Christian Porter
Christian Porter (Image: AAP/Lukas Coch)

One-time rising Liberal Party star Christian Porter is in the fight of his life to save his political career — and not only because of the rape allegation, which he strongly denies. He has held the once blue-ribbon Liberal seat of Pearce on Perth’s northern outskirts since 2013 and although he says he will contest the seat at the next poll, its boundaries have changed significantly.

He surprised many when he was reelected in 2019 with a two-party-preferred vote of 57.5% — a swing to him of 3.9%. And although that margin was cut in the recent redistribution of Western Australia’s federal seats, it’s still a useful 5.2%. But given all that has happened, will it be enough?

Pearce has always been a Liberal seat since being contested for the first time in 1990. Former deputy federal Liberal leader Fred Chaney chose it as the vehicle for his transfer from the Senate to the House of Representatives, but served only one term before quitting politics.

He was succeeded by Judi Moylan, who served as a minister in the Howard government, and held the seat for 20 years before retiring.

That was when Porter, who was treasurer and attorney-general in Colin Barnett’s state government — and widely tipped as his successor as Liberal leader and premier — decided to head for Canberra. He quickly rose through the ranks and was attorney-general when the allegation that a minister had raped a teenager in the 1980s was reported by the ABC earlier this year. Porter identified himself as the subject of the allegation.

But the allegation, and his subsequent removal as attorney-general and — on September 19 — resignation from the ministry have cast a significant shadow over his political future.

His margin in Pearce would be considered comfortable in normal times. But these are far from normal times and much has happened since the 2019 federal poll.

The redistribution of WA’s federal seats was more radical than normal. In fact its federal seats were cut from 16 to 15 — Stirling will be abolished — due to a halt in strong population growth with the end of the last resources boom in 2013. 

So the “new” Pearce bears little resemblance to its former self. It lost its rural component — traditionally useful for Coalition candidates — to the neighbouring Liberal seats of Durack and O’Connor, and the rapidly growing suburban areas around Ellenbrook to Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt’s seat of Hasluck.

Pearce is now based entirely in Perth’s outer northern suburbs.

The grim news for Porter is that these areas all returned Labor candidates in Premier Mark McGowan’s landslide state election win in March. And his government has done little to upset voters since, while gaining wide approval for its claim of “keeping West Australians safe” during the COVID-19 crisis.

However, Labor’s endorsement of long-term Wanneroo mayor Tracey Roberts in Pearce has not been incident-free. She has had to survive two recent bullying complaints, although the reasons for the findings have yet to be released.

The fight for Pearce promises to be a key contest of the federal election. Labor is keen to get Porter’s scalp, and the “blind trust” — set up to help fund Porter’s legal expenses — will be pursued in the federal Parliament.

Labor thought it had him beaten last time, but was mistaken. Now the question is: will history repeat itself?