CHRISTIAN PORTER AGAIN FAILS TO ANSWER QUESTION

Attorney-General Christian Porter has failed for the second time to answer a question regarding his November 10 interview with radio station 6PR about intimate relationships with staff.

During the interview with Gareth Parker on 6PR he was asked:  Did you, or have you ever had, an intimate relationship or intimate relations with a staffer?

I put it to Mr Porter in an email on November 15:  You did not answer that question as such and questioning switched to the ministerial code of conduct relating to ministers and staffers.

In this regard you answered: ‘I’ve never breached that ministerial code of conduct and there’s never been any suggestion that I have.

I pointed out the ministerial code had been introduced in February 2018.
Porter was Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister Abbott from December 2014 to September 2015 and Minister for Social Service in the Turnbull Government from then to December 2017.

My pedantic question, as put by Gareth Parker on 6PR:  Did you, or have you ever had, an intimate relationship or intimate relations with a staffer?

I emailed the question to Mr Porter’s office on Sunday November 15 after the 6PR interview had been featured on ABC’s Insiders and checked with the office the following day to ensure the question was being dealt with.

When a reply had not been received by Wednesday I spoke to a media advisor who said:  The statement Christian put out last Monday is the statement he stands by.

This was the statement of November 10. It makes no mention at all of intimate relationships with staffers.

Mr Porter, a man used to being careful with his choice of words, had told Parker in the interview that he had never breached “that code of conduct” - introduced by Malcolm Turnbull on February 15, 2018.

Now, for the second time, he has failed to answer:  Did you, or have you ever had, an intimate relationship or intimate relations with a staffer?