As it happened: Attorney-General Christian Porter denies historical rape allegation, to take leave; Michaelia Cash to be acting AG, industrial relations minister

The Office for the Attorney-General has released a statement this evening clarifying comments made by Christian Porter today that, “no journalist has put the detail of the allegations to me in a way that would allow seeking a response, not ever”.

Since Mr Porter’s press conference today, a number of outlets including The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, have reported the times and dates when the allegations were put to the Attorney-General’s office for response and did not receive any reply.

A spokesman for Mr Porter tonight said the Attorney General was specifically referring to the very first article about the alleged rape, published by the ABC on Friday.

“Clearly, in considering the Attorney-General’s media conference in full, he was referring to never having received in any substantive form the allegations against him before they were aired on ABC last Friday and not to enquiries driven by the ABC’s airing of the allegations,” the spokesman said.

The spokesman pointed to Mr Porter’s comments: “Had the accusation ever been put to me - before they were printed - I would have at least been able to say the only thing that I can say – likely the only thing that I’m ever going to be able to say – and it’s the truth – and that is that nothing in the allegations that have been printed ever happened”.

But Mr Porter was also asked directly by a reporter at the briefing,“no journalist or media organisation put those specific allegations to you at any time?” to which Mr Porter replied, “never”.

The spokesman justified the lack of response to follow up reporting of the ABC story stating, “there’s not much point putting the allegations to the Attorney-General after they’ve been printed.”

The spokesman also said the Attorney-General had “never seen or had put to him the statement or pack of documents from the complainant that media has used as the basis for their reporting”.

“To have received them when he was the subject of them and they were matters for law enforcement agencies, it would have been inappropriate for him to access them,” he said.

Here is where we’ll finish the live coverage of the extraordinary press conference from Attorney-General Christian Porter today.

In summary, Mr Porter has denied allegations of rape and angrily rejected calls to stand aside, declaring the rule of law would be worthless if people lost their jobs on the basis of accusations alone.

Mr Porter made an emotional appeal to the family of the woman who accused him of the 1988 rape and denounced the “frenzied politicisation” of claims he said were never put to him.

Mr Porter rejected the accusation he raped a 16-year-old woman in Sydney and said he intended to remain in cabinet and in his portfolio. He is taking leave to assess and improve his mental health.

But Porter’s public denial of allegations of rape has not stopped calls for an independent investigation into the accusation.

Read more here.

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If today’s coverage has been at all distressing to you, help is available. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to any of the following helplines:

• National Sexual Assault, Family & Domestic Violence Counselling Line: 1800 737 732
• Lifeline: (13 11 14 and lifeline.org.au)
• Suicide Call Back Service (1300 659 467 and suicidecallbackservice.org.au)
• Beyondblue (1300 22 4636 and beyondblue.org.au).
  

Take care, and good night.

Tanya Plibersek, opposition spokeswoman for women and education, has stopped short of calling for an independent inquiry into the allegations against Attorney-General Christian Porter but said it should “not be ruled out”

Speaking on Brisbane radio station 4BC this afternoon, Ms Plibersek also said she would not call for Mr Porter to stand down.

“I think it’s important to say that the NSW Police have said that there’s not sufficient admissible evidence, and it is quite right to make that clear,” she said.

“I’m not calling on Christian Porter to step down. I’m just saying that it is important to keep all of the available options on the table to ensure that people have faith that the First Law Officer of Australia is actually above reproach.”

Ms Plibersek said that the now-deceased woman who made the rape should also have her rights respected.

“I don’t think we should be ruling [an inquiry] out at this stage,” she said.

The lawyer who acted on behalf of the now-deceased woman who made the allegations of rape against Mr Porter has disputed the Attorney-General’s claims about the prospect of an independent inquiry into the matter.

Michael Bradley, of Marquee Lawyers, told ABC Radio’s PM program that Mr Porter was wrong when today he said,“[an inquiry] would be the first time in Australian history that a public figure or anyone effectively is put on trial in circumstances where they would be required to disapprove something that didn’t happen 33 years ago”.

Attorney-General Christian Porter’s press conference in Perth this afternoon.Credit: Paul Kane

“That’s completely wrong. There is no context in which he is going to be required to disprove anything, that would not be the purpose of an inquiry and it wouldn’t be part of the process of an inquiry - he knows that that’s not the case,” Mr Bradley said.

“There’s nothing particularly unusual about such a process to inquire into and make a determination on a serious allegation against a person in a position of responsibility - that literally happens every day of the week.

“The question to the Prime Minister is, is it okay to proceed with business as usual, and take the case as closed purely on the basis that Mr Porter says it didn’t happen? Or, do we need to properly test and address the allegation to put it to bed fully one way or the other, so that we can all move on.“

Mr Bradley said the purpose of an inquiry would be to weigh up evidence from the deceased woman against Mr Porter’s version of events - which was not an impossible thing to do.

“If you have… the testimony of someone who can’t be cross-examined for whatever reason [such as being deceased] then that factors into the weight that you would give that evidence that would be a matter for the tribunal,” he said.

“But it doesn’t present an impossibility, and it doesn’t [mean], ‘well this process should not be even attempted because it’s all too hard’. That’s not an answer.”

One friend of the woman who was allegedly raped by Christian Porter said she was appalled by his denials.

Dhanya Mani, who in 2019 became a close friend to the women she has previously described as “vibrantly clever”, demanded Prime Minister Scott Morrison call an independent inquiry into her allegations.

Dhanya Mani.Credit: Dhanya Mani

Ms Mani, who did not watch Mr Porter’s press conference on Wednesday live to avoid the distress of hearing and seeing him but read quotes and had parts described to her by others, said the Attorney-General’s protestations only confirmed her opinion of him as a man who did not respect women, in part because he said he had not seen the allegations him in full.

“If he claims that he didn’t look at a full copy of the allegations, why didn’t he ask to see one?” Ms Mani said.

In his press conference in Perth on Wednesday, Mr Porter said: “the only information I have about the allegations is what has been circulating online and in certain media outlets”.

“I can say categorically what has been put in various forms and allegations simply did not happen,” Mr Porter said.

On Friday the ABC reported that the Prime Minister’s office received a copy of an anonymous letter including a detailed statement from the woman who said Mr Porter had raped her.

Ms Mani said there was precedent for inquiries into allegations made by people who later died.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Monday it was the role of the police to investigate the accusations. NSW Police closed their investigation on Tuesday.

Attorney-General Christian Porter, accused of a historical rape, fronted the media visibly anguished and vehemently firm.

He did not do the things of which he is accused in the summer of 1988.

Attorney-General Christian Porter speaking at a press conference in Perth on Wednesday.Credit: Trevor Collens

He began by addressing the family of his accuser, a 49-year-old Adelaide woman who died by suicide last year.

“You have suffered a terrible loss, and you did not deserve the frenzied politicisation of the circumstances of your daughter’s death,” he said. “I hope that...you will understand...that the things that are being claimed to have happened did not happen, that I did not mean to impose anything more upon your grief.”

Mr Porter said he had known the woman when he was 17 and she was about 16, and they had been champion debaters together. He did not know her well.

At times close to breaking down, Mr Porter said that prior to the story of the rape allegation breaking on the ABC last Friday, no one in the police, politics or the media had put “any substance of any specific allegations to me”.

He had not read the statement written by the woman detailing her account of Porter’s alleged attack on her.

But, he said, “nothing in the allegations that have been printed ever happened”.

He had not raped the woman who accused him.

Read the full analysis here.

Tasmanian independent Senator Jacqui Lambie, who has a key vote on the crossbench, said while she was not the judge of the truth of the allegations against Attorney-General Christian Porter, his position was untenable.

“For so long as there’s an untested allegation of this nature hanging over his head, I can’t see how he can do the job with a straight face,” Senator Lambie said.

Crossbench senator Jacqui Lambie.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“You can’t be the minister saying union officials need to be ‘fit and proper people’ while you’re defending yourself against rape allegations,” she said in a reference to Mr Porter’s role as industrial relations minister.

“You can’t be making the case for harsher penalties for sex offenders when you’re accused of being a sex offender yourself.“

The only way to deal with the allegations, Senator Lambie said, was an independent investigation.
“That’s how we deal with things fairly and transparently,” she said.

Mr Porter has rejected calls for an independent inquiry, arguing it would effectively require him to prove that something “did not happen” decades ago.

Greens MP Adam Bandt has also backed calls for an independent investigation into the rape allegations against Mr Porter, even if there are no foundations for a legal case.

“It’s about standards... it is up to the courts to decide who is innocent and guilty, but it’s up to the Prime Minister to decide who gets to run the country,” he told ABC Radio Melbourne host Raf Epstein this afternoon.

“There are standards that are set and there are standards that are set for ministers... and it’s up to the Prime Minister to decide whether or not someone who’s sitting in his cabinet meets those standards.

“The Prime Minister’s own rules allow that to happen. To help the Prime Minister satisfy himself about that, he can commission independent inquiries. And that is precisely what he should do here, in large part because we have the tragic circumstances [of the complainant’s death].”

Independent MP Zali Steggall has called for an independent inquiry into the allegations against Christian Porter despite the Attorney-General’s denials.

“I think we should have had the Prime Minister announcing an independent inquiry by a retired judge or eminent person,” said Ms Steggall, who represents the Sydney seat of Warringah.

Zali Steggall, federal MP for Warringah.Credit: Jessica Hromas

Ideally that would have happened before the Attorney-General revealed himself publicly as the person at the centre of rape allegations from 1988, she said.

“The investigation should have occurred first,” Ms Steggall told ABC TV on Wednesday afternoon.

The Liberal MP for Goldstein in Melbourne, Tim Wilson, rejected Ms Steggall’s calls on the same program, saying the police were the proper body to investigate.

NSW Police closed its investigation on Monday on the basis that there was insufficient evidence they could put before the court.

“There’s nothing to stop all the other evidence that Ms Steggall or others have said may exist out there being provided to the police to conduct a proper independent investigation,” Mr Wilson said.

In South Australia, where the accuser lived and died, police are continuing to investigate on behalf of the coroner.

Early in his prepared statement, Mr Porter drew comparisons between how he believed the media had treated allegations against him, and those that were levelled against former opposition leader Bill Shorten in 2013.

Victoria Police conducted a 10-month investigation into claims Mr Shorten had raped a 16-year-old girl in 1986, but concluded there was no reasonable prospect of conviction and no charges would be laid.

The Attorney-General today claimed there was no media reporting of the matter involving Mr Shorten, who is opposition spokesman for government services, while a police investigation was under way.

“I followed the rules - I did precisely the same thing the former opposition leader did –and I waited for the police to conduct and conclude the process they apparently had on foot,” he said.

“I make no criticism of the former opposition leader - I now understand what he went through - he also followed the rules and did the difficult thing asked of us all by law enforcement authorities.

“There weren’t any calls for him to stand down or public reporting of anonymous unsourced untested material designed to try him in public while he was duty-bound to remain silent.

“Indeed when something similar happened to the former leader of the opposition everyone followed the accepted process and for a very long time they did that. With me, certain outlets couldn’t even give it a week without trying - possibly convicting me publicly with allegations.”