Where’s My $2 Million?
A reflection on the NACC findings, institutional betrayal, and who gets compensated in this country.
“There is no evidence of corruption.”
– National Anti-Corruption Commission, June 2025
The headlines scream exoneration.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission has cleared the Labor government of any wrongdoing in the $2.4 million settlement paid to Brittany Higgins after her alleged rape in Parliament House. No corruption. No improper influence. No scandal - at least not the kind some wanted to find.
But as I read the coverage, one question echoed in my mind:
Where’s my $2 million?
Where’s the compensation for the years I spent being systematically discredited, gaslit, and mobbed out of my workplace?
Where’s the restitution for the reputational damage that was quietly inflicted behind closed doors. The kind that doesn’t make front pages, but burns careers to the ground?
Where’s the payout for the psychological toll of being forced to stand alone against powerful institutions, while they closed ranks and crafted plausible deniability?
Where’s the accountability for the ones who destroyed my livelihood, only to later run social media campaigns about justice, inclusion, and neurodiversity?
Let me be clear: I do not begrudge Brittany Higgins her settlement. She deserved far more than what she received - not just in money, but in care, protection, and basic human decency. Her case was exceptional, not because it was rare, but because it became public.
And that’s the key.
Visibility. Headlines. Risk management.
That’s when governments act. That’s when systems scramble. That’s when payouts are made. Not because they’ve suddenly grown a conscience, but because public silence is too expensive.
But what happens when the harm you’ve endured is quieter? More insidious? What happens when the saboteurs wear progressive pins, smile for the cameras, and draft press releases in your name?
You are told:
It’s a misunderstanding.
It’s a personality clash.
It’s just how politics works.
And if you keep pushing? You’re labelled difficult. Deluded. “Too much.”
You don’t get just a deed of settlement. You get diagnosed.
The same week this NACC finding was released, I watched yet another institutional body claim to support survivors, while distancing itself from those it helped destroy. I saw performative statements about trauma-informed practice, from people who looked the other way when the trauma was unfolding in real time.
So yes, I’m asking:
Where’s my $2 million?
But really, I’m asking something deeper:
Where’s the consistent standard of justice?
Where’s the moral courage to act before it becomes politically costly?
Where is the reckoning for those who weren’t believed, protected, or compensated, not because they were wrong, but because they were inconvenient?
I’m still waiting.
But I won’t stay silent.
Not now. Not ever.