Senator Gallagher said while she knew about the 2019 rape allegations before they were reported in the media in 2021, she had no involvement in the information being made public.
"The allegations that were made public were done so on Ms Higgins' own terms - those are the facts, facts that appear to have been lost in the past week," she told parliament on Tuesday.
"I did nothing with that information, absolutely nothing. I was asked to keep it to myself and I did.
"I did nothing differently on this occasion compared to hundreds of other times that people have reached out to me in my time as a politician and asked me to keep their information private."
Ms Higgins said she was raped by fellow Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann in Parliament House in 2019, a claim he has always denied.
Mr Lehrmann's trial was derailed due to juror misconduct and prosecutors did not seek a retrial, citing concern for Ms Higgins' mental health.
Questions over her conduct were raised after leaked text messages between Ms Higgins and her partner David Sharaz emerged last week, suggesting the pair strategised with the then-opposition senator about how to break the story.
But Senator Gallagher said she had always conducted herself with high levels of integrity.
"I have at all times been guided by the bravery and courage of a young woman who chose to speak up about an alleged incident in her workplace," she said.
"I have always acted ethically and with basic human decency on all matters related to Miss Higgins and I will continue to do so."
The finance minister hit out at members of the coalition, saying they were yet to make a personal statement to the parliament on what they knew about the alleged rape.
She said the attacks made by coalition MPs following the leaked text messages being revealed could discourage women from coming forward.
"The events of the past week with the media coverage, the questions surrounding the publication of a young woman's personal phone records that had been provided for use in a court, splashed across TV and newspapers with opposition members giddy with the coverage, has done nothing but seriously damaged this confidence," she said.
Senator Gallagher was concerned the incident could compel women to keep allegations of serious sexual or violent abuse silent "to suppress the trauma".
13°C