Lawyers cite ABC’s history of Christian Porter allegation

AG’s legal team say episode of Media Watch showed it was widely known he was the minister referred to in an ABC online article.

Attorney-General Christian Porter. Picture: AFP

Christian Porter’s legal team says an episode of the ABC’s Media Watch in early March showed it was widely known in Canberra that the Attorney-General was the cabinet minister referred to in an online piece published by the public broadcaster, despite the article not explicitly naming him.

Mr Porter’s lawyers, in a statement of claim filed with the Federal Court on Monday, said by March 2 a tweet was being published every six seconds linking him to historical rape allegations.

The ABC’s Four Corners published allegations against an unnamed minister on February 26, claiming he had raped a woman in 1988 when they were on a high school debating trip.

The matter has been allocated to Jayne Jagot, appointed to the Federal Court by the Rudd government in 2008 and recently passed over for promotion to the High Court by Mr Porter in favour of Simon Stewart and Jacqueline Gleeson.

Justice Jagot recently presided over a high-profile defamation case against ABC journalist Steve Cannane and publisher HarperCollins brought by two doctors involved in “deep sleep” therapy at Sydney’s notorious Chelmsford psychiatric hospital.

Justice Jagot ruled in favour of Cannane and Harper Collins, branding the doctors’ claim an ­attempt to “rewrite history”.

She dismissed the case and ordered the men to pay the costs of Cannane and HarperCollins, finding the publisher and journalist had established a defence of truth and qualified privilege relating to matters of public interest.

Barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC and lawyer Rebekah Giles, who are part of Mr Porter’s legal team, acted for the doctors in that case, which has now been appealed.

Mr Porter’s legal team has drawn on the ABC’s coverage since November last year — when Four Corners made allegations that he was a sexist and misogynist — to pursue his case.

Mr Porter publicly outed himself on March 3 as the “senior cabinet minister” alleged to have raped a 16-year-old in Sydney in 1988 — but denied he had ever had sex with the woman, who took her own life last year.

The statement of claim says that even before that, readers would have identified him as the minister at the centre of the rape allegations. An earlier Four Corners report from November 9, which alleged he had a history of sexism and inappropriate behaviour towards women, would have allowed readers to connect him with the February 26 article.

Reporter Louise Milligan’s questioning of many people in the lead-up to the November Four Corners episode, about Mr Porter’s sexual preferences and whether he forced a former partner to perform sex acts against her will, was also cited as one of the factors that would have led some to connect the Attorney-General to the unnamed rape allegations.

Although Mr Porter was not named, visits to his Facebook page and website increased significantly on the day of and shortly after publication, his lawyers say.

There were also attempts to edit Mr Porter’s Wikipedia page to include the fact he was in Sydney in 1988, the statement claims.

At the time of publication, there were 16 male members of cabinet, of which only six were about the same age as the woman in 1988. Of those, only three were senior cabinet ministers, including Mr Porter.