Porter clearing house Much of today’s Crikey is dedicated to the masterclass of deflection, equivocation, misrepresentation and abrogation of responsibility that was Attorney-General Christian Porter’s denial of historical rape allegations yesterday.
Perhaps the clearest example of this is in Porter’s unequivocal statement that he had never been given a chance to respond to the “substantive” allegations against him:
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.
This is this, at best, extremely shifty language. Crikey put questions to his office. So did Kate McClymont. So did Neil Mitchell. So did Samantha Maiden. So did Jacqueline Maley. None could get an response.
Porter’s media team has been forced to issue a snippy “clarification”, arguing that: “Clearly, in considering the attorney-general’s media conference in full, he was referring to never having received in any substantive form, the allegations against him before they were aired on the ABC last Friday”.
Read the excerpt above again, or the transcript of the whole press conference. Porter, several times, categorically states that “not ever” had “any journalist” put the detail of the allegations to him.
Taking out the trash Yesterday was a good day for corporations and politicians to dump bad news, as Australia’s media was otherwise occupied, first marvelling at Grace Tame’s timely and powerful speech at the National Press Club and then waiting with bated breath for Porter’s press conference. And so NSW Liberal MP John Sidoti resigned as sports minister with rare speed after the state’s ICAC announced it would hold a public inquiry into his property dealings.
Then it was confirmed that Bruce Billson, the former small business minister and one of the few politicians who actually managed to get censured by parliament (for failing to disclose that he received a salary from the Franchise Council of Australia before he’d even left parliament) was appointed to replace Kate Carnell as small business ombudsman.
And Rio Tinto chairman Simon Thompson announced he would resign over the cultural vandalism that destroyed the Juukan Gorge caves in Western Australia. All were afforded an easier ride in the media than might otherwise have been the case.
(Though it doesn’t qualify in the same way, many companies will also be glad that fewer eyeballs were directed at The New Daily’s mammoth look at the huge profits enjoyed by many who nevertheless kept their JobKeeper payments.)
Shorten sweet With Porter on leave, the country has been left with famous rule of law fan Michaelia Cash as acting attorney-general.
Among the many people gobsmacked by the news was former opposition leader Bill Shorten, who had been subject to Cash’s use of state apparatus to discredit political opponents during the Registered Organisations Commission/Australian Worker’s Union saga. He made his feelings clear, tweeting: “You can’t write this shit”.
Maybe it was a deliberate “mistake”, the most recent attempt to start a rumour that Shorten has a personality. Or maybe someone told him that he of all people should not be making the day about him. Either way, the tweet was swiftly deleted.
The judge of that However much we are sickened by the “as the father of daughters” formulation wheeled out by Scott Morrison and many others as they grapple with the notion of women as human beings, it’s worth considering that this view still infects so many consequential areas of life.
Consider the following from the judgment in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal published only yesterday, sent in by a legal tipster (emphasis ours):
“Her honour’s statement, that ‘[i]n order for there to be prospects of rehabilitation, it is necessary for there to be some acknowledgment of wrongdoing, which is entirely absent in the present case’, was incorrect in principle.
“Although the respondent submitted that the conclusion that there could be no finding that there were prospects of rehabilitation was not in error in the circumstances of the case, given the findings about lack of remorse, hubris, sense of entitlement, and that he believed that the ends justified the means, there were contrary indicators: the applicant was of prior good character, having no relevant criminal record; he was well-educated, connected and intelligent; he is married with three daughters, and his wife and daughters continue to visit and support him in custody; and as her honour accepted, he is unlikely to require assistance to reintegrate into the community notwithstanding a lengthy non-parole period.
“Those factors point to some prospect that he will one day be able to resume a worthwhile role as an honourable citizen.”
Charlie Lewis’s extract from an unnamed judgement reminded me of the dual role Anne Summers identified as being allowed for women – Damned Whores and Gods Police. Now daughters specifically are said to be the moral guardrails for blokes. Extraordinary the extra onus placed on women to fix men. Can’t they do it themselves?
The rhetoric seems to have gone from “It’s all Labor’s fault” to “It’s all women’s fault”.
That’s because Labor has more females and I can see the boy’s club preparing to push Linda Reynolds under the bus again.
Yep, Reynolds will go…and Porter will flourish.
Why the constant rants against Bill Shorten? I’ve heard someone from the ABC make a derogatory comment prior to the last election, then the Age’s comments seem to have a committed hater of Shorten. Is he worse than the current LNP cabinet? Didn’t Goebbels say constant repetition of a lie becomes a reality?
And, again, Poor “Paws” – another minister struck down by selective amnesia. No wonder he’s being sent into that “Ministerial Witness Protection Isolation Ward” – away from prying and to recollect his recollections?
As for Paws’ “misspeak” (never having been presented with the allegations)? This self-entitled clown is a f***ing lawyer FFS! He’s made a f***ing living/castle out of f***ing words, again, FFS.
He could mass debate for Australia – but he’s concentrating on digging holes in his cheesy alibi?
I only have one daughter. Does that diminish my capacity to “look at it as a father”? Why can’t he “look at it as it is”? A heinous crime.
Morrison peddles the delusion that he’s Mr Anderson, from “Father Knows Best” – the fictitious 1950s era propaganda TV show of white-bread suburban utopia mythology.
As for the judge’s quote, I would have thought that those “contrary indicators” point to a more serious problem in weighing up that set of factors.
Nothing surprises me anymore about how sneaky, low, grasping and just plainly inappropriate, this government is prepared to go.
Once they have gone and the population has spoken at the next election with the calm demeanor and steady hand of the cricket umpire with, “You are out!” and hand gesture to boot.
There will need to be a series of judicial reviews into appointments made to all sorts of boards and there will need to be, a whole lot of walking going on.
The terms and appointment criteria are mere regulations with possibly a few tweaks necessary in the legislation field. Appointments to these positions are not cast in bronze.
The only thing I saw yesterday at Christian Porter’s press conference was an angry man, crying in a suppressed rage consistent with a senior school student caught cheating/ or accused of cheating.
Angry at what?
I don’t know and personally I couldn’t give a fig.
The variety of approaches and amount of pressure placed upon the ABC to not broadcast “Inside the Canberra bubble” indicates to me that the content had been gone over with a fine tooth comb by the legal department and there was a lot that had been suppressed.
The Prime Minimal used to use the phrases “That would be a bubble issue” and “Canberra bubble issue” to dismiss questions or subjects he found inconvenient.
Has anyone heard Slomo use “the phrase” since Ita said it was in the public interest to broadcast “Inside the Canberra bubble”?
Scottie from marketing is on record as saying “I trust Ita, everyone trusts Ita”. Enough said?
The whole BS about “the collapse of the entire rule of law in Australia, as we know it” and the “mob rule” is a political piece of rotting garbage dreamt up by an increasingly desperate seemingly corrupt and incompetent third term government.
If the sloth like Prime Minimal asked a retired High Court Judge, (not Dyson), maybe Justice Bell or another eminently qualified retired justice to investigate the matter or others arising from their inquiries then I sincerely doubt that the rule of law in Australia will come to an end.
In fact, more people might actually start to trust the process, although the police service has a long way to go, to reach credibility.
Christian Porter has questions to answer and a sworn statement to police would be a start.
A faulty memory going back to a debating competition and stay in Sydney 33 years ago, must be counseled against.
The “I don’t remember already trialed” by Christian Porter, along with the “I hadn’t seen the accusations before they were published” do not ring true to the disinterested observer.
An Attorney General with a bad memory is an Attorney General who will never be viewed with respect again and certainly never considered for the PM’s position.
Eventually the truth will out!