Cabinet minister Christian Porter was warned by then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull about his public behaviour with a young female Liberal staffer, because of Mr Turnbull's concerns he could be at risk of compromise or blackmail.
Key points:
- Christian Porter was given a warning by Malcolm Turnbull after Mr Porter was spotted "kissing and cuddling" a young staffer at a Canberra bar
- Another minister, Alan Tudge, angrily pressured a journalist to delete a photo of Mr Porter and the woman
- Mr Tudge also had an affair with a staffer
A Four Corners investigation can reveal Mr Porter raised eyebrows among political staffers in 2017 after being seen with the young woman — who was working for another Cabinet minister — at Canberra's Public Bar.
At the time, Mr Porter had a wife and toddler at home in Perth.
Shortly before appointing Mr Porter to the role of Attorney-General, Mr Turnbull warned him he would be out of the ministry if he heard of this public behaviour with young female staff again.
The investigation can also reveal Mr Turnbull's infamous "bonk ban" was not just aimed at former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, but also at Mr Porter and the now-Acting Immigration Minister, Alan Tudge, who was having an affair with a female adviser in 2017.
Both Mr Porter and Mr Tudge have campaigned on family values.
Mr Turnbull described Mr Porter's conduct with young women as "unacceptable".
"I had a meeting with Porter in my office and I told him that I had had reports of him being out in public, having had too much to drink and in the company with young women," Mr Turnbull told Four Corners.
"He acknowledged that; he didn't argue with that.
"And I just said, 'Look, this is unacceptable conduct for a Cabinet minister and it exposes you to the risk of compromise.'"
Mr Turnbull said he was concerned that in the age of the smartphone, ministers could be compromised or blackmailed unless their behaviour was beyond reproach while in public.
"He knew that I was considering appointing him attorney-general, which of course is the first law officer of the Crown and has a seat on the National Security Committee," Mr Turnbull said.
"The risk of compromise is very, very real.
"You know, it's not just the stuff of spy novels. People who put themselves into positions where they can be compromised or blackmailed are really taking risks, and unacceptable risks."
Mr Turnbull said Mr Porter "clearly didn't enjoy" the conversation.
Mr Porter did not provide an on-the-record response to Four Corners' multiple requests for an interview, or answer detailed questions.
In a brief statement about his meeting with Mr Turnbull in December 2017, he said Mr Turnbull queried whether there was any accuracy to the "story" he had heard. According to Mr Porter, "the answer was no".
"Malcolm then promoted me to Attorney-General about two weeks after," Mr Porter said in the statement.
"In my time as AG I never had any complaint or any suggestion of any problem from Malcolm regarding the conduct of my duties as AG until the last week of his Prime Ministership when we had a significant disagreement over the Peter Dutton citizenship issue."
Tudge demanded journalist delete photograph of Porter with young staffer
Four Corners has established that on the night in 2017, in Public Bar — a favourite haunt of political operatives and journalists — a public servant took a photograph of Mr Porter with the young woman.
The public servant was concerned that Mr Porter's behaviour exposed him to the risk of compromise.
Four Corners has spoken to multiple people who witnessed the incident, including several Liberal staffers.
One of the Liberal staffers who was present and saw the photograph taken was Rachelle Miller, who, at the time, was an adviser to Alan Tudge. Ms Miller worked at Parliament House as an adviser to Liberal Party MPs and ministers for nine years.
Ms Miller told Four Corners she saw Mr Porter and the young Liberal staffer "kissing and cuddling".
"I was really worried about it ending up in the papers," Ms Miller said.
"It would do a lot of damage to the Government. It would be a scandal that we didn't need."
Ms Miller said she accompanied her boss, Mr Tudge, to confront the male public servant who took the photograph.
The public servant had grabbed a journalist's phone because his own phone battery was flat.
Mr Tudge, who is friends with Mr Porter, angrily demanded that the journalist delete the photograph.
The following day, Mr Tudge contacted the journalist, again insisting that the photo be deleted to erase the evidence.
Mr Tudge did not provide an on-the-record response to multiple interview requests from Four Corners, or provide answers to detailed questions.
Tudge pressured staffer to keep affair secret
Ms Miller told Four Corners that she and Mr Tudge, both of them married with children, had an affair in 2017.
While the affair was completely consensual, she has come to bitterly regret it.
"Where there's significant power imbalances with senior ministers and perhaps junior staff, I think that absolutely there needs to be an acknowledgement that that sort of behaviour is not OK," Ms Miller said.
She told Four Corners that both during and after the relationship, Mr Tudge had pressured her not to admit to the affair, which was the subject of rumours at Parliament House.
"He put a lot of pressure on me and quote-unquote asked me to 'war-game' the lines that I was going to give the journalists to try and kill the story," Ms Miller said.
"'Make sure you don't talk, make sure you get your lines straight, make sure you don't answer your phone, actually it would just be better if you don't answer your phone at all," she said, recalling what she says Mr Tudge told her.
Mr Turnbull said the culture in Canberra reminded him of the corporate world in the 1970s or 1980s.
He said ministers having relationships with staffers was "just not acceptable".
"There is always a power imbalance between the boss and somebody who works for them. The younger and more junior they are, the more extreme that power imbalance is," Mr Turnbull said.
"Ministers essentially have the power to hire and fire their staff, so they've got enormous power."
After the affair ended, Ms Miller left Mr Tudge's office and went to work for another minister. She says she was later demoted in a restructure, and felt she had no choice but to leave politics.
Ms Miller is speaking out because she wants the Liberal Party culture towards women to change.
"I really strongly believe that the standard that you walk past is the standard you accept, and I saw a lot of really poor behaviour in my time in Parliament, and I feel I let down a lot of women," she said.
"As a senior staffer, I could have done a lot more to stand up for people. Instead, there was a culture of just kind of putting your head down and not getting involved.
"I don't feel like there's equality in the Liberal Party at the moment and it's really concerning for me. It's one of the reasons why I've thought recently seriously about giving up my membership of the Liberal Party.
"There's plenty of women working in staffing roles in Parliament at the moment but, the experience is, you need to be like a male to cope, to survive."
Tudge and Porter have both campaigned on family values
Both Mr Porter and Mr Tudge have portrayed themselves to their electorates as family men.
Mr Tudge has publicly represented himself as a social conservative and an advocate of traditional marriage.
During the same-sex marriage debate, Mr Tudge told Parliament that by changing the Marriage Act to allow same-sex couples to marry, "the institution itself would potentially be weakened".
After publicly opposing same-sex marriage, Mr Tudge voted for the reform after his Melbourne electorate voted in favour.
"There's no question that some of the most trenchant opponents of same-sex marriage, all in the name of traditional marriage, were at the same time enthusiastic practitioners of traditional adultery," Mr Turnbull said.
Conservative Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells said it was vital that politicians lived the values they espoused to the electorate, whatever those values may be.
"When we stand for office, when we stand for preselection and when we stand before the electorate, we stand on a set of values and beliefs," she said.
"It comes down to that basic concept of trust, and ensuring that the people that put you here, or the people that elect you, continue to have trust in you and your conduct and the things that you say."
Speaking generally, Senator Fierravanti-Wells also expressed concern at the risk of compromise for any Cabinet minister at a time "when there is strong debate about foreign influence and foreign interference".
"Whether you're the first law officer, or you're the Prime Minister, or you're the Premier, that expectation is that one conducts oneself with the highest degree of integrity," she said.
"The higher the office, the higher the responsibility."
All ministers must now abide by Ministerial Standards set down by Prime Minister Scott Morrison in 2018, which say ministers are expected "to act at all times to the highest possible standards of probity".
They also prohibit ministers from having sexual relations with staff.
Mr Tudge separated from his wife at the end of 2017. Mr Porter announced his separation from his wife in January this year.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIwLTExLTA5L2ZvdXItY29ybmVycy1pbnZlc3RpZ2F0aW9uLWNocmlzdGlhbi1wb3J0ZXItYWxhbi10dWRnZS8xMjg2MjYzMtIBJ2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS8xMjg2MjYzMg?oc=5
2020-11-09 10:23:00Z
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