What IS in the bombshell document Christian Porter doesn’t want you to read? Minister in intense fight to keep the ABC’s mysterious, blacked out 27 page defamation defence a secret

Christian Porter is fighting to keep secret a 27-page defamation defence document filed by the ABC in their court case, which settled in May

Christian Porter would be getting ‘special treatment’ if a judge went along with his plan to keep a 27 page ABC defamation defence document secret, a court has heard. 

Media organisations fought the senior Morrison Government minister over the fate of heavily redacted paperwork tendered by the ABC in their legal fight in court on Friday.

The former attorney-general wants the ABC document to be ‘permanently removed’ from the Federal Court’s file, his lawyer Bret Walker SC said.  

Justice Jayne Jagot previously described that as ‘essentially a permanent suppression order’. 

That means the document’s mysterious contents couldn’t be reported to the Australian public. 

The defence document in question was filed after Mr Porter sued the public broadcaster over a February 26 article written by reporter Louise Milligan.  

The ABC and Mr Porter have since settled the case, with the broadcaster admitting its original report could be ‘misinterpreted’ as accusing Mr Porter of being guilty of raping a teenager named Kate when she was 16 and he was 17. Mr Porter has always denied the allegation. 

While the ABC added an editor’s note to the end of Louise Milligan’s February 26 article as part of the settlement, it will not take the report down or pay Mr Porter damages 

The ABC and Mr Porter agreed to ask the court to remove the defence from the court file, as part of their settlement. 

However, other media organisations have intervened in the case. 

Barrister Dauid Sibatin, for News Corp Australia and Nine Entertainment Co publications, told the Justice Jagot on Friday such a move would be ‘giving … a special treatment to this proceeding, special beyond the treatment given to other proceedings that settle.’

‘That is not the ordinary course.’

Mr Sibtain pointed to the principle of open justice – the rule that for justice to be done it must be seen. 

He argued there was no good reason for the judge to take ‘exceptional’ action and purge the document from the publicly available court file.

To do so, the judge would have to make a conclusion that ‘all of the material contained in the defence is so irrelevant and so scandalous and such an abuse of process it should be removed,’ he argued.

Attorney-General Christian Porter (pictured denying rape allegations in a tearful presser) sued the ABC for publishing an article online accusing him of raping a debating teammate in 1988

But Bret Walker SC for the former attorney-general told the court that the ABC and Mr Porter had agreed to ask the court to remove the document from the file, as part of their settlement.

Mr Walker said he was ‘talking about removal from the file, not the notion of somehow being “disappeared” from the records of the court.’ He said it didn’t mean the paperwork was going down ‘some intellectual black hole’. 

He argued it was appropriate the judge granted the orders they sought. ‘What we seek is entirely proper,’ Mr Walker said.

Shane Dowling, who runs the Kangaroo Court of Australia blog and has also intervened in the case, told the court the public have a ‘huge interest’ in the case.

Mr Dowling speculated that there couldn’t be anything in the defence document that would harm Mr Porter’s reputation any further.  

Justice Jagot at one point reprimanded Mr Dowling, saying she wasn’t interested in him ‘guessing’ about what was in the document.

Justice Jagot has reserved her decision until a later date so she can put her reasons in writing.    

Christian Porter (pictured during a debate when he was a schoolboy) said the alleged rape ‘just didn’t happen’

The original ABC article did not name Mr Porter, instead reporting that a dossier had been distributed among MPs about a senior government minister.

Mr Porter outed himself six days later to vehemently deny the incident occurred at an emotional press conference.  

‘The things that have been claimed to happen did not happen,’ Mr Porter said at the time. ‘To suggest they could be forgotten is ridiculous, they just never happened.’

Mr Porter sued the ABC but the parties reached a settlement in May. The ABC attached an editor’s note to its story saying it ‘regrets’ that it could have been misinterpreted as making an allegation of guilt against Porter.

But the ABC did not take the article down.   

The accuser, who struggled with her mental health for years, told police about her allegation in February 2020.

The woman, who has been named only as Kate, took her own life in June. NSW Police closed their investigation into the matter in March.

The rape allegation: A timeline 

1988: Debating competition in Sydney at which woman later alleges she was raped

2013: Woman tells sexual assault counsellor about her allegation 

Late 2019: Woman engages lawyers and prepares a statement

February 2020: Woman reports allegations to NSW Police

March 2020: Police postpone trip to visit her due to Covid-19 

June 2020: Woman withdraws allegation and dies by suicide

February 24, 2021: Anonymous letter is sent to PM detailing allegations

March 1, 2021: PM says minister completely rejects the allegations

March 2, 2021: NSW Police close the case

March 3, 2021: Christian Porter goes public to deny allegation

March 15, 2021: Mr Porter sues the ABC for defamation

May 31, 2021: Mr Porter drops his case 

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