms Higgins, a Liberal staffer for then Defence Industry Minister Linda Reynolds, and the man arrived at around 1.50am in the morning.

RELATED: Staffer sacked over ‘disgusting’ sex acts

“It kind of took us by surprise because they walked in at two in the morning, and it was a Friday night … well, Friday night, Saturday morning,” Ms Anderson told Four Corners.

“They basically walked in together. She was wearing a white cocktail dress. I’d noticed that she’d had grass stains down one side of her body on this pure white dress. He seemed to be quite dressed up as well. And it was just strange to us that they were there at that time of night together, wanting to go into the office.

“My colleague had made a comment and said, ‘Jeez guys, couldn’t this have waited until Monday?’ And the man had replied, ‘Oh, not really.’”

Because neither staffer had parliamentary passes, she asked for ID and she looked them up on the internal system, which showed they were active pass holders and issued temporary passes.

“As she’s gone to put her shoes back on after she’s walked through and cleared herself, she couldn’t get them on,” Ms Anderson recalled.

“That’s how I realised how intoxicated this girl was because she just could not get her shoes on for the life of her.”

Ms Anderson took them to Ms Reynolds’s office, unlocked the door and let them in.

She revealed CCTV shows the male colleague left Parliament House at 2.35am, less than an hour after he had arrived with Ms Higgins.

“My colleague had tried to make conversation with him and he seemed to be in a hurry,” she said. “That was when my colleague and I decided that we needed to push it up the chain and notify our night shift team leader that there might’ve been something a bit strange going on.”

In February this year, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the man’s employment was terminated over a “security breach”, but what the security breach was has never been fully explained.

He has not been charged with any crime. Police are investigating the matter.

“Nobody really knows the truth except me,” Ms Anderson said.

“Security did do what they could, and would have done more had it have been required.”

Tonight’s Four Corners follows the release of graphic images and videos of male senior government staff performing sex acts inside Parliament House in Canberra — and in one instance, on the desk of a female MP — obtained by 10 News.

In the weeks since news.com.au broke the story of former Liberal staffer Ms Higgins’ alleged rape by a colleague inside Defence Minister Ms Reynolds’ office, a spotlight has been shone on the sexual harassment, misogyny and bullying many women encounter inside the Canberra bubble.

Now, another Parliament House insider has come forward under the condition of anonymity, telling 10’s Political Editor Peter van Onselen that “the culture needs to change”.

“Now is the time to speak up, now is the time to put it on the record. It is a culture of men thinking that they can do whatever they want,” the man, identified only as Tom, said.

One image shows a man sitting at a desk and exposing himself, with a copy of the Parliament House rule book behind him.

Another showed a male pointing to the desk of a female Liberal MP, before performing a solo sex act on it.

“The fact that it is a female MP only adds to the disgrace that it is,” Tom said.

Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek said that if any person in Labor ranks had engaged in similar behaviours they should face the consequences

“To be really honest with you, Leigh, if it’s someone on our side who has behaved badly, I don’t care,

they should face all the consequences of their actions,’’ she said.

“This is not a time to be saying Scott Morrison needs to act and then be unwilling to do that ourselves.”