Shadows over Christian Porter’s role as Attorney-General a cruel legacy

Attorney-General Christian Porter. Picture: AFP

The legal case against Christian Porter for the alleged rape of a 16-year-old in 1988 is closed.

NSW police have examined the evidence — an unsworn statement made before the complainant’s death and contemporaneous diary notes — and decided there is not enough admissible evidence to launch a prosecution.

Mr Porter says he will not step aside as Attorney-General because if he did, it would mean that anyone could lose their career, their job, their life’s work based on nothing more than an accusation.

But can he continue to be the nation’s first law officer, the minister in charge of administering our system of justice, with this sort of smear hanging over him?

He thinks so. “I am no different from the person who was doing the job two weeks ago,” he says.

However, the next time there are allegations of sexual harassment by a judge, can he lead the government’s response?

Can he preside over a new integrity commission when his own integrity has been impugned, or decide on defamation reforms when he has threatened to use them to protect his reputation?

That is now in doubt.

There are calls for an independent inquiry.

For what?

Only two people can know what happened that night.

One is dead, the other has denied the allegations in the strongest possible terms.

The complainant checked herself out of a mental health facility in Melbourne last year and killed herself while being forced to isolate on her return to her home city of Adelaide.

That is tragic.

 

Her lawyer, Michael Bradley, says an inquiry by a retired judge with compulsive powers would help get to the bottom of it all. Australian Lawyers Alliance’s Greg Barns SC wants an inquiry, too, to ensure the integrity of cabinet and that Mr Porter’s role as first law officer has not been compromised.

Barrister Margaret Cunneen SC says this would create a parallel system of justice.

Only the police have the expertise and training to investigate sexual crimes, she says. She is right.

Either way, these allegations will cast a shadow over Mr Porter’s role as first law officer when they cannot be tested satisfactorily. And that is cruel, because it could mean his position is untenable.