Porter quits cabinet post

EMBATTLED MP Christian Porter has resigned as industry minister in the Morrison government.

The move comes after the former attorney-general was unable to reveal who made a donation via a trust towards his legal battle against the ABC.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week asked his department to investigate whether Mr Porter had breached ministerial standards and on Sunday announced that the West Australian had stepped down.

“He has … taken the appropriate course of action to uphold those standards, by tendering his resignation as a minister,” Mr Morrison said, despite not yet receiving the advice.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor will now become acting industry minister.

Mr Porter believes he satisfied the reporting requirements after declaring he had received money from unknown donors to help pay his legal bills during defamation action against the ABC.

In a statement, Mr Porter said that he was not willing to put “pressure on the trust” to provide him with information to which he was “not entitled” and break donors’ confidentiality. Therefore, he could not rule out a perceived conflict of interest.

“I could not assist any process that would ultimately allow people, who have done nothing wrong, to become targets of the social media mob,” Mr Porter said.

“Consequently, I provided the Prime Minister with my resignation.”

He used the majority of his statement to blast the public broadcaster over a story in February that forced him to identify himself as the cabinet minister at the centre of historic rape allegations. Mr Porter has strenuously denied the allegations. However, the scandal resulted in his demotion from attorney-general to industry minister.

“For me personally, the physical threats of violence, the experience of being spat at and publicly abused for something I didn’t do has been nearly beyond comprehension in a civilised country,” he said.

Mr Porter will now sit on the backbench. He confirmed his nomination for Liberal preselection and said he had “no intention of standing aside” from his responsibilities to the people in his seat of Pearce.

But opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus said the belated resignation was yet another failure of leadership from Mr Morrison.

“As of now, Mr Porter is still in receipt of up to $1m in secret donations, and Mr Morrison is apparently comfortable with this,” Mr Dreyfus said.