Australia’s Attorney General denies historic rape allegation

Australia's Attorney General Christian Porter addresses the media in Perth

Credit: Reuters

Australia’s Attorney General confirmed on Wednesday that he is the Cabinet Minister accused of raping a teenage girl in 1988, and said he would not step down as the country’s top law officer.

Christian Porter called a media conference in Perth, his home town, rather than in the nation’s capital, to deny the allegations.

The alleged victim took her own life in June last year.

Mr Porter began by saying he did not want to “impose anything more on [the] grief” on her parents.

“The things that are claimed that happened did not happen … Prior to last Friday’s story on the ABC no one in the law or in politics or in the media had ever put anything of substance to me [about the allegations]… Nothing in the allegations is true," he said.

“I waited for the New South Wales police to conclude their consideration of the matter. [During that time] I have been subjected to the most wild and unrestrained accusations that I can remember in Australian politics.”

Mr Porter confirmed he knew the alleged victim and they had met at an international debating event in Sydney in January, 1988, when he was 17, but maintained there was no sexual contact of any kind between them.

On the same day, Australian of the Year recipient Grace Tame, a sexual abuse survivor who has campaigned for victims’ rights, spoke at the National Press Club in Canberra.

Asked about Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s comments, in response to the alleged 2019 rape of Brittany Higgins in Parliament House, that he had been prompted by his wife’s advice to think of his daughters to take a stance on the issue, Ms Tame said: “It shouldn’t take having children to have a conscience, and actually, on top of that, having children doesn’t guarantee a conscience.”

Mr Porter said he would be taking two weeks leave to assess “and hopefully improve” his mental health, but he would not step down as Attorney General.

“If I stand down, anyone could lose their job as the result of an accusation … [it would] set a new standard,” he said, adding that if he did stand down, the country could dispense with the office of Attorney General because there would be “no rule of law”.

He said he had maintained his silence while the police weighed the matter, adding that the former leader of the Opposition, Labor’s Bill Shorten, had done the same when facing a similar accusation.

One key difference between the cases is that Mr Shorten’s accuser is still alive.

Mr Porter also dismissed the idea of an independent judicial inquiry into the allegations against him, and said he did not know if the South Australian Police would conduct a coronial inquest into the circumstances surrounding the death of his alleged victim.