Extract from ABC News
Christian Porter has identified himself as the Cabinet minister who is facing a historical rape allegation.
The Attorney-General fronted the media in Perth to strenuously deny that he raped a woman in 1988, long before he entered politics.Read the full transcript of the press conference below:
Christian Porter: 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 do 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 and 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.
But 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, to not comment on allegations through the media, because it risks prejudicing any investigation.
So I've 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 series of accusations that 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 allegation 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 the 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 somebody 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 and 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, there 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 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 have ever put them to me.
No journalist has ever 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 I had to doing right by the victim in the often traumatic process of the justice system.
I've given the bulk of my adult working life to public service 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 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 have 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 answer, 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 of Industrial Relations and Leader of the House.
I am happy to answer any questions.
Reporter: Is your defence here that you didn't sleep with the alleged victim or it was consensual?
Mr Porter: I did not sleep with the victim. We didn't have anything of that nature happen between us.
Reporter: What does that say about the allegations? Is this something which has been fabricated?
Mr Porter: I can't talk to you about the allegations. I can say to you all, it didn't happen. But I can't criticise or mount a defence or cross-examine someone. I am just not going to do that to the family of this poor woman.
Reporter: These accusations have been put against you, so you have to have a defence here. Why do you think this has been put against you?
Mr Porter: I don't know the answer to that question. I can only say to you it didn't happen. Others will trawl over this, I am sure. The media, in politics. As I say, I have conducted trial after trial myself, but I can't give you that explanation.
Reporter: Should there be an independent inquiry by a retired judge, as there was in the High Court for Dyson Heydon?
Mr Porter: These are matters for other people to judge.
Reporter: Would you like to see an independent inquiry as a chance to clear your name?
Mr Porter: The Dyson Heydon matter was about workplace relations accusations, which were contemporaneous, required by health and safety laws. I don't know what it would achieve. Other people will be the judge of this. But, it would be the first time in Australian history that a public figure or anyone effectively is put on trial in circumstances where they would be required to disprove something that didn't happen 33 years ago. If that happened to me, all I could say is what I have said to you today, that it just didn't happen.
Reporter: What are your memories of the woman who was involved. You talk about you remember the trip very well. It was a nice trip. What are your memories of it and what was your relationship with her?
Mr Porter: I didn't say I remembered it very well, I remember it as a happy time. It was 33 years ago. I remember the person as an intelligent, bright, happy person, but I hadn't had any contact from that person, at all, to the best of my recollection, in the 33 years since that time in January 1988.
Reporter: What was your contact with her then?
Mr Porter: There were four of us on this team. We were friends. We hung out together.
Reporter: Were you in a relationship?
Mr Porter: No it wasn't
Reporter: Were you ever alone, the two of you?
Mr Porter: Look, I just — I don't think so. We did what normal teenagers would do. There were groups of people …
Reporter: In the last 33 years, have you been in touch with anyone, whether the victim or her friends and family, about these allegations?
Mr Porter: I guess it is what — it is so staggering to me that this was circulating out there and no-one ever raised it with me.
Reporter: When was the last time you had communications with the complainant?
Mr Porter: That week, I would think in early January 1988.
Reporter: Since then, have you ever asked anyone to contact her on your behalf?
Mr Porter: No.
Reporter: Given that you say that you're innocent and these allegations came as a surprise to you. Why wouldn't you support an independent inquiry that would then clear your name?
Mr Porter: These are just for other matters — other people to determine whether or not there should be such a thing. What would I say in front of that inquiry? What would that inquiry ask me to do? To disprove something that didn't happen 33 years ago. I honestly don't know what I would say to that inquiry.
Reporter: You can't disprove it, can you? That's the problem.
Mr Porter: Of course I can't. Of course I can't.
Reporter: There is this question, and you are not any public figure, you are the first law officer of the land, the Attorney-General. So should you not step aside so Australians can have faith in their legal system?
Mr Porter: I think that in the statement that I have given you, I have tried as best I can to address why I think that would be the wrong course. Because it would mean, in this hyper-politicised world that we have, that any allegation would basically mean if it weren't resolved through a court process to some group's satisfaction, that the person has to end their life and their career.
Reporter: Are you saying that the specific allegations, they were very specific allegations, that have been made quite obviously, are you saying that there is no truth in it at all? The very detail…
Mr Porter: It is exactly what I am saying. All I have by way of the allegations is what I have literally read, the same things that you would have read. They just didn't happen.
Reporter: No journalist or media organisation put those specific allegations to you at any time?
Mr Porter: Never.
Reporter: In late 2020 you said sexual harassment allegations made against Dyson Heydon were very concerning and incredibly serious and as an Attorney-General you asked your department to investigate the matter. Dyson Heydon also strongly denied the allegations. Do you accept the nature of the allegations made against you, even though you deny them, are so grave and serious, especially considering your position as the first law officer of the Commonwealth, that they warrant an independent investigation?
Mr Porter: I can only say that these are decisions. Obviously, I can't make that decision because I am the subject of the allegation. But the difference between what occurred in the investigation of the Dyson Heydon matter is, I think, that they were workplace bullying or harassment allegations where there is a requirement under the relevant health and safety law to conduct an inquiry. You are talking here about a civil determination of a criminal allegation on presumably the standards of balance of probabilities where I would be asked to disprove something that just didn't happen 33 years ago. So, if that happens, I couldn't succeed to disapprove something that didn't happen.
Reporter: In her statement to her lawyer, the complainant said that the incident in question happened on the evening of 9th January, 1988, in her room at the women's college at Sydney University during the university debating championships. What do you recall of the events of that night?
Mr Porter: First of all, I have never seen that statement. No-one has provided it to me. I have never been asked on it before. It was a long time ago. But I can just say to you that the things that are written and said to have happened, wherever they are said to have happened, that is the first time they have been put, that they happened in someone's room, they just didn't happen.
Reporter: The complainant has provided a photo of the two of you sitting at the formal dinner that night. Do you remember that dinner or sitting next to her?
Mr Porter: I am sure there was a formal dinner that night. I am sure that is the case. We were a group of people who were going out debating during the day, going out to functions and things at night. I am absolutely sure there would be such a photo.
Reporter: She's more specific in her statement, she says that you and she and a group of others had been out for dinner. You'd then gone dancing at the Hard Rock Cafe, and then you walked her back to her room. Do you recall that and what's your recollection?
Mr Porter: That may well be the case.
Reporter: You don't remember that?
Mr Porter: It is 33 years ago. I remember two evenings that week. One was a night with — at one of the colleges with bowls of prawns, which sticks in my mind. I do remember a formal dinner, and going out dancing sounds about right.
Reporter: Do you remember walking her to her room though?
Mr Porter: No.
Reporter: Was there no sexual involvement with anybody on that trip?
Mr Porter: Well, no.
Reporter: You said it was 33 years ago, you don't remember the details —
Mr Porter: Could I have forgotten?
Reporter: Could you have forgotten?
Mr Porter: Could I have forgotten the things that have been printed? Could I have forgotten or misconstrued the things that I have read, which are said to have occurred? Absolutely not. They just didn't happen.
Reporter: Have you ever been the subject of any other complaints of this nature? Are you aware of any other women in your past who could make similar allegations?
Mr Porter: No. No to both of those questions.
Reporter: Have you or anyone on your behalf ever asked someone to sign a non-disclosure agreement?
Mr Porter: No.
Reporter: Is one of the problems here that the government which you're a part of has said that it believes victims, it believes survivors, and yet with respect you're standing here saying it didn't happen. Isn't that somewhat incongruous and difficult now for you? There is a difficulty there, isn't there?
Mr Porter: Having myself run trial after trial after trial about serious matters, helping victims, women and children, every absolute effort has to be made to take allegations seriously, to pursue them through the court process and it is an arduous, gruelling process and I did that on their behalf, but equally the other side of that process is there is rights and there are circumstances where someone might absolutely believe something, but it might not be a reliable account. That is actually why we have a justice system. It is why we have courts and the presumption of innocence and burdens of proof. That is why we do these things in that process and not like this.
Reporter: So her specific allegation in the statement to her lawyer was that then you took her back to her room allegedly and allegedly then forced her to perform oral sex on you and that after that you raped her twice. What do you say to that allegation?
Mr Porter: Just it didn't happen, and it's not true.
Reporter: Do you think the Prime Minister and your Cabinet colleagues are going to stick by you?
Mr Porter: My colleagues are doing, I think, a very, very good job in the most difficult of circumstances.
Reporter: But do you think they're going to personally continue to support you?
Mr Porter: You'll have to ask my Cabinet colleagues, but if this is the new standard — that anyone in Cabinet resigns because there is allegation against them, no matter how serious, if allegation equals resignation, I'm not sure that anyone in any position of authority, Cabinet, Labor or Liberal would think that that's a standard that they would want to be put to.
Reporter: Did they encourage you to come forward and do you have the full backing of the Prime Minister?
Mr Porter: I spoke to the Prime Minister this morning and that full backing is there. I asked for a short period of leave just so I can assess where this is at.
Reporter: When did you first speak to the Prime Minister about the allegations?
Mr Porter: I spoke to the Prime Minister about the allegations on Wednesday I think of last week.
Reporter: And did he show you the detailed letter that was provided to him?
Mr Porter: No, it had been sent to the AFP.
Reporter: Are you able to effectively do your job while these allegations are untested and your integrity is under question?
Mr Porter: I'm going to take a couple of short weeks leave just for my own sanity. I think I will be able to return from that and do my job, but those questions, I feel in myself I can do my job, and I'm no different from the person doing the job two weeks ago.
Reporter: Does the Attorney-General need to be beyond reproach?
Mr Porter: Well no-one is beyond an allegation, no-one. If you could just imagine for just — and I know that we're all cynics and this is a hard and tough and fast environment that we're all in — but just imagine for a second that it's not true, that for whatever reason the recollection and the belief, which I'm sure was strongly held, is just not true. Just imagine that for a second.
Reporter: If this was a football club or a corporation or a company or even the High Court, you would stand aside while this was investigated. Would that not be better for you and everybody?
Mr Porter: Again, no-one has ever informed me about what was occurring with NSW Police. But as I understand it, there was a complaint made at some point, the complaint was withdrawn, there was a primary investigation if I can call it that, the additional material which I've never seen, which some of you have put to me today for the first time, appears has been provided to NSW Police, they have looked at that, they've investigated, they've sought advice, they've closed the matter.
Reporter: They determined that evidence is not admissible in a court of law, we are not in a court of law at the moment, we are in the court of public opinion?
Mr Porter: With respect, that's what a police investigation is. But again NSW Police have never contacted me, I don't know what processes they went through.
Reporter: Can you survive the court of public opinion?
Mr Porter: I'm not commentating on survival or politics. I'm simply saying to you all, that I did— it just did not happen.
Reporter: When you spoke to the Prime Minister and he spoke about the situation with you, what advice did the Prime Minister give you?
Mr Porter: When? Last Wednesday? The Prime Minister had received the letter that was circulated and then has been put to the AFP. He explained that he'd received that. I'm not aware that he went into that letter, or his office didn't [in] any detail. He sent it, as the AFP Commissioner had said, to the authority which was the AFP. Now we had a discussion about it, and it's obviously a distressing situation and he acknowledged that but the discussion wasn't …
Reporter: Did he give you advice as to how to proceed?
Mr Porter: No, I mean …
Reporter: What exactly was said between you and the Prime Minister when you first spoke about it? What did you tell him, and what did he say to you?
Mr Porter: He said that he had received this material. Or I actually …
Reporter: Did he approach you or did you approach him?
Mr Porter: I actually think that someone had put to him that the material had been sent, and his office had looked to see if it had been received. I went to his office at his request, and he said that he had received the material, that I was the subject of it and it had gone to the AFP.
Reporter: So you didn't read the letter? You didn't read that detail?
Mr Porter: I was aware of a rumour. But I had — no-one has ever put the specifics of an allegation to me from the media. Enforcement … (crosstalk)
Reporter: When were you first aware of a rumour, of any rumour from any person?
Mr Porter: About November of last year, I think.
Reporter: We know that the deceased took her own life in Adelaide in 2020, following meetings in which you were the centre of conversation in terms of the meetings she was having. Is it right that you remain the first law officer of the Commonwealth of Australia while a report on this woman's death by the South Australian Police is yet to be handed to the South Australian coroner? Is that correct that you retain that position?
Mr Porter: First of all, I don't know anything about the circumstances, I just don't. Whether I was a point of discussion or not, I don't know. The status of the South Australian report which is a thing that police do as a preliminary matter for the coroner, I'm unaware of. I don't know whether there will be a coronial investigation.
Reporter: Are you confident, Mr Porter, that no other women will come forward with other allegations in different jurisdictions?
Mr Porter: Yes.
Reporter: Was there a time that you spent alone with this person?
Mr Porter: It's not impossible, but I have never been in the person's room or anything like that.
Reporter: Had you been drinking?
Mr Porter: I did read that as part of the material and I recall, it sparked a memory, there were four of us: three boys and this person whose name I can't even say because of the situation we're in. I don't think any of us had ever ironed a shirt, and I recall she showed us how to do that, I remember that.
Reporter: That's a very specific claim that you remember, but you don't remember having any other kind of relationship with her?
Mr Porter: It's because I didn't.
Reporter: When she ironed your shirt for you, she claims you said she would make a wonderful wife one day. Do you remember that?
Mr Porter: I mean I don't remember that specifically, but it's not impossible that that was said in a joke.
Reporter: Are you going to sue, Mr Porter? Are you going to begin your own defamation proceedings?
Mr Porter: Over the last week so much has been said of every imaginable type, some of the stuff online is just, just incredible. I will look at it all.
Reporter: Why do you think this woman would come up with such an elaborate lie?
Mr Porter: People … I don't know. I don't know what her circumstances were. I don't know.
Reporter: Has she confused you with someone else?
Mr Porter: I couldn't answer that question, I know about the person, what I have read. I don't know about her life or what challenges she faced, or anything like that. I hadn't seen or heard or had contact in 33 years.
Reporter: Did you have a girlfriend at the time?
Mr Porter: I think I did yeah, I was 17, I think I turned 17 about six months before that. I was a boy.
Reporter: As Attorney-General you sit on the National Security Committee, how can the Australian public be confident that you're not at risk of being compromised when such serious allegations are being levelled against you?
Mr Porter: Can I say this to you. Being compromised or blackmailed is usually about things that you don't want to have publicly, right? Thanks to this situation everyone knows about this, I'm just saying, it didn't happen.
Reporter: So Mr Porter, what do you know about efforts to remove details of your debating trip in 1988 from Wikipedia?
Mr Porter: I have never heard of such a thing. I did not know that debating trips were on Wikipedia. Can I just say these conspiracy theories that are just everywhere, including about the circumstances of this poor girl's death, I mean it's just absolutely wild.
Reporter: Just to clear up that timeline, the Prime Minister said that he wasn't aware of these allegations until Friday afternoon, he hadn't received a copy of the letter until Friday afternoon.
Second reporter: No, he said Wednesday. The Prime Minister said Wednesday.
Mr Porter: I think it was Wednesday because I think it was after a Cabinet meeting.
Reporter: You said that you heard rumours about this in November, can you tell us where you heard those through?
Mr Porter: It was a very old friend of mine, whom I had dinner with, and she had said to me, that a group of people were spreading a rumour, that I had in some way offended against the person 33 years ago, but, like rumours are, it was just in the vaguest terms.
Reporter: Will you be paying personally for your defamation lawyer or taxpayers?
Mr Porter: You are assuming a course of action I just haven't fully contemplated.
Reporter: How does this affect your way you see your role in public life in the future?
Mr Porter: One of the reasons why I'm just going to take a couple of weeks off, and as I say I'm not ashamed to say I'm going to seek some support and assistance, is that if something like this happens to you, that you never in a million years expect, I'm sure it will change my views on a whole range of things.
Off camera: Guys, we're going to take one more question, we're going around in circles a bit. Last question now.
Reporter: The complainant's friends say they remember her as brilliant and someone who thought she would be Australia's prime minister. What are your recollections of her?
Mr Porter: I remember her as a bright, happy person, but I don't dispute anything that her friends would say about how they recollect her.
Reporter: Is your recollection flawed? You have said her recollection is obviously strongly held, could your recollection be flawed by your own perception?
Mr Porter: I will finish by saying the things that I have read did not happen, and to suggest that they could be forgotten is ridiculous. They just never happened.
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