Risky legal bid was Christian Porter’s only option

Christian Porter addresses the media at a press conference in Perth earlier this month. Picture: Sharon Smith / NCA NewsWire

It was the only path Christian Porter could take for any chance of political salvation after being crucified by the ABC over an unsigned, unsworn historic rape allegation that his accuser had withdrawn from police before ­taking her own life.

The issue was then pursued with vigour by Porter’s political enemies and the woman’s so-called friends. Figures from her debating days, whom she had not seen in three decades until shortly before she died, thrust her allegations into the public domain without her permission.

As Malcolm Turnbull stepped into the fray, calling for the then anonymous minister to out himself, it was clear those with bitter political grievances against the ­Attorney-General had seized on the unreliable testimony of a woman tragically suffering mental illness to strike at Porter.

Porter’s case has now became entangled with the women’s rights movement. His face was emblazoned on posters as March4Justice protesters campaigned against sexual violence on Monday.

It is ironic, for it is he who is the victim of a lack of justice.

As his solicitor, Rebekah Giles — who also acts for Brittany Higgins, Sarah Hanson-Young and Phoebe Burgess — said after filing defamation proceedings in the Federal Court on Monday, Porter has been denied a presumption of innocence and has faced a trial by media. Those close to Porter say it wasn’t until March 9 that he was able to lift himself out from a trauma-induced, under-siege mentality to focus his mind on the next step forward — the fight to clear his name.

Porter has engaged Australia’s brightest and most lethal legal team to lead his case in barristers, Bret Walker SC and Sue Chrysanthou SC, as well as Giles.

Walker saw George Pell acquitted, while Chrysanthou secured victories for Geoffrey Rush, Joe Hockey and Elaine Stead.

If the ABC pleads the “truth” defence, the defamation action puts the onus on the public broadcaster to prove the rape in 1988 ­occurred. Journalist Louise Milligan will have to prove his guilt on a balance of probabilities.

Lawyers for the ABC would have to sign off on the truth plea. There’s a question over whether they would do so, given the ABC’s legal team did not give the green light for Four Corners to broadcast the rape allegations in November.

During a defamation trial, it is likely friends from Porter’s debating days will give evidence about conversations they may have had with either him or the woman. But whether recollections about these conversations could in anyway prove a sexual consensual relationship, let alone a brutal rape, is contestable.

The Daily Telegraph lost the case against Rush in the Federal Court when the victim herself gave evidence. Here, that is impossible.

While any person on the street can clearly see Porter’s character and reputation have been destroyed, legal action is still a high-risk strategy. Should Porter lose and should a truth defence on the part of the ABC succeed, his political career would be over.

But facing political ruin anyway, this was his only way forward.