Rape activist Jo Dyer’s secret Christian Porter sex history

The arts administrator who led the charge against Christian Porter over historical rape allegations, had her own sexual history with him at uni and failed to disclose it publicly.

Former Adelaide Writers’ Week director Jo Dyer, who was an unsuccessful independent candidate for Boothby at last month’s election. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

Jo Dyer, the Adelaide arts administrator who led the charge to tear down former attorney-general Christian Porter over historical rape allegations, had her own sexual history with him at university and failed to disclose it publicly.

The liaison, when both Mr Porter and Ms Dyer were in debating teams at university, is -revealed in a new book, Ego: Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberal Party’s Civil War, to be released this week.

Ms Dyer, who was the director of Adelaide Writers’ Week before unsuccessfully running as an independent candidate for the South Australian seat of Boothby, has been the most vocal advocate for justice for the woman known as “Kate”, a former school friend who said she was raped by Mr Porter.

Kate had claimed she was raped in the early hours of January 10, 1988, at the University of Sydney’s Women’s College after the World Universities Debating Championship.

Despite Ms Dyer pursuing the historical claims and traversing Mr Porter’s sexual history as a teenager, she never revealed her own sexual history with Mr Porter during the campaign to destroy his political career.

Former attorney-general Christian Porter. Picture: AFP

The new book Ego, by Australian Financial Review senior correspondent Aaron Patrick, reveals Mr Porter’s and Ms Dyer’s sexual history. “Dyer knew Porter from debating too. Porter told friends he and Dyer slept together when they were university students at debating competitions,” the book says. “Dyer described their encounter as ‘entirely inconsequential and statistically insignificant’.”

Patrick told The Australian he took this “as confirmation”.

In a separate interview in 2021, Dyer had said: “It is on the public record that Christian and I got on well when we first met but there was never anything serious between us and I can’t imagine how our erstwhile friendship could be relevant to the serious allegations Kate made against Christian.’’

Ms Dyer said she was drawn into the Porter controversy in 2019 when she was approached by Kate, a friend from her South Australian debating days, to whom she had not spoken for decades. Kate told her she had been raped by Mr Porter in Sydney when they were both teenagers and she needed her help.

Mr Porter has vehemently denied the allegations.

Kate took the allegations to police in February 2020 but on June 23 that year said she no longer wished to pursue them.

On June 24, Kate, who had a history of mental illness, took her own life. Police later dropped the investigation.

The death of Kate ignited a campaign targeting Mr Porter that has embroiled high-profile media identities and one of Sydney’s top silks, and culminated in Mr Porter’s resignation from politics.

Annabel Crabb

According to Federal Court proceedings, Ms Dyer and ABC Four Corners journalist Louise Milligan were in contact three days after Kate’s death at the suggestion of mutual friend Nick Ryan. Court documents show Ms Dyer was also in text-message contact with ABC journalist Annabel Crabb. Crabb told Ms Dyer she felt “a boiling sense of rage and grief’’ and considered Mr Porter to be “amazingly arrogant to think you can mistreat people and get away with it forever’’.

Crabb then made her home available for Milligan to interview Ms Dyer for Four Corners and informed Ms Dyer about Milligan’s progress (“spoke to L today she is making good progress’’).

Crabb also provided feedback to Ms Dyer after the interview.

“I just had a message from her saying ‘Jo was amazing’ ’’.

In the interview aired on ABC’s Four Corners “Inside the Canberra Bubble” in November 2020, Ms Dyer told Milligan that Kate was a “star” and she imagined her life would be “one of skyrocketing success of achievement”.

The interview, which aired on March 8, 2021, also touched on Ms Dyer’s relationship with Mr Porter. She described him as “charming” and “very confident”, with an “assuredness that was perhaps born of privilege”.

She also said Mr Porter “did not appear to treat women and hold women with respect”.

She described Mr Porter as “brash, blond and breezy”.

“The South Australian teams and the WA teams did become quite good friends,” she said.

Ms Dyer told Milligan she had lost touch with Kate in the late 1980s and early 90s and had not heard from her until 2019.

Louise Milligan. Picture: David Geraghty

“We had a bit of a falling out at one point about debating club politics, if you can believe that,” she said. “There was an occasion where we were engaged in a bit too aggressive banter that maybe crossed a line, which she didn’t appreciate, and that just accelerated the different paths on which we were on.”

When contacted by The Australian over whether Milligan knew about Ms Dyer’s intimate relationship with Mr Porter when she reported the story, the ABC responded that it “didn’t customarily comment on what information its journalists had”.

In a subsequent article in February 2021, Milligan alleged there was a suspected rapist in cabinet.

Mr Porter revealed himself as the cabinet minister in question on March 3, 2021, but launched a legal action against the ABC less than two weeks later.

“I did not sleep with the victim. We didn’t have anything of that nature happen between us ... I can say to you all it didn’t happen,” he said at his press conference.

Ms Dyer launched legal action that successfully blocked barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC from acting for Mr Porter.

She alleged conflict of interest that arose from a meeting between Ms Dyer and Ms Chrysanthou in November 2020 over an article published in The Australian. Ms Dyer said Ms Chrysanthou had received confidential information she could misuse.

The court ordered Ms Chrysanthou off the case. Subsequently Mr Porter and the ABC settled the defamation case.

During one court hearing, Ms Dyer said she wanted the rape allegation aired to prevent Mr Porter becoming prime minister.

When the defamation case was discontinued, Mr Porter said the accusations could never be proven to the criminal or civil standard. “You can never turn back the clock on this sort of reporting, and that’s why it’s so wrong,” he said.

Ms Chrysanthou and Mr Porter were ordered to pay more than $430,000 for Ms Dyer in legal costs relating to whether the barrister could appear in the case.

In December last year, Mr Porter announced he was quitting politics. In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald in January, Ms Dyer said, after Mr Porter’s resignation, “it feels like the end of something’’.