Andrew Bolt: Labor’s hypocrisy exploiting alleged rape victim

The party’s hypocrisy and contempt for the rule of law is pathetic. Maybe there was a rape; no one will ever know.

How sick is Labor under leader Anthony Albanese? See how it exploits a mentally ill woman who said she was raped by Attorney General Christian Porter.

Check Labor’s hypocrisy. Its contempt for the rule of law. Its pushing of claims that crumble, the closer you look.

Is your leadership so shaky, Anthony, that you stoop to this?

NSW police last week said it was dropping its investigation of allegations by the woman that she was raped by Porter 33 years ago, when she was 16 and he 17.

But Albanese now demands an “independent investigation” into claims that Labor frontbencher Penny Wong declares “credible”.

Here is what Labor calls “credible”.

It’s a statement from a woman whose claims of rape even her own parents have reportedly said seem “confected or embellished”, and which Porter passionately denies.

It’s a statement from a woman with severe mental problems, including a bipolar disorder that can cause hallucinations.

Penny Wong says the claims are credible. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

It’s a statement from a woman who last year told police she did not want an investigation.

It’s a statement that includes a diary entry written in 1991 in a circle around a page, in a mix of capital letters and lower case, about whether to confide in a former boyfriend: “He loved me? In Aug 88. In Jan 89. He must have. He said so. He meant it. I felt it… He won’t cut himself on his mind’s razor sharp edges the way you do on yrs… He owes you (several) orgasms… Cash that cheque girl.” And on and on.

Maybe there was a rape, nevertheless. No one will ever know.

But this statement also contains errors about what really happened that night in January 1988, when the woman and Porter were students visiting Sydney for a debating competition.

First, a caveat. This woman’s statement was sent by friends mainly to politicians and journalists likely to be sympathetic to her or hostile to the Morrison Government.

I don’t have a copy. Most of us, even Porter, must rely on what those who do have it choose to quote, and – in the ABC’s case – quote selectively.

A reporter at Porter’s anguished press conference last week put this to him: “She’s more specific in her statement. She says that you and she and a group of others had… gone dancing at the Hard Rock Cafe, and then you walked her back to her room.”

Australian Attorney General Christian Porter. Picture: Stefan Gosatti/AFP)

Hang on. The Hard Rock Café didn’t open until April the following year. And if the woman got confused with the Oz Rock Café, that was 3km as the crow flies from the Sydney University Women’s College where the girl was staying. They “walked” back?

The woman claimed Porter then put her “probably” in a bath – or possibly a shower – after she vomited, and then shaved her legs and armpits and forced her into sex acts.

A 17-year-old boy shaved her legs? And put her in a bath in a women’s college which has no baths and where most showers are communal, or else shared with another unit?

And how did a boy get into this women’s college at night? The three boys in the debating team stayed in a nearby hostel with their coach.

Not surprisingly, NSW police last week decided there was so little to this “credible” account that it called off the inquiry it opened last year, after the woman had finally contacted it and spoke to detectives five times.

But that’s not good enough for Albanese. Oh, the hypocrisy!

Is Anthony Albanese’s leadership so shaky that he would stoop to such lows? Picture: Richard Wainwright-Pool/Getty Images

Albanese was asked why he now wanted an “independent investigation” into Porter but not one into Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten, who likewise was accused of rape three decades ago of a 16-year-old girl, when he was 19.

The difference, Albanese claimed, was that police investigated Shorten for 10 months before declaring he had no case to answer, and NSW police took no time investigating Porter.

How pathetic. Police took more time investigating Shorten because there was more to investigate. Shorten’s accuser, unlike Porter’s, laid a complaint. Unlike Porter’s, she’s alive. Unlike Porter’s, she is not mentally ill. Unlike Porter’s, she still wants an inquiry.

If Labor thinks there’s not enough reason for an inquiry into Shorten, isn’t there even less reason for one into Porter?

If Labor now presumes – as it should – that Shorten is innocent, isn’t there even more reason for it to presume Porter innocent, too?

Or does Albanese figure that sacrificing Shorten, a rival, to destroy Porter is a happy case of killing two birds with one stone?