The key reason for Christian Porter resigning as a cabinet minister on Sunday (19/9/21) is the rape allegation made by Katharine Thornton which led to the defamation case that ultimately led to Porter trying to have someone secretly pay his legal fees. Katharine Thornton should be given credit for Australia potentially dodging a bullet as it is well known that Christian Porter had the ambition to be Prime Minister. As Attorney-General Porter was only a few positions away from Prime Minister so there is a fair chance he might have eventually made it to PM.
Evidence that came out in the associated Jo Dyer court case said that Katharine Thornton was well aware that she might not be able to hold Porter to account for the alleged rape in court but she had a goal of at least stopping him becoming Prime Minister which I think it is safe to say she has achieved.
Whether Porter is guilty or not of rape is something we will never know although many of us have an opinion one way or the other. What is not in doubt is Porter’s dodgy conduct over the last few months which culminated in the last few days where he tried to conceal who was paying his legal bills which I outlined in my last article “Christian Porter used taxpayers’ money to help facilitate his relationship with his girlfriend while Fortescue Metals likely paid his legal bill”. (Click here to read more)
As a side note, a person who said they were in the media team at Fortescue Metals called me last Thursday (16/9/21) 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.
What is most disturbing is Porter issued a press release today saying why he had resigned as a Minister and the main reason he gave was so he did not have to reveal the names of the anonymous donors who paid his legal bills. The problem is that Porter is still a federal MP and still has the same obligation as a Minister to declare gifts which means he still has to name the anonymous donors although he clearly intends on refusing to do so. The 3-page Dear John letter issued by Porter to the Australian public is below but first let’s listen to Prime Minister Scott Morrison in the below video try to explain how Porter resigned because ministerial standards were not met.
Christian Porter’s 3-page press release regarding his resignation is below. It is a fascinating read as Porter attacks everyone including a cowardly attack on Katharine Thornton and he even goes on a long rant against Twitter users but it is Porter’s own conduct since the allegations were first made public that has been his downfall.
Christian Porter will go down in history as one of the most shameless politicians ever. He is more concerned about protecting the identity of his anonymous donors then he is concerened about representing the Australian public who pay his wages. Porter’s problems are far from over as there a possible coronial inquest in South Australia into Katharine Thornton’s death. Also the Jo Dyer matter is still afoot as Porter appealed in relation to the case he lost when his barrister Sue Chrysanthou was restrained by the court from representing him further as she had inside information so Porter might have to dip his hand into the mysterious donors fund again for some more cash from anonymous donors.
Katharine Thornton was a survivor who made sure she documented her story and made sure her friends had copies of the documented claims. Without Katharine Thornton there is a fair chance Christian Porter might have ended up Prime Minister and this country and its people would have been worse off without a doubt. So, a big thank you to Katharine Thornton as even though she is no longer alive she is still helping make the country a better place.
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Categories: Attorney-General Christian Porter
Porter is a slippery sucker. I am astounded people like this can get through life without being severely injured by somebody who dislikes them. I can’t imagine sparing Porter any mercy at all. None, nada, nil, zippo, zero, ziltch……
Well done. May she Rest In Peace.
He needs to be voted out. Some people have returned from back bench to become PM. As my late father would say they are a bunch of rogues and scoundrels
If one steps outside the narrative carefully crafted by Porter to declare his innocence and goes to his well documented sleazy behaviour in that public bar in Canberra and the media exposure which gave the first widely publicised indication of his character weakness around women, there is clear evidence, all his own work, that the willingness of the ‘Twitter mob’ he describes to believe Katherine Thornton might be justified.
It isn’t over for Porter. This a government of resurrectionists. Morrison, Joyce, McKenzie, Taylor (et al) …. No guesses about Porter’s future. Prayer power and penticostal faith are more dependable than rules of parliamentary conduct and moral courage in muggins’ straya!
Porter has indicated that he will stand again at the next election. One would hope that the good people of Pearce have been taking note of the lack of honesty and openness together wiht a lack of integrity. If Porter gets voted back in, it will be on their consciences.
Great that Porter has resigned, but he should have been sacked. Unfortunately he has been replaced by Angus Taylor who is reported to have ripped $ 80 million off us.
Trial by media? I guess he now knows how Yassmin Abdel-Magied and Emma Alberici felt.
He claims trial by media/public is the new standard. The first name that springs to mind is Lindy Chamberlain.
Pressure must be put on Scomo to continue seeking departmental advice on the issue of the blind trust. A statement should be made that Porter’s behaviour was, verging on breaching, if not AGAINST, Parliamentary standards by even considering accepting the money. Scomo will try and evade this.
Wikipedia “in December 2016, Minister for Social Services Christian Porter publicly announced the implementation of this new automated debt recovery scheme – which was given the colloquial name ‘Robodebt’ by the media[8][26] – was estimated to be capable of issuing debt notices at a rate of 20,000 a week.[4][27]’. Can`t figure why the concentration on Porter`s current troubles when a far greater scandal was the implementation of the illegal Robodebt scheme affecting thousands of Australians. Did Porter ever apologise for that fiasco? Why would FDU (fella down under), aka Capt Smirk, promote Porter to Attorney-General with his track record? Is the talent pool in the Coalition so shallow?
Yes, he didn’t give a stuff then about the onus of proof, did he? Robodebt applied the same ‘guilty until proven innocent’ standard that he now complains was applied to him. Hypocrisy writ large, but nothing more than we expect from this sham of a government.
there is no doubt in my mind that he knows exactly who all the donors are without putting any pressure on the trust for the information and you can bet the house that he will be given a very high paid board or consultancy position with the donor(s) once he is pushed from politics as payment for blocking disclosure of their identity.
Then we’ll know who the donors where.
None of the donations to the trust came from lobbyists or prohibited foreign entities, according to Porter, but he didn’t rule out Australian businessmen looking for influence and favours.
Which translates to Porter knows who donated the money
Even Barnyard Beetrooter knew that he could NOT accept personal ”prizes” from billionaire Aunty Gina and returned the $40,000 compensation for being required to follow s44 and become an Australian citizen. The ”pub test” is not difficult for politicians ….. reveal the source of any funding upon receipt.
OK, so Joh Bjelke-Petersen had different brown paper bag rules and left cupboards of Australian cash in Queensland government offices when finally the ALP beat the National$ gerrymander …..
Christian Porter was unwise to listen to his grandfather.
I suspect the LNP was always viewed Laura Norder as the name of a TV star since they have never made any attempt to grasp how corruption has intensified in Australia, nor tried to remedy its advance. Attempts to create a Federal ICAC have been delayed by Porter and Co, KCA`s efforts to expose judicial hanky-panky have been ignored, even punished, Sports Rorts, Community Rorts, Water Rorts ,etc. have been shoved under the carpet by this collection of mis-fits. Royal Commissions are established, but their recommendations are ignored. FOI applications are delayed or blacked out. Yet, a large section of the Australian public continues to vote them back into power to continue their bleeding of the public purse. Maybe we get what we deserve until we reach critical mass. I hope it`s not too bloody.
Ross, I can not understand how many working people in Australia have not noticed that their paychecks are getting smaller while their costs are skyrocketing. How can they not have heard Cormann saying this was a deliberate Liberal policy? How can they not see the shovelling of money to the wealthy at their expense? How can they not see the rorting and theft of public money by these politicians and their mates? How can they be so blind as to the dangers facing their own children and grandchildren from the climate emergency? Are around 51% of Australian voters REALLY that stupid or are they just willfully ignorant?
So why did the NSW police never even tried to investigate this crime?
Keep digging to find out who shut the investigation down on the day the police received lots more information. There is a lot more to this than just the tape allegation!
Porter stated in his written statement that the allegation “was based on repressed memory”. It is true that repressed memory has been largely discredited, but this statement seems to me to be a straight out untruth. This is because the unfortunate woman reportedly described the events consistently to a number of different people from not too long after the alleged assault up to shortly before her death – if this is memory then what she had was a painfully intrusive memory, not a repressed memory.
Also, I seem to remember that one person whom the woman had informed in the early 1990s has reported that he personally met with Mr Porter at that time to discuss the matter. Is it true that Mr Porter maintains no such discussion ever took place? If so, he is claiming a serious and sane male (in contrast to a mentally ill female!) is lying. Anyone have any clarifying information?
Which in itself begs a question how would he know it was a”repressed” memory if none of this supposedly happened. What is more likely is that one sentence is designed purely to undermine the credibility of the lady concerned by suggesting that she was suffering a mental health issue. The fact that she kept notes & shared those with others puts the kibosh on that.
“… if this is memory then what she had was a painfully intrusive memory, not a repressed memory.”
Correct.
One core feature of traumatic memories is that you simply can’t get rid of them.
Their persistent intrusiveness – most often by external ‘triggers’ over which the sufferer has no control – drive people to drink, drugs, massive avoidance of reminders (intimacy, family & society, workplaces, confined spaces, etc), whatever will still the nightmares (another kind of memory).
Oh, diddums, poor little teary-eyed spoilt rotten Christian Porter.
If Porter had nothing to hide, he would have had no objection to the public seeing the ABC’s defence files.
Here he is criticising the ABC & everyone who questioned his not so transparent version of the rape allegations. Or questioned his decision to sue the ABC but not other pro-LNP media that aired the same or even more specific detail to the story.
This obnoxious, born to rule grub is still in breach of the rules relating to him disclosing gifts or donations & moving himself to the backbench doesn’t change things.
Sam Dastyari must be wishing he’d thought of using a blind trust instead of openly declaring who paid his $5000 legal fees. A move that forced him to resign from parliament altogether.
If Morrison had agreed to an independent enquiry into whether Porter was a fit & propper person to sit in parliament, Porter may well have remained AG & not had any further questions to answer to. Another bad move by the Prime Muppet & Christian “the adulterer” Porter.
He can still assert.
She can’t …
And Morrison can be accused of hypocrisy. He went down long and hard against Dastyari and force him to leave Parliament, yet he could not be bothered doing the same with Porter. It is up to Pierce now to remove him from office.
Two things in his statement that caught my eye his assertion in the Third paragragh that ” the ABC in settlement of the defamation case” which is incorrect as he withdrew the action & the ABC did not settle the case as no damages were paid. The ABC did agree to pay his mediation costs which is not a “settlement” as such – no matter how hard he tries to spin it.
He then goes on to say that he couldn’t bring himself to place pressure on the Trust for information to which he was not entitled. So he is quite happy to be totally oblivious as to who paid into the trust, why they did so, what if any expectations they had of him as a result or even how the Trust came about in the first place. As a Lawyer and even an ex Attorney General this stretches incredulity to breaking point. Any Lawyer would want to know chapter & verse of all the facts so he is either the dumbest Lawyer on the planet or his is making a false statement.
For all his blaming of the ABC & Twitter Mob he overlooks the simple fact that he created this mess. All he had to do was agree to a Parliamentary inquiry at the start but he declined. He really needs to look in the mirror.
Greg
How dangerous is this amoral liberal government? I lived through that rotten national/Petersen horror show which promoted vile criminal queensland police
Controlled by a dishonest police union administration very similar to NSW who would not interview Kate Thornton. Was her death similar to Shirley Brifman?
The best thing to do would be to put a bit of pressure on the WA Liberal Party machine and get them to dump him as an endorsed candidate. Run another candidate instead, I’m sure there would be plenty of takers. Remember the trouble the ALP had with Craig Thomson? The ALP kicked him out of the party and ran another candidate. Craig Thomson ran as an independent. Received 1 percent of the votes. Yes 1 percent.
I can not imagine that there are not other women in the Australian community who have also crossed the path of this alleged rapist, perhaps from high school or university or DPP or political WA days, etc … even currently. His self centred egotistical MO can not be mistaken and is continually on display. I also can not imagine what mental anguish and turmoil this man-child has brought into these women’s (and possibly some men) lives as a result of even a caustic verbal exchange. I did hear of one exchange that was recounted publicly at the March 4 Justice on 15 March 2021. I truly can not imagine how he could be returned to the HoR from his electorate at the next federal election. This is just my opinion.
In 1996 the Australian Parliament commissioned a brief paper on “Conflicts of Interest Avoidance – Is there a Role for Blind Trusts?” The conclusion was that it was an unacceptable vehicle for use by a Minister as “There is a strong case for the view that a private blind trust could be a facade behind which the conflict of interest can survive due to the difficulty of creating a ‘truly blind trust’ of assets of all types in the hands of trustees”
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Publications_Archive/CIB/CIB9697/97cib14
One thing that hasn`t been covered is the amount of money paid to legal parasites for a case that never even got to court. Possibly around a couple of million dollars laid out for paper-work and advice shows how legal proceedings have moved beyond the reach of ordinary Australians. Definately a need for a Royal Commission (yes, anothery) to probe how the most corrupt profession here has lost touch with reality. Might add to the thousand solicitors and barristers disbarred, fined or censured over the last two decades. But it won`t happen under the Coalition`s plunderfest.
In 1372 King Edward III excluded lawyers from parliament. It took about 80 years for them to return. You are correct. Today the ordinary man in the street cannot afford legal representation. Justice is a rich man’s sport. At every litigation brought into Court there are at least three lawyers present. One each for the adversaries and one sitting as referee in a wig and gown. At the end of the case, one will be victorious, one will be a loser and yet all will be paid. Lawyers should be permanently banned from sitting in Pariiament because the Legislation Parliament churns out is how they make their living. They have the ultimate pecuniary interest.
Porter’s Media Statement is a shameless, nasty, self-justifying crock.
His reference to the “many parts” of the signed document by Katherine Thornton as being “based on repressed memory (which has been completely rejected by courts as unreliable and dangerous)” demonstrates the practised hired-gun tactics relied upon to traduce the integrity of the victim/complainant and – sadly in line with convention – the integrity of the court.
Cloaked in legal impunity the author’s meanness knows no bounds: Whilst claiming he has been a victim of trial by media, he publicly impugns the integrity of a defenceless deceased person by publicly inferring she was not of sound mind and asserting that the document submitted to the court “relied on diaries said to be drafted in 1990/91 but which were words actually composed in 2019; and, was written by someone who was, sadly, very unwell.”
Nice.
He then goes on to assert that, “This material, which remains unreported, clearly does not fit the ABC’s predetermined narrative of guilt by accusation. And presumably because this document detracts so substantively from the credibility of the allegations there has been careful and deliberate avoidance in reporting it or publishing the parts of it that run counter to the chosen narrative.”
Given Porter’s suggestion that there has been no reporting on the Thornton document (for his reasons given) implies it was available to the media, the veracity of this statement depends on whether the media was privy to the document.
So was this sensitive document made available to the media?
And if it were, how are the contents of the document to be examined (i.e. for the purposes of refuting Porter’s version of it) without further disrespect to Katharine Thornton?
Relentless bastardry occasionally gives the lie to claims of innocence.
Good work Meg
This is hardly the first time that Christian Porter has ignored parliamentary rules, conventions and even the law. He’s a privileged toff with an inflated sense of self importance who thought he was untouchable. This time, he’s been caught with his pants down and has had to take a pay cut. But with the help of our slimy PM, he’s managed to get away with his corrupt behaviour and keep his job in parliament. If stopping him from being a future PM was Ms. Thornton’s aim, I’m glad she did us that favour even if it would be cold comfort to her family and friends.He should now do the right thing and resign from public life, but he doesn’t have an honourable bone in his body, so that’s unlikely.