Perth based MP Christian Porter used taxpayers’ money to help facilitate his relationship with his Sydney based girlfriend while on sick leave after rape allegations were made public and Andrew “Twiggy” Forest’s Fortescue Metals likely paid his legal bill via a secret “Blind Trust” that isn’t as secret as Porter claims. Both financial “irregularities” have been exposed in an expense report and a parliamentary declaration of interests.
Taxpayers pay for Christian Porter to visit his girlfriend in Sydney while he was on sick leave
On the 2nd of March 2021 I published an article which started off “Attorney-General Christian Porter is the alleged “Cabinet Minister Rapist” accused of raping 16-yr-old Katharine Thornton in 1988 in Sydney.” which went viral on social media (Click here to read more) and the following day (3/3/21) Christian Porter held a press conference outing himself as the cabinet minister accused of rape and then went on sick leave that lasted about 2 months. (Click here to read more)
During his time on sick leave Christian Porter instituted defamation proceedings against the ABC and journalist Louise Milligan in the Federal Court in Sydney and spent time with his girlfriend in Sydney. Some might argue what Christian Porter did on sick leave is his business but from an expense report dated the 1st of April to 30th of June 2021 it looks like taxpayers paid to help facilitate both his relationship with his girlfriend and possibly for Mr Porter to spend time with his lawyers briefing them for the defamation matter.
It was reported on the 2nd of June:
Love has blossomed between former attorney-general Christian Porter and specialist criminal lawyer Karen Espiner, from Coogee in Sydney’s east, it was confirmed on Wednesday night. Rumours had abounded that Mr Porter, 50, from Perth, Western Australia, had been seen on beachside strolls with lawyer Karen Espiner in Coogee recently.
On Wednesday evening Ms Espiner, co-founder of local firm Younes + Espiner Lawyers, confirmed that the pair had struck up a romance. ‘We are in the early stages of a relationship,’ Ms Espiner said in a statement. ‘That relationship has not been a secret but it is a private matter which we do not intend to talk about in any detail.’ The couple’s romance appears to have come to light after the pair were seen together on a plane to Canberra. (Click here to read more)
The expense report dated the 1st of April to 30th of June 2021 says on page 3:
The Perth based Christian Porter was on sick leave from the 3rd of March until early May so why did he bill taxpayers for $768 for 6 nights in Coogee, which is in Sydney, in April 2021? I sent a Tweet message to Christian Porter on the 31st of August as per below:
Christian Porter has a long history of rarely responding to media questions and he didn’t respond to the above Tweet. The expense report also mentions $4831 for airfares from Perth to Sydney and return for the Coogee trip in April when he was on sick leave as per below on page 4:
(Click here for the full expense report dated the 31st July 2021)
I suspect some of the time Porter was in Sydney in April would have been spent also instructing his Sydney based lawyers on his defamation case against the ABC which also shouldn’t be paid for by the taxpayers.
The “Blind Trust” pays Porter’s legal fees. Money for nothing and from nowhere.
On Tuesday (14/9/21) it was widely reported that some of Christian Porter’s legal fees from his defamation case against the ABC had been paid for by a “blind trust” which Porter stated in a parliamentary declaration that was updated on the 14th of September 2021.
It was reported:
Malcolm Turnbull says Christian Porter’s decision to accept money without knowing the source was an “extraordinary abrogation of responsibility”, after the former attorney general declared part of his legal fees were paid by unknown donors.
Porter, the industry and science minister, updated his register of interests on Monday, to include the Legal Services Trust, which made an unknown contribution to his legal fees for a discontinued defamation case against the ABC and journalist Louise Milligan.
Porter declared he had “no access to information about the conduct and funding of the trust”. (Click here to read more)
The exact statement on Porter’s declaration on page 17 is below:
(Click here to read the full parliamentary declaration updated on the 14th of September)
It’s not believable that Porter wouldn’t know where or who the money has come from.
Christian Porter has close ties to Fortescue Metals Group owner Andrew “Twiggy” Forest and former Fortescue CEO Neville (Nev) Power.
Ben Wyatt, Andrew Forest and Christian Porter – Feb 2017
A quick search of Porter’s background and you can easily see he has close connections to the mining industry.
“Twiggy Forrest and Rio Tinto CEO Sam Walsh are both among the referees” when Christian Porter first went for Liberal preselection. (Click here to read more) Do a search for Christian Porter and Andrew Forest and you will find many articles where Porter is blowing the trumpet for Fortescue Mining and without a doubt the mining industry would see Porter as one of thier people in federal parliament to do the mining industries bidding for their billionaire owners.
Free plane rides to Canberra with Neville (Nev) Power who is the former Fortescue CEO
Nev Power succeeded company founder Andrew Forrest as CEO of Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) in July 2011, after a period as chief operating officer. Power retired from Fortescue in 2018. He has since taken up an appointment as chair of Perth Airport Pty Ltd. In September 2019 he joined the board of Strike Energy, an oil and gas exploration firm, of which he is a major shareholder. In March 2020, Prime Minister Scott Morrison nominated Power to chair the National COVID-19 Commission Advisory Board, created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Click here to read more)
On page 12 of Porter’s declaration, it discloses flights in Nev Powers’s personal plane which is also piloted by Nev Power:
On page 13 there is another flight from Canberra to Perth.
Nev Power is in very tight with the Liberal Party as reported:
The National COVID-19 Coordination Commission has refused to disclose the potential conflicts of interest of the commissioners, despite questions over links to the gas industry.
The commission was quizzed extensively at a Senate inquiry on Thursday over chairman Nev Power’s many directorships, including his interest in West Australian oil and gas company Strike Energy, the use of his private jet to transport government ministers, and the wider interests that members of the commission and its manufacturing taskforce have in the gas industry.
There are reports that Scott Morrison has now decided to look into the “Blind Trust” but we all know Scott Morrison’s investigations end up going nowhere. Christian Porter is again in a lot of trouble and a huge embarrassment for the government but he’s been in that position before and survived so we’ll see how it plays out over the next few days.
Hopefully others will pick up on Christian Porter’s fraudulent abuse of expenses as per above and he will be forced to admit his fraud and repay the money. It might even be the final nail in Porter’s career which cannot possibly survive the next election.
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Categories: Attorney-General Christian Porter
The bloke is a bad bad crook – a quintessential sociopath it would seem. Liberal party are fools keeping this free criminal around.
What are you missing here? They’re all corrupt sociopaths so he fits right in. Public perceptions mean nothing to this crowd. And Rupert has their back.
Potential beneficiary doesn’t seem right IF a cash benefit has been paid.
ASIC need to look into the trustee company IF it’s paying out to only potential beneficiaries rather than to the actual beneficiaries.
It’s an intentional misdescription.
Porter is either a named beneficiary or not. The potential is only in whether or not he gets cash benefit. And he has.
As a beneficiary he must request the details for proper ROI disclosures.
You must be kidding, ASIC would have sanctioned it.
‘Alleged beneficiary’?
….. an allegation he strenuously denies.
Unfortunately wouldn’t have much confidence in ASIC doing anything to interfere with LNP cohorts, only after campaign by Mr Palmer to remove the heads of ASIC did Treasurer ‘Josh’ feebly remove the ASIC head and appoint a replacement, virtually by stealth.
Gifting to LNP members by large corporations who excel at tax avoidance and same corporations experts at coheresing massive taxpayers funds from LNP to line their own pockets, whole affair will die a natural death, apart from KCA and some minor news outlets, MW Media etc, the regulars like News, 7/9/10 will not report anything much that is negative to LNP.
Apathy rules Australia..
Until the jury is no longer out on ‘twiggy’ Forest’s involvement I remain sceptical – photos of ppl together is insufficient when so much is at stake in this politician circus with the LNP centre ring in the BIG TOP !
Yes, more is needed. I would have thought that lying on the register of interests is legally the equivalent of lying to Parliament (has he endorsed these claims in the House?). If he it can be shown that he did know the source of the funds then he should be dismissed as Minister at least. But don’t hold your breath. This government would more likely give him a merit badge or push him off to be a foreign ambassador.
Shakespeare may have been on the button about lawyers.
Don’t forget Twiggy was spruiking China at the beginning of the pandemic.
Foreign influence?
Just saying.
Do not forget that all our politicians are crooked. I would not trust a word they say, nor the news, Police, and these days church leaders. We have come to a time where everyone needs to question and examine all information.It does not matter what party you vote for they are all on the take, and if they told the TRUTH they will crumble. Thanks Shane for digging into this as all involved will find themselves in trouble. Do not one of you find it strange that the news paper paid him out. Sorry this smells like a rat in the mix here.
I don’t agree that any politician has the right to use taxpayers government money for their own gain in any capacity. Porter receives a highly paid politicians salary with perks, and possibly holds an expensive property portfolio without having to use taxpayer government funding for his own gain. If an ordinary worker was found out to fraud or thieve in such a capacity from their employer they would be penalised with jail.
Parliamentarians are elected representatives for the people not agents for particular groups. Porter should be made responsible for refusing to show transparency from money received from undisclosed sources, as should every other politician.
Turnbull is a disgruntled ex Prime Minister and he should be very careful when criticising other politicians with fraud, deceit or theft with taxpayer government money when he himself has been put in the spotlight.
As Kangaroo Court Australia wrote in an earlier article, Turnbull’s dodgy and corrupt conduct media under the heading [Malcolm Turnbull’s rap sheet. $10 million fraud & theft, branch stacking and his slush fund].
A quote from Timothy Pina — “Karma is quite a resilient fellow. No matter what … he’ll come back time after time and bite you right back in your assets”.
Strike Energy have somehow managed to reserve a huge groundwater allocation north of Perth despite this being against DWER internal process.
Should be challenged in SAT or at least FOI’d
Porter like to spruik his prowess of being the most talented lawyer and yet he does not know what is appropriate or not in his role. Why should we pay for this low-life’s air fares to come down to bong his girlfriend. It is a wonder any decent woman would have anything to do with the creep.
Porter’s refusal to be open and transparent about this blind trust makes his demand that unions must list the names of all their donors laughable.
If this blind trust is allowed to be used in this matter, it will provide a huge loophole for criminals who are about to have their proceeds of crime confiscated. They will merely say the cash came from a blind trust of which they know nothing about.
In relation to porters trips to Sydney whilst on sick leave, he probably had advice on how to charge taxpayers for a shag with his new girlfriend from Barnaby Joyce. Who in a non-sitting period of parliament, also had many unprecidented taxpayer-funded flights from his electorate to Canberra where his mistresss lived at the time.
Morrison’s inaction on numerous scandalous, inappropriate and even corrupt behaviour by members of his government gives me very little confidence in him handling this latest example of blatant ministerial misconduct by Porter any differently to those of the past.
This LNP protection racket run by Morrison and the pro-LNP mainstream media won’t stop until there is an independent, well funded open & transparent federal ICAC with teeth overseeing this government’s dodgy deeds. It’s all to obvious why Porter as AG and Morrison have done everything in their power not to install one.
Fantastic article, what a piece of work hey? X
I’d lay bets that Porter owns a house in the ACT & claims his overnight stays in his own house & pays the mortgage with the public funds he claims. Similarly, when he stays overnight at his girlfriend’ home, he pays some of the accommodation he claims to her. (all legal under the benefits the pollies receive for overnight stays when they travel interstate from their home base.
What a racket they have got going. Nothing surprises us, the paying public.Again, check out the differences in the airfares on the Perth-Sydney-Perth legs. Is he travelling first class as the single leg fares are in the $ 2,500 area ? What a crock ! And guess who is paying again ? The mug taxpayers !
What about Stokes being the anonymous donor behind Porters “bag of 30 silver pieces”?
Porter the WA Rorter
A person who said they were in the media team at Fortescue Metals called me on Thursday and denied they had paid Christian Porter’s legal bill and when I asked them to email me a response so I could update the article they agreed but I never heard back from them
KCA, as they say in the classics – “follow the money trail”. If it is so dodgy Porter would rather lose his Ministers position than disclose who the donors to the blind trust, then it must be quite sinister.
If Morrison let’s Porter get away with this what’s to stop every corrupt Lib (that’s all of them) listing on their register of interests:
Legal Services Trust 1
Legal Services Trust 2
Legal Services Trust 3 …
Blind Freddy Trust
Brown Paper Bag Trust
Dont Ask Dont Tell Trust
Honest Abe Trust
Mothers Milk Trust
Chutzpah Et Al Trust
Golden Handshake Trust
Look Over There Trust.
All entirely legal. It could become the new normal. Don’t put it past him.
Good article KCA
Christian Porter refused to rat on Twiggy.
I’m sure he will have a wonderful future with FMG.
The problem doesn’t go away. Porter either refunds the money or says who the donor is. He can’t say the responsibility only applies if he is a minister. Not true. It could, after all, be from the Chinese government, a terrorist group or a mining company seeking his vote on legislation. Morrison has repeated Porter’s lie that he is “unable” to identify the source of the funds. This is a fiction easily defeated by noting that the money would have come by bank transfer thus leaving a trail for the AFP or other agencies to track. Both Porter and Morrison would know the donor and aren’t prepared to say. No, Porter doesn’t get to keep the money and his fictional cover story.
Yeah, Scotty. Sure.
Porter resigned so as not to breach ministerial standards. LOL.
But what about the period between the commencement of his non-disclosure of the names of the donors and the moment of his resignation?
Porter breached ministerial standards from before Wednesday of last week until this afternoon (Sunday).
The resignation does not negate the offense.
If I steal an item and subsequently make restoration by paying for it, I am still a thief.
What shameful representative of the people. Total crook amongst crooks. All public money how do they sleep at night
Whilst on sick leave did he do legal work , make claims on his M P allowence etc.,and claimed a pairing shame on labour,