Christian Porter and a chilling, disgraceful denial of basic rights
The way the allegations against Attorney-General Christian Porter crescendoed this week was utterly extraordinary.
The way the allegations against Attorney-General Christian Porter crescendoed this week was utterly extraordinary. The denial of natural justice; the trial by media; the lost presumption of innocence; the mob mentality of convicting someone whom police didn’t even charge with a crime — I have never seen anything like it in Australian politics.
But it is also important to note that the mood that precipitated the unedifying pile-on speaks to genuine and understandable angst about a criminal justice system that has let women down, sexual assault survivors in particular. Conviction rates are disproportionately low compared with other crimes. People, women in particular, have had enough. Change is necessary; men need to understand that and pay more than just lip service to the groundswell of support for action.
Nonetheless, it is vital when seeking to overthrow tyranny that those who start with good intentions don’t themselves resort to tyranny or be used by those without good intentions in the first place. That may sound melodramatic, but in the case of Porter we have borne witness to something that hurts our institutions, our democracy, our standards of journalism and even perhaps the cause of better justice for sexual assault victims.
Ends do not justify means.
I don’t know any more than anyone else whether what was alleged to have happened back in 1988, when a 16-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy attended a debating tournament, occurred.
But I do know that whether Porter is guilty or innocent, the way it played out publicly could happen to anyone and that should concern everyone. The trite bullshit that an innocent person has nothing to fear is rubbish. Read nearly any history book to understand why.
Porter has never been contacted by police. He hasn’t seen the so-called dossier prepared anonymously by the alleged victim’s friends. Neither have most of us. Selected materials from the accuser have been selectively leaked to selected personnel. Then when the time came for one journalist to publish the accusations, they were never put to the person they were being levelled against, according to Porter, which to my knowledge has not been contradicted.
That is extraordinary.
That the initial publishing of the allegations was anonymous doesn’t make this failure any better. It precipitated a pile-on and a witch-hunt. It put the entire Morrison cabinet under a cloud. In short, it released the hounds.
We have heard from a random collection of the alleged victim’s friends, most of whom lost contact with her for most if not all of the past 30 years. We have not heard from her parents, who according to their daughter’s own writings and recordings — none of which were contemporaneous to the alleged crime, by the way — questioned her claims and didn’t want the issue to go public.
I can only imagine their trauma at losing a child before also having to endure this. She, according to what has been released, had deep psychological issues. But we don’t know, of course, whether they were caused by a traumatic event or her reported bipolar disorder, of which delusions are a possible symptom.
Yet friends who knew her as a 16-year-old, but not for the following 30 years, are sure. So the parents who weren’t so sure, and presumably have lived through their daughter’s difficult life, are ignored, as are their wishes for privacy. I find that extraordinary.
One fact that isn’t in dispute but does seem to get breezed over lightly is that the alleged victim withdrew her complaint. She did so one day before taking her own life. People will make their own assessments about what may have motivated her to do so, but the bottom line is that none of us will ever know. She withdrew the complaint.
Scott Morrison has said that there won’t be an independent inquiry into what happened. I disagree with this. We should get line of sight on these anonymous friends and their exchanges with journalists, seeking to bring this issue into full view.
An inquiry with all the powers to compel witnesses and access electronic communications should happen in this matter. A chance to interview the alleged victim’s psychiatrists to paint an accurate picture of her mental health. The fact the family released a statement on Thursday indicating they would welcome an inquiry only adds to the value of having one.
The irony is not lost on me that Porter is part of a government that denies refugee rights, used robodebt to take away the presumption of innocence for welfare recipients and fell in line behind a Prime Minister who used the floor of parliament to summarily stand down Australia Post chief executive Christine Holgate on spurious grounds. I have railed against the Coalition on each one of these fronts. But its failures to observe proper processes are no excuse for others to do the same, and in a most extreme and egregious way.
As Porter said at his media conference on Wednesday: no one is beyond an allegation. That is why allegations that were never put to him before being published, that didn’t lead to charges or even a police interview for him, allegations the accuser ultimately withdrew, weren’t sufficient for him to get sacked. Were that to happen then anyone could weaponise allegations to remove any politician, or indeed anyone else, with any degree of legitimacy.
Yes, I have known Porter for more than 20 years. Unlike many others reporting on this sad saga with close links and friendships with the alleged victim, I have been open about that. However, what I think about Porter’s guilt or innocence on this matter became of no consequence once it played out the way it did when the allegations became public.
Which is why this is a matter for all of us. Self-interest should kick in because any one of us would want procedural fairness, which has been absolutely denied to Porter with the public tarring and feathering he has endured.
I know some of the people who have targeted him: ideological opponents who have disliked him since the moment they met him; people for whom ends justify means. No doubt Porter made it easier for them to dislike him with some of his antics.
Evidence could emerge tomorrow locking in Porter’s guilt for the alleged crime all those years ago and it wouldn’t change the fact that what has transpired in terms of denials of basic rights under our democratic and legal systems has been chilling and utterly disgraceful.
Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics and public policy at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.
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