EXCLUSIVE: The political and legal establishment has been rocked by yet more shocking sexual abuse claims detailed in a lengthy dossier sent to Prime Minister Scott Morrison that the nation’s chief legal officer, Attorney-General Christian Porter, allegedly raped a 16-year-old girl more than 30 years ago when he was but a smug private school boy debating champion. Serkan Ozturk reports.
Once upon a time – and that includes right up to the present day – women and children were expected to live out their days in quivering silence about the traumas inflicted upon their bodies, minds and souls by men in pursuit of power and dominance. If they did dare to step out of line and speak out, they were drowned out.
“They wanted it”. “They were out at night”. “They were drunk”. “They’re a slut, anyway”. “It was their fault”. “Who’s going to believe you?“
They are the kinds of long-lasting societal tropes that always excuse the men (and it is almost always men) to go out and rape and much more often, not even go out but stay in and rape the people they may profess to love.
And for about 30 years those attitudes helped largely silence one woman and contributed perhaps to her early death in the middle of last year, tormented by a brutal and violent trauma for decades – a rape allegedly committed against her when she was 16-years-old in 1988 by an up-himself, misogynistic wanker of a private school boy who dreamt of becoming Prime Minister by age 50. Unfortunately for him, that private schoolboy would only end up as Christian Porter and Australia’s Attorney-General.
Yet despite the woman’s untimely death in June 2020 (thought to be suicide by some, but unconfirmed), this week her voice has been heard from beyond the grave, largely thanks to a group of friends who didn’t want her life and death to have been in vain.
In a bold move, following the recent revelations of the Parliament House “security breach” sexual assault cover-up, last week they posted a 31-page dossier to Prime Minister Scott Morrison detailing information and evidence about the alleged multiple rapes Minister Porter committed when he was 17-years-old and long before he entered Parliament.
According to the document, which has been widely reported on by major media outlets without publishing Porter’s name as the alleged assailant, the woman first met Porter through interstate and national debating competitions, largely populated by elitist private schools. Both the alleged victim and Porter were regarded as champion debaters. He in Perth. She in Adelaide.
Yearbooks from Perth’s exclusive Hale School in 1987 and 1988 detail Attorney-General Christian Porter’s debating prowess as a student (Images: Supplied)
Their paths first crossed in South Australia in 1986 before again meeting in 1987 during another major schools debating competition. Their performances would eventually see the pair earn a visit to Sydney on the cusp of 1988 for the World Intervarsity Debating Competition. Porter was reportedly captain of the Australian team, according to documents from the Hale School – the snobbish private school he lorded over that also counts as alumni the mining barons, Lang Hancock and Andrew Forrest, as well as high-profile soldier, Ben Roberts-Smith, who is currently at the centre of a major war crimes investigation.
It was while in Sydney, in January 1988, where Porter allegedly attacked and raped the victim.
According to the victim’s allegations, while intoxicated from alcohol or another stupefying drug, Porter allegedly strangled her, forced her to perform oral sex on him and then claimed it was all “just a bad dream”. That bad dream turned into a total nightmare if it already wasn’t, because the victim alleged that while she was passed out, she woke up to the future Attorney-General anally raping her on two occasions.
The only thing the victim remembers Porter saying while he allegedly raped her was, “I don’t want to get you pregnant”.
The woman thought at the time of the rape she may end up marrying Porter. It’s believed she told at least one friend of the alleged rape about six months after it took place.
It wasn’t until about 2018 and 2019 however that the woman began to start sharing her experience more widely. She visited a psychologist and psychiatrist in 2019 and also began contacting people she was friends with in 1988. Many of the victim’s friends from high school and university have since gone on to highly accomplished careers and lives in professions such as the law and media.
In November 2019, the woman walked to police headquarters in Adelaide to report the alleged rape. South Australian police then passed the complaint to NSW Police as the alleged criminal incident had occurred in Sydney. In February 2020, NSW Police then launched Strikeforce Wyndarra to investigate the allegations. However, in all that time a victim’s statement was not taken by NSW Police. They have since blamed “various reasons” for an official statement not being taken from the woman in the four months before her death in June 2020. Interestingly, NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller is somewhat good friends with Prime Minister Scott Morrison, with the PM even admitting in 2019 that he had called Fuller to discuss the police investigation into Energy Minister Angus Taylor’s alleged use of a forged document to publicly attack Sydney’s Lord Mayor, Clover Moore.
It is highly likely that senior members of the Australian Government, including the PM and Porter, have been aware of the allegations since the middle of last year.
In fact, the government has been bracing for these allegations to be made public for the past six months. A 4 Corners investigation into the misogynistic atmosphere that permeates Parliament House which aired on ABC TV in November last year had senior government sources spooked that the allegations of rape involving Porter would be made public then and there. They put pressure on senior ABC executives not to air the investigation and tried to undermine investigative journalists, Louise Milligan and Lucy Carter. Even after the program aired without detailing the allegations of rape against Porter, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher tried to further bully the 4 Corners team by writing an angry four page missive addressed to ABC chair, Ita Buttrose, alleging the ‘Canberra Bubble’ investigation was proof of bias by the national broadcaster.
WATCH THE 4 CORNERS PROGRAM THAT SPOOKED THE GOVERNMENT
The 4 Corners investigation although not publicly airing the rape allegations, detailed a sordid history of misogyny and sexism that stretched back to Porter’s university days. Considering himself a bit of a cut-price Van Wilder, Porter was like one of those privileged perpetual students who stayed at university for most of their 20s and got drunk most days. The 4 Corners program found:
Writing, aged 24, about a debate on the subject “Lawyers are just well-dressed prostitutes”, Mr Porter said: “Our opposition’s case had more holes than Snow White’s hymen” and joked that his opponents had been “starved of oxygen at birth”.
“These guys were awful! Helen Keller could have made a better fist of it,” he said, referring to the famous blind and deaf writer.
He joked about his drinking and his “rowdy” behaviour and said he was going to “smut my way through law school”.
The program also detailed more instances of Porter’s misogynistic beliefs and bigoted views of women.
A graduation profile of Mr Porter, when he was 26, said he’d be remembered for: “Vomiting all over himself at the Continental — on the dance floor!”
It predicted that in 10 years’ time, Mr Porter would be “Running for PM. Being kicked out of the Liberal Party for being a fat, unattractive, sexist, political power-broker who tried to stick his tongue in a secretary’s ear”.
After graduating from university, Mr Porter was nominated for Cleo magazine’s Bachelor of the Year in 1999. In the article, he was asked what song he’d choose to serenade a woman.
Mr Porter selected Another One Bites the Dust by Queen.
His self-portrait was a stick figure, which had to be censored because he’d drawn it with large genitals. At that stage, Mr Porter was 28.
If Porter was such an unrefined documented woman-hater well into his late 20s and adult life, one does wonder what kind of specimen he was aged 17?
For it seems Porter’s bitter views of women were probably entrenched and honed while at the supposedly prestigious Hale School in Perth – in reality a bastion of exclusiveness and snobbishness for this country’s dim-witted aristocracy.
Since the allegations against Porter became known, many others have shared their tales of being belittled, abused or worse by entitled students from the Hale School.
One woman used social media to detail how she too had been anally raped by a Hale student who claimed he was was enjoying his “rite of passage”. Others have described a culture of entitlement and impunity and elitism. These are the scions of what amounts to greatness in this grossly hypocritical nation.
So where to from now?
The NSW Police say they can not investigate the complaint and have “closed” the matter due to not having any “admissible” evidence to form part of a prosecution. The truth is there was never any investigation to close, as a proper investigation had never commenced since the woman first made her initial report to police November 2019. A proper investigation would have taken at least one official statement from an alleged victim while they were still alive.
A coronial inquest into the circumstances surroundings the woman’s death may take place in South Australia but it could be unlikely that her allegations of rape from over 30 years ago will ever be looked into by a coroner.
The Prime Minster Scott Morrison says he believes Porter and his vigourous denials and has so far refused to do anything about the situation, hoping that it all simply blows over.
Porter himself has in the past few days called on the services of high priced defamation lawyer, Peter Bartlett, from the Liberal Party aligned legal firm Minter Ellison.
WATCH CHRISTIAN PORTER SAY SEXUAL ABUSERS SHOULD BE DEPORTED
Bartlett is the same lawyer who tried to threaten True Crime News Weekly with defamation over our investigations into the various scandals surrounding Barnaby Joyce in 2017 and 2018 which eventually cost him his position as Deputy PM, but not his role in Parliament.
Is it any wonder why the federal government and the states continue to drag their feet on enacting already-agreed changes to defamation laws that would make news stories like the one featuring Porter much easier to publish and in greater detail on the grounds of clear public interest?
As Porter’s name started gaining traction across social media over the weekend as being the alleged “#CabinetRapist”, the Attorney-General cancelled his planned appearance at the latest swearing-in of a High Court judge on Monday, March 1. Officially, he was busy with work back in Perth. However, his office told the West Australian paper this week that Porter was “not good” after the allegations against him became semi-public knowledge.
It is expected Porter will publicly out himself today as the Cabinet Minister at the centre of this growing scandal but he is not expected to step aside or resign.
The friends of the deceased woman meanwhile are calling for an independent judicial investigation into the allegations concerning Porter.
For those still wondering why True Crime News Weekly last month elected to name Bruce Lehrmann as a person of interest in the Parliament House “security breach” cover-up involving Brittany Higgins, it’s because all too often the Bruces of this world have an all too good a chance of ending up as the Christians. For Porter does have the cold, dead eyes of a … politician. Yes, a politician.
If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault, relationship or family violence, call 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT. org.au
Malcolm Turnbull has questioned how Katharine Thornton died. Louise Milligan has hinted Porter has more victims. It defies belief that the accused person would not want there to be an independent investigation. Porter seems to be practicing DARVO. “Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender” in my opinion. Porter re-framing himself as the victim.
This video clip says it all. If you want to know how these bad people operate and what it feels then this gives you an idea. Pop culture sometimes gets things right, because this actually did happen to the singer in real life. So easy to imagine who the man is right now.
There is some talk about Porter potentially suing people for defamation. I remember something Christopher Hitches said about there being part of the law where you can offer to be executed on someone else’s behalf. Well I’m willing to be sued by Porter and his slavering Minter Ellison hounds and stand in for Katharine Thornton. I’d take it as an honour, actually. I have no money or financial assets. I’m not a Dr. of anything except my own lunchbox. I do have a law degree though. Go for your life, grub. Take a screen shot.
Malcolm Turnbull says we don’t really know how the victim died and the victim in her statement said that Porter choked her in the past. Choking is a known precursor to homicide. Even me, cynical as I am some days, don’t want to believe that Katharine Thornton was murdered, but this has reached the point of no return. We actually don’t know who, or what, we’re dealing with now. That’s why there has to be an independent investigation regardless of what job title Porter has.
These lines are gold:
“misogynistic wanker of a private school boy who dreamt of becoming Prime Minister by age 50. Unfortunately for him, that private schoolboy would only end up as Christian Porter and Australia’s Attorney-General.”
And thanks for pointing out the other people that have been at Hale school, like Ben Roberts-Smith. Interesting and worrying.
It’s weird that Porter referred in his press conference to a bowl of prawns. People in police and law refer to victims who have been choked to death as having “prawn eyes.” Author Gail Dines writes about as well that in relation to certain sex acts. Maybe I’m wide of the mark here, but apparently Trump was giving coded messages in his speeches such as “Stand down and stand ready.” Maybe the whole prawn reference is just an innocent comment, but it left me feeling uneasy.
If there is going to be an investigation, it would have to be conducted by someone from outside Australia. It’s impossible that any high court judge could impartially investigate the country’s first law officer.
Maybe someone from New Zealand but even that’s too close. If the gov gets desperate enough to hold an inquiry it will be conducted by one of their mates. The idea that we might really have an independent inquiry into Porter’s conduct or the way the alleged victim died is close to zero.
The government are so used to pretending that the country is a business with the public as their employees that they seemed surprised when they say “Case closed, moving on now” that people won’t accept it. And reports that Linda Reynolds made a sexist remark as though women in power being sexist towards other women is a new thing. Almost like the breaking news that men can be sexually assaulted by other men. There’s no end to how stupid the government and Murdoch think the public is.
How can SlowMo and Porter talk about the rule of law after what they’ve done to witness K and his lawyer? Are we in fairyland now?
How dare this government talk about the rule of law. Read this and try not to puke re Porter and Dutton.
Kon Karapanagiotidis
@Kon__K
So yesterday the lawyers at @ASRC1
spent their day before a Senate Committee trying to stop a new law by Dutton and Porter that would allow refugees to have their visas or citizenship cancelled based on secret evidence they would have no right to see. Take that in for a moment.
Does all this mean if Christian Porter visits Tasmania he is going to get headbutted like Tony Abbot did?
This rule of law speech coming from people who keep innocent brown people in detention camps year after year. And we’re supposed to believe they’re poor nice puppy dog guys who can’t iron a shirt.
Someone has just pointed out that Dutton is going to try and become PM. Please god help us.
Thank you Serkan for this important article about Porter and about the culture of elitist schools.