Full statement by Christian Porter denying historic rape allegation
So, I just wanted to start by saying something to the parents who are grieving for the loss of their adult daughter. I only knew your daughter for the briefest periods, at debating competitions, when we were teenagers, about 33 years ago. I was 17 years old and I think that she was 16 years old. And, in losing that person, your daughter, you have suffered a terrible loss, and you did not deserve the frenzied politicisation of the circumstances of your daughter’s death of the past week, and I have thought long and hard about the implications for you of what I feel that I need to say today.
And I hope that whatever else happens, from this point, that you will
understand, that in saying today, that the things that are being claimed to have happened did not happen, that I did not mean to impose anything more upon your grief. But I hope that you will also understand, that because what is being alleged did not happen, I must say so publicly.
Prior to last Friday’s story in the ABC, no one in law enforcement or the law or politics or the media ever put any substance of any specific allegations to me at all. I was aware, over the last few months of a whispering campaign. Had the accusation ever been put to me before they were printed, I would have at least been able to say the only thing that I can say, likely the only thing that I’m ever going to be able to say, and it’s the truth, and that is that nothing in the allegations that have been printed ever happened.
Even now, the only information I have about the allegations is what has been circulating online and in certain media outlets. The allegations appeared to be about a period in early 1988, during an end of school debating competition at Sydney University. I was 17 years old, the other person was 16. We were both selected, with two others, on the Australian schools debating team, and we went to Sydney University for an international competition. It was a long time ago, and I’d always remembered it as a happy time. And I can say categorically that what has been put in various forms and allegations simply did not happen.
In this last week, I have tried to do what I have tried to do all of my life – respect the rules and the processes, and the law. I was determined to follow the process set out by the AFP commissioner, and it’s a process because of my background I know well. I did not comment on allegations through the media because it risks prejudicing any investigation.
So I waited until the NSW police concluded their consideration of the matter, and staying silent, following the rules, was a very difficult decision. While I have followed the rules and stayed silent, I have been subject to the most wild, intense, unrestrained serious of accusations I can remember in modern Australian politics. Maybe that’s the new normal – I hope for everyone’s sake it’s not.
A very difficult part of following those rules was that my colleagues have become the target of allegations and speculation themselves. My colleagues are my friends. And I’m deeply sorry to each of them for that. I followed the rules, I did precisely the same thing the former opposition leader did, and I waited for the police to conduct and conclude the process that they apparently had on foot. I make no criticism of the former opposition leader, I now understand what he went through – he also followed the rules and he did a difficult thing asked of all of us by law enforcement authorities. I think a difference for the former opposition leader was that for him, while the police process was on foot, the entire Australian media left the issue to be dealt with by the authorities and did not start and attempt to conclude a public trial by media.
There weren’t any calls for him to stand down or public reporting of anonymous, unsourced, untested material designed to try someone in public while they are duty-bound to remain silent. Indeed, when something similar happened to the former leader of the opposition, everyone followed the accepted process for a very long time, they did that. With me certain outlets couldn’t even give it a week without trying, possibly convicting, me publicly with allegations.
Perhaps another difference is that I have never had any kind of formal or substantive detail or any detail at all about this matter, of what was actually being alleged. Nothing like that has ever actually been put to me. Up until last week, central to both our justice system and Australian journalism was that in reporting, just like in the justice system, it was always a basic foundational starting point that at the very least, for anything resembling a fair process, the accusation would need to be put to the person being accused.
Before last Friday, all I can say is that I had heard – I think about November last year – a rumour that was being spread by a small number of people that I had somehow offended against someone decades ago, in a way that was never specified to me. Something that I am just personally struggling to even wrap my head around is that all of this has happened and I have never been contacted in any substantive form by anyone putting to me the details of what appears is now being alleged against me.
No one put anything in any detail to me seeking a response. None of the senior politicians or ex-politicians that have known about these allegations and rumours had ever put them to me. No journalist has put the detail of the allegations to me in a way that would allow seeking a response, not ever. All I know about the allegations is what I have read in the media.
Before politics I was a crown prosecutor. I worked in and believed in our justice system, and I still do. As a prosecutor for years, I helped victims. I prosecuted in trial and at sentence the most serious sexual assaults against women and children. That was my job before politics. I always did so trying to respect the rights of the people who were accused, but I always gave everything that I had to doing right by the victim in the often traumatic process of the justice system.
I have given the bulk of my adult working life to public servie and the law. I have given absolutely everything I had in the tank over the last year to our government, which has been desperately trying to help the country out of the worst crisis in its modern history. If I stand down from my position as attorney general because of an allegation about something that simply did not happen, then any person in Australia can lose their career, their job, their life’s work, based on nothing more than an accusation that appears in print.
If that happens, anyone in public life is able to be removed simply by the printing of an allegation. Every child we raise can have their lives destroyed by online reporting of accusations alone. My guess is that if I were to resign and that set a new standard, there wouldn’t be much need for an attorney general anyway, because there would be no rule of law left to protect in this country. So I will not be part of letting that happen while I am attorney general and I am sure that you will ask, so I will state to you, I am not standing down or aside.
I have discussed with the prime minister today that after speaking with my own doctor I am going to take a short period of leave to assess and hopefully improve my own mental health. All of my life I’ve just pushed through, but for the many caring family and friends who have asked me that question over the course of the last week, “Are you OK?” I have got to say my honest answer is, I really don’t know.
I am not ashamed to say that I am going to seek some professional assessment and assistance on answering that question over the next few weeks before I go back into the field of my duties and resume the role of attorney general, minister for industrial relations and leader of the house.
• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault, family or domestic violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit www.1800RESPECT.org.au. In an emergency, call 000. International helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org.