PM says issues aired on Four Corners were dealt with by predecessor Malcolm Turnbull, and suggests Australians understand ‘human frailty’
Last modified on Tue 10 Nov 2020 18.53 AEDT
Scott Morrison says he will not take further action against two senior frontbenchers over allegations of inappropriate conduct and an affair because the issues were dealt with by his predecessor as prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who imposed a ban on sexual relationships between ministers and their staff.
Turnbull told the ABC’s Four Corners program on Monday night he confronted Christian Porter in 2017 over allegations of inappropriate conduct with a young woman in a bar and warned him “the risk of compromise is very real”.
Porter, who was subsequently appointed attorney general, on Tuesday denied the ABC allegation that he had been seen in a Canberra bar kissing a young woman. “That didn’t happen in that bar,” he said.
In an interview on Perth radio, the attorney general said he had not breached the code imposed by Turnbull, but did not directly answer questions about whether he had “intimate relations with a staffer”.
Porter said the alleged kissing in the bar “didn’t happen and the person said to be the subject of that event said to Four Corners it didn’t happen and Four Corners declined to report that fact”.
Morrison on Tuesday said he had spoken with Porter and the acting immigration minister, Alan Tudge, who had a consensual affair with his then-media adviser, Rachelle Miller, in 2017. That relationship was revealed by Miller during Monday night’s program.
Asked whether he intended to take action against the pair, Morrison told reporters no issues about either minister had been raised during his tenure as prime minister.
“In terms of the individuals subject to the report last night, those matters were addressed by [Turnbull] at the time, and they relate to issues that predated that ministerial standard, and as a result, he dealt with them at that time,” Morrison said.
The prime minister said he took the Turnbull code, enacted in early 2018 with his backing, seriously. He said ministers were in “no doubt about what my expectations are of them, absolutely no doubt about my expectations, and I expect them to be lived up to”.
Asked whether the conduct and culture highlighted by Four Corners met the pub test, Morrison said: “I think Australians understand more about human frailty than perhaps you are giving them credit.” The Liberal leader said there had been no suggestion of “anything non-consensual”.
“These things happen in Australia,” the prime minister said.
“People do things and they regret them, they do damage to their lives in the lives of many others, and I know there would be deep regrets about that.
“I think Australians understand human frailty, and I think they understand the people who work in this place are just as human as anyone else and subject to the same vulnerabilities and frailties as anyone.”
Tudge issued a brief statement on Monday in which he said Four Corners had aired “matters that occurred in my personal life in 2017”. “I regret my actions immensely and the hurt it caused my family,” he said. “I also regret the hurt that Ms Miller has experienced.”
The federal Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, told his party’s regular caucus meeting on Tuesday he was deeply disturbed by the allegations aired by the ABC. In parliament, Albanese asked Morrison whether he could assure Australians the standards were being enforced.
Morrison said that was “always the case”. He added: “I would hope that the same standards that are set out in this document would be adopted by the leader of the opposition in relation to his own front bench.”
The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, declared the controversy was federal parliament’s “me too” moment and women both inside politics and in the community wanted action.
“Will you immediately commence an investigation into what’s going on in ministers’ offices, stand aside the ministers involved with the Four Corners story while the investigation takes place, and put in place a proper framework for sexual misconduct to be reported and investigated so that every woman working in parliament feels confident they can come forward without fear of reprisal?” Bandt asked Morrison.
The prime minister replied that “every single person who works in this place, and any place in this country, should feel safe”.
Morrison said the leaders of all political parties needed to enforce the same standards of conduct. “It doesn’t matter if you are a staffer in a shadow minister’s office, a leader of the Greens office or my office or any other member in this place’s office – it doesn’t matter,” the prime minister said.
“That sort of thing should not be on in this place and under my government, and under my predecessor’s government, we made sure that those standards were put in place.”
There has been some dispute between Porter and the ABC about whether he was contacted prior to the program going to air on Monday night.
In a statement issued on Monday night, Porter said: “The journalist, Louise Milligan, never contacted me or my office, despite my awareness that for many months she has been directly contacting friends, former colleagues, former students – even old school friends from the mid 1980s – asking for rumours and negative comment about me.”
Milligan disputed that on Tuesday morning. She said she had not contacted the office, but researcher Lucy Carter had made contact a fortnight before the broadcast and submitted 21 questions.
Porter then acknowledged there had been “some back and forth” between his office and the ABC. “We wanted particulars,” he said. But Porter said some comments made in the program “were never put to me”.
Porter initially signalled he could pursue legal action against the ABC. On Tuesday, he said he’d “look at it” but he didn’t want the issue to become a “distraction”.
Marise Payne, the minister for women, told the Senate she condemned “all inappropriate treatment of people in the workplace, women and men, including relationships that exploit an imbalance in power within a workplace”.
“Every Australian has a right to feel safe in their place of work,” she said.
Monday night’s program had a substantial audience. The audience jumped from 374,000 viewers last week to 824,000 in the five capital cities, giving Four Corners its highest audience since a 2017 interview with Hillary Clinton.
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