Christian Porter has outed himself as the cabinet minister accused of rape to categorically deny the accusation.
‘The things that have been claimed to happen did not happen,’ he said through tears.
The attorney general, 50, was accused of raping a woman when he was 17 and she was 16 after a debating competition in Sydney in 1988.
The woman, who struggled with her mental health for years, told police about her allegation in February last year but took her own life in June.
Detectives closed their investigation on Tuesday due to a lack of evidence.
The accuser’s allegation became public last week after Scott Morrison received a letter from a mystery sender which included a statement the woman had prepared for her lawyers in 2019.
Senior government minister Christian Porter has categorically denied a historical rape allegation and said he will not be stepping down
This is not the first time a senior politician has outed themselves as being accused of rape.
Former Labor leader Bill Shorten denied sexual assault allegations in August 2014 after Victoria Police closed an investigation into him.
‘I will not go into details, except to say the allegation was untrue and abhorrent,’ he said at the time.
Government supporters say Mr Shorten did not step down and so Mr Porter should not either.
But Labor shadow home affairs minister Kristina Keneally said that is not a fair analogy because Mr Shorten’s case was thoroughly investigated for 10 months.
‘What we have here is a police investigation that can’t proceed, because the alleged victim has died,’ she told Sky News.
Mr Porter announced he had split from his second wife Jennifer (pictured together) – who is 13 years his junior – in January 2020. A statement said the decision was mutual and they would focus on co-parenting their two young children. Mr Porter was briefly married to Lucy Gunn in the mid 2000s
‘And the police have determined they cannot gather enough admissible evidence. But there has not been a full investigation into these allegations. They have not been examined, as they need to be thoroughly and closely. And I think there are still very important questions.’
The woman who accused Mr Porter never made a formal statement to police who were due to travel to her home in Adelaide in March 2020 but postponed due to Covid-19.
In June the woman withdrew her allegation and died by suicide the next day, causing the investigation to be suspended before it was officially closed this week.
According to Four Corners which first reported the allegation on Friday, the woman had bipolar disorder and had attended a psychiatric hospital in Melbourne in the months before her death aged 49.
Friends say she was ‘beautiful and clever’ but ‘consumed with trauma’.
Mr Morrison said he did not read the letter but forwarded it to Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw (pictured)
As well as leaving her prepared statement, the woman made a 45-minute recording in which she talked about her allegations, according to the Herald Sun.
In a letter to a friend she wrote: ‘I guess I just worry that a trial has the potential to be an emotional bloodbath, particularly for me and anyone who appears as a witness in the case.’
NSW Police said officers have sought legal advice about a ‘personal document’ made by the woman.
The woman had told several family and friends about her allegation. It was presumably one of them who sent the letter to Mr Morrison, Liberal MP Celia Hammond and two South Australian senators, demanding an investigation.
The anonymous sender said they were inspired to write the letter after former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins went public with an allegation she was raped by another staffer in Defence Minister Linda Reynolds’ parliament office in 2019.
Ms Higgins’ allegations dominated the past two sitting weeks of parliament as ministers were repeatedly grilled over who knew about her claims and when.
The sender demanded an inquiry into the 1988 allegation, writing: ‘There will be considerable damage to community perceptions of justice… and the parliament when this story becomes public if it is simultaneously revealed that senior people (like yourselves) were aware of the accusation but had done nothing.’
The identity of the cabinet minister is known among the media and politicians but cannot be disclosed for legal reasons.
The ministerial code of conduct requires a minister to stand aside if charged with a crime.
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has urged the minister to reveal himself and said it is ‘impossible for him to function in that cabinet’.
On Monday Mr Morrison said he spoke to the minister who ‘vigorously rejected the allegations’ on Wednesday evening.
The prime minister said he did not read the letter but had been briefed on the contents of the allegations.
Asked if he would set up an inquiry, he said: ‘I’m not the police force. I have given it to the police to investigate.’
Mr Morrison said AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw had not advised him to take any action.
He refused to sack the minister, saying: ‘We can’t have a situation where the mere making of an allegation and that being publicised through the media is grounds for, you know, governments to stand people down simply on the basis of that. I mean, we have a rule of law in this country.’
Mr Morrison said the first he substantially heard of the allegation was last week. Before that he had only heard rumours of a journalist making inquiries, he said.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young and Labor Senator Penny Wong received the unsigned letter and both released statements saying they had contacted the AFP.
Senator Hanson-Young said the information she had received regarded a ‘disturbing and a very serious allegation of a criminal nature against a senior member of the government’.
An anonymous sender said they were inspired to write a letter (pictured) detailing the woman’s allegations after former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins went public with an allegation