By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
CBD has been keeping a close eye of late on the legal profession’s slow but shocking re-embrace of disgraced former High Court judge Dyson Heydon, who was found by an independent court inquiry to have sexually harassed six female associates.
We revealed last month that Heydon will be one of the guest speakers at conservative legal group the Samuel Griffith Society’s upcoming national conference in Perth, part of a book tour of sorts for the ex-judge’s new self-published contract law tome that is proving a bit of a hit on Phillip Street.
Christian Porter will be speaking at a conference also featuring former High Court judge Dyson Heydon.Credit: Trevor Collens.
Now, the conference has added another legal figure to its lineup – none other than former Attorney-General Christian Porter, who was the nation’s first law officer when the allegations against Heydon were made public in 2020.
Porter subsequently ordered his department to undertake an internal investigation into Heydon’s time as the Abbott government’s hand-picked trade union royal commissioner, which revealed further complaints against the former judge.
By the time the report was released, Porter was subject of a historical rape allegation, which he has always strenuously denied. Porter later quit cabinet, and then politics altogether following his decision to use anonymous donors to fund an aborted defamation action against the ABC over those allegations.
Porter’s successor, Michaelia Cash, would later announce a historic six-figure settlement between the Commonwealth and three of the women harassed by Heydon. Until the release of his book this year, the former judge has been largely invisible.
Porter, once described as a “future prime minister”, has made a steady return to public life in his home state of Western Australia, where he’s working as a barrister with an increasingly high-profile caseload. He was recently defence counsel for one of two men found guilty of murdering Indigenous schoolboy Cassius Turvey.
He’s also just joined the board of the Western Australian Cricket Association – his first public role since quitting politics – and was spotted by CBD at former opposition leader Peter Dutton’s election night wake in Brisbane last month, just to support a mate.
As for Heydon, we’ll keep a watching brief on where he winds up next.
Last Call
Being a Liberal is thirsty work these days.
Being a Liberal elder tasked with bringing order to the NSW Division, only to drag the party through several more days of avoidable humiliation after making an off-colour joke at the expense of its perennially-frustrated female members, calls for a veritable drowning of sorrows.
So it was no surprise that CBD’s spies spotted two of the three federal administrators tasked with running the party’s NSW division, former Victorian deputy Liberal leader Alan Stockdale and fellow octogenarian Richard Alston (an ex-Howard government minister last spotted by CBD writing a book on Italian poet Dante Alighieri), departing the bar at the Sofitel Wentworth last Thursday evening.
Richard Alston (left) and Alan Stockdale in the online meeting.
Stockdale’s comments last week about how Liberal women were “sufficiently assertive” and it was men who required a leg up – made at a briefing for the Liberal women’s council no less – drew a storm of condemnation from new Opposition Leader Sussan Ley down.
The Wentworth, where Stockdale and Alston were spotted, has a special place in Liberal Party folklore as the election night event venue of choice for decades, especially during the Howard era.
Stockdale also told that meeting that the trio had signed up to take control of the NSW division after its failure to nominate local government election candidates in “a moment of insanity”. It’s a decision they might well be starting to regret.
Still, the three administrators, with the backing of conservatives like former prime minister Tony Abbott, are hoping to retain control of the NSW division, with its fate set to be decided at a crunch federal council meeting next week.
But after last week’s comments, it won’t just be moderates like state MP Chris Rath wanting them to “go back to Melbourne”.
Macquarie Street Movers
Another departure from the Murdoch stable, with The Australian’s NSW political correspondent Alexi Demetriadi bidding adieu to the broadsheet.
But he will be remaining on Macquarie Street, taking up a senior adviser gig with the minister for Jobs and Tourism, Multiculturalism, Lands and Property and Sport, Steve Kamper.
The path from media hack to political flack is well-trodden, particularly in the months after an election. But trading News Corp for the Australian Labor Party is a bit more of an about-face, and Demetriadi’s defection has raised a few eyebrows around Holt St, CBD hears. Then again, he used to volunteer for British Labour back in the day, so it’s hardly an unexpected ideological shift.
Still, a bit of a loss for the paper who are down a yarn-breaker. Demetriadi has been with News Corp since 2021, working his way up from NewsLocal and the tabloids before landing at The Oz.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.