Inside the Canberra bubble: Liberal ministers' relationships with staffers prompted 'bonk ban'

[Applause] [Music] all political parties need to think about the type of people that they have in positions of power and authority and australians need to think about the type of people that they want representing them 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 ministers cabinet ministers in particular have got to really be very conscious of the fact that when you're out in public you have to make sure that you're not doing anything that that you know could expose you to compromise this isn't about party politics this is about the nation's parliament i think a big part of the problem is that women have been forced to stay silent on these things and silence doesn't help anyone the behaviour wasn't okay and the culture's not okay and there should be something done about it [Music] welcome to four corners there's a strong but unofficial tradition in federal politics of what happens in canberra stays in canberra politicians political staff and media operate in what's known as the canberra bubble along with the political gamesmanship there's a heady permissive culture and that culture can be toxic for women tonight on four corners we go inside the canberra bubble with an investigation that questions the conduct of some of the most senior politicians in the nation [Music] i've been in politics a long time and uh sexism unfortunately has been a feature of it for all that period i just think it's quite regrettable that younger women and people who are in a more vulnerable position are still experiencing sexist overtures or sexual harassment quite frankly [Music] whether it's the sexist slurs and the bullying and intimidation that i've stood up against or a young staff of feeling um intimidated or put upon in in an office and it's part of the same problem for the women who work inside the canberra bubble it can be a dispiriting place it is a it's a man's world that we still haven't cracked open one of the problems with the culture in canberra is that you've got all of these people you know politicians staffers away from home stressful environment late hours too much alcohol it's not a healthy working environment and it's a very isolated one if you think canberra's a bubble parliament house is a bubble inside a bubble and so it's a it it's not a great working environment and i think people often lose sight of the fact that there are you know standards of behavior and conduct which have to be maintained the attitudes to women and the lack of respect of women in many quarters in canberra reminds me of the corporate scene you know 40 years ago uh it is it's just it's just not modern australia it really isn't do you think that there's a bit of a view by some of the blokes in canberra that what happens on tour stays on tour well that's louise a question that i would direct uh to the blokes but certainly if one conducts oneself with an appropriate standard of conduct and integrity then whatever may have happened on tour ought to be a matter for public disclosure in australia the private lives of politicians have traditionally been considered off limits but many women working in canberra believe this culture of silence allows sexist behaviour to thrive i think a lot of mps and senators get into the kind of trap of thinking that canberra's a place where they can come and kind of do whatever they like because there'll be no scrutiny because they're out of their electorate they're away from their family rochelle miller worked at parliament house as an adviser to liberal party mps and ministers for nine years she believes it's time to blow the whistle why are you here look i think for two reasons one of the reasons is that i really strongly believe that the standard that you walk past is the standard you accept and i saw a lot of really poor behavior in my time in parliament and i feel i let down a lot of women as a senior staffer i could have done a lot more to stand up for people instead there was a culture of kind of just putting your head down and and not getting involved uh and i think that it's really important now for me to be able to speak out and say that this behavior wasn't okay and that if you're experiencing this behavior and still working in parliament it's not okay and you should know that [Music] the liberal party has been grappling with what's been described as a woman problem for several years with accusations of endemic sexism i do not recognise my party at the moment i do not recognise the values i do not recognise the bullying and the intimidation that has gone on it is evident that there is an acceptance of a level of behaviour in canberra that would not be tolerated in any other workplace often when good women call out or are subjected to bad behaviour the reprisals backlash and commentary portrays them as the bad ones the liar the troublemaker the emotionally unstable or weak or someone who should be silenced [Music] prime minister scott morrison has begun trying to win back female voters and he's using some of the same female mps who recently accused blokes in the liberal party of being bullies there are seven women now in cabinet that is the highest number of women ever in a federal cabinet do you think that the liberal party has a woman problem well i think women have got a problem with the liberal party it's probably a better way of putting it i think the the party uh does not have enough women mps and senators uh i think it is seen as being very blokey uh that's a real that is a that look that's wrong that's i mean that is that is wrong uh full stop politically it's also very mistaken women remain underrepresented on the government benches well look there's no question that the liberal party can and should do better when it comes to getting more women into parliament and we need to do a lot better at keeping them there all right everybody looking at me please seven of the 30 current government ministers are women there are fewer liberal women sitting in the lower house than they were 20 years ago while the number of opposition women has doubled we want to see women rise but we don't want to see women rise only on the basis of others doing worse a gender and politics report released just last month by liberal think tank the menzies research center found the party has a long way to go the fact that if we believe that everybody should have an equal opportunity in life and as liberals we believe that passionately then there's no reason why women should not be better represented in parliament we know that there are there are barriers to women putting their hand up for pre-selection and then being elected and then staying elected is the other part of it as well which is why we still need to see far more women in safe seats i don't feel like there's equality in the liberal party at the moment and that's really concerning for me uh i it's one of the reasons why i've thought recently seriously about giving up my membership of the liberal party it's one of the reasons why i've been quite discouraged in pursuing a career with the liberal party there's plenty of women working in staffing roles in parliament at the moment but the experiences is you need to be like a male to to cope to survive senior liberal women including current cabinet ministers have despaired at the sexism of some of their male colleagues in a private whatsapp message group obtained by four corners it is past time for us to get organised and collectively stand up after listening in party room to bikini judging commentary enough is enough we each of us inspire young women to aim for leadership how do we continue to do this in the face of bureau backstabbing from male party members whose sole aim is to count numbers and take our place this leads to huge party discontent and loss of loyal liberals who feel terribly betrayed [Music] it's not just sexism that women face in this highly charged atmosphere there is also a pattern of inappropriate sexual behaviour which is tolerated and condoned [Music] i don't for a moment kind of say that all the men were predators and all the women were victims but you know i it was a it was a highly sexualized environment at times and i think that's a consequence of the stress it's kind of that work hard play hard mentality that i've seen before early in my career in industries like advertising and there is a kind of an almost gung-ho kind of mentality by a lot of the senior males that they're kind of almost beyond reproach like they can just get away with things and i and they can because nobody calls that behavior out [Music] [Applause] um annual mid-winter ball at parliament house is one occasion where politicians staffers and journalists like to let their hair down i attended the uh 2017 mid-winter ball in my capacity as a sky news presenter i was a host of uh one of the sky news tables it was a work event for me but you know i was looking forward to a a fun evening and you know i can only describe what i witnessed and experienced and and quite frankly uh that was some men who were clearly on the make at that event and i know people are going to think this might sound partisan but let's remember i was a sky news presenter in 2017. i wasn't a member of parliament and what i experienced were some coalition men trying to have a crack and it it was clumsy it i it was easily fobbed off um it no harm was done to me but it didn't make me feel uncomfortable i hadn't particularly experienced that at a function like that before and it made me wonder you know what kind of environment is this where men think they can just have a crack at it you know i'm a public figure i'm pretty publicly well known to be married and i really was surprised and taken aback by that in fact i went back and told one of my colleagues at sky i'm not going to that event again without my husband not because i need him to uh protect me but i just felt that a woman there alone had a kind of a sign on her neck that said she was available this was an event with hundreds of people if this is what is happening in the federal parliament in a relatively open way what's going on behind closed doors particularly if you've got men who've got a sense of power and entitlement um i just have to wonder what's going on for many of the young women in this building media adviser rachelle miller was also there for her first mid-winter ball that night in 2017. she attended with her boss then human services minister alan taj i had a really lovely dress that i'd found which was like a floor-length red dress um and the girls did a really good job with my hair and makeup so it was nice to dress up and feel feel nice and feel that you looked you know you looked nicer than the usual suit that you wore every day both married with children rachelle miller now admits she and minister tudd were having an affair she was terrified they would be found out i was walking with alan and i was chatting to him and i i intentionally dropped back because i didn't want to walk in with him i mean i wasn't his guest i wasn't his partner and i didn't want to be on camera and he stopped and he turned around he said no i want you to walk in with me and and and i was really surprised by that i have a feeling that my appearance had a bearing on why alan would want to walk in with me on his arm and i felt at the time a lot like an ornament and that i was being used as an ornament that feeling continued later at the after party when rochelle miller remembers bumping into mr tudge's friend now attorney general christian porter who was with another mp i mean a supporter was obviously quite drunk at public bar after the ball and they came up to me and they said oh you know you look really great you look really hot of course alan being the you know media tart that he is would want to have you on on his arm when he walked into the ball with all the cameras there you know and he's a total media genius you know thinking that you know to have you walk in with him and and it really felt quite demeaning the member for us alan tudge has publicly represented himself as a social conservative and an advocate of traditional marriage my reservations about changing the marriage act to include same-sex couples was my view that marriage is an institution traditionally has been primarily about creating a bond for the creation love and care of children and i was concerned that if the definition is changed to be purely one about recognizing love rather than a foundation for the raising of children then the institution itself would potentially be weakened that was his public image absolutely look i think it's hypocrisy and and i've told him that uh i you know i i'm probably i'm a moderate liberal uh and it really upset me to hear him particularly during the same-sex marriage debate actively speaking parliament and and you know have an expressive view that for children to have you know the right upbringing they need they need to have a mother and father in a traditional kind of family environment and i just thought wow there's no question that some of the uh most uh trenchant uh opponents of same-sex marriage all in the name of traditional marriage were at the same time enthusiastic practitioners of traditional adultery you know as i said many times i mean this issue of uh the controversy over same-sex marriage was dripping with with hypocrisy and the pools were deepest at the feet of the sanctimonious conservative liberal senator conchetta ferravanti wells believes ministers should live the values they espouse to the public i understand that you can't make specific comments about any specific ministers but generally how do you feel about ministers who publicly to their electorates portray themselves as conservative family men married men and then when they're in canberra lead a different life you know carousing with staffers and so on well values and beliefs are very important in politics when we stand for office when we stand for pre-selection and when we stand before the electorate we stand on a set of values and beliefs and there is an expectation that whether it's to our pre-selectors whether it's to our electors that we abide by those values and beliefs because ultimately we will be judged by them is it appropriate for a minister to have a relationship with a staffer it's not appropriate and we've seen instances of that happened happen and different leaders of both political persuasion have taken the have taken appropriate action as i said it is notwithstanding the different pressures that do exist in this place we have to maintain a high level of conduct rochelle miller says her affair with alan tuj now acting immigration minister was completely consensual but she has lived to bitterly regret it i lost a lot of self-confidence because i didn't feel i had any power at all to be able to stand up for myself i was just exhausted you know really exhausted so what i'm trying to do by speaking to you is stand up for myself and say this isn't okay the behavior wasn't okay and the culture's not okay and there should be something done about it she constantly had to manage the rumors about the affair that circulated in the press gallery allen put a lot of pressure on me and quote unquote asked me to wargame you know the lines that i was gonna i was gonna give the journalists to to to try and kill the story and so when i call it it'll be all like make sure you don't talk make sure you get your lines straight make sure you don't answer your phone actually just be better if you don't answer your phone at all after the affair ended rochelle miller left alan tuja's office and went to work for another minister she says she was later demoted in a restructure she felt she had no choice but to leave politics i knew i was leaving a job that i really loved but i didn't see that there was any other way out and look the culture is very much like that it's very much you sacrifice yourself for the good of the party you know i actually at that time viewed myself as damaged goods and i was really worried about this coming out and impacting our chances at the election it's really important to emphasize that this sort of relationship it's not been acceptable you know in the big banks or the big corporations for years decades and then you move into parliament and ministers officers who are absolutely public property who are living in a fishbowl who have enormous responsibility there's always a power and balance between the boss and somebody who works for them the younger and more junior they are the more extreme that power and balance is and of course ministers essentially have the power to hire and fire their staff so they've got enormous power this is again one of the reasons why these types of relations in those offices are just not acceptable alan tudge did not respond on the record to four corners request for an interview or provide answers to our detailed questions good evening juanita phillips with abc news we begin tonight with dramatic developments in the barnaby joyce affair for full coverage we go to parliament house in february 2018 prime minister malcolm turnbull made an extraordinary announcement in response to news that his deputy barnaby joyce was having an affair with a staffer barnaby made a shocking error of judgment he has set off a world of woe for those women and appalled all of us under his infamous bonk ban mr turnbull declared that ministers could no longer sleep with their staff ministers must behave accordingly they must not i don't care whether they are married or single i don't care they must not have sexual relations with their staff that's it what the public didn't know was that as well as his deputy the pm also had other ministers including alan tuj in his sights was the bonk band then just about barnaby joyce no no well no it was i mean barnaby's case uh triggered it and i it look at may it may not have happened at that time it had it not been for the barnaby issue but it went much further than that did some of the ministers think that it was acceptable to sleep with staff oh i i think there was a i think there was a quite a widespread view in parliament that this sort of thing was entirely a private matter another cabinet minister whose conduct had come to the attention of the then prime minister and helped inspire the bonk ban was the man who now holds the office of commonwealth attorney general christian porter there had been some reports about christian uh i think he recognized that his conduct had not been up to the right standard ministers cabinet ministers in particular have got to really be very conscious of the fact that when you're out in public you have to make sure that you're not doing anything that that you know could expose you to compromise or that could be represented in a way that could expose you to compromise the attorney general christian porter has ordered his department to look into sexual harassment allegations made in the media by an unnamed woman who worked as an assistant on the royal commission the attorney general's role as the nation's chief law officer includes implementing rules to protect women no one should have to suffer sexual harassment at work or in any other part of their lives for that matter so it's very very serious it's something the commonwealth government takes very seriously i think being in a good suburban australian family is a real leveler like many of his cabinet colleagues the attorney general promotes himself as a family man i've got a daughter i'm married to a lovely person who's um a lawyer and has been involved in male-dominated professions for a long time so it's something that's constantly on your mind and it's something that i talk to my staff about and that from time to time of course is a subject matter of conversation with your colleagues but this is about every individual i think holding themselves to high standards look the reason the attorney general occupies a pretty unique role in our political system is because the attorney general's role is as the first law officer of the country and as a attorney general you are meant to be above reproach you're meant to be able to articulate the proper role of the courts the proper role of the legal system while also occupying a position as a politician in other words to be impeccable in terms of personal and political behaviour serious questions are now being raised about the attorney general's conduct and they go back over decades why are you here i'm here because for a long time christian has benefited from the silence around his conduct and his behaviour and the silence has meant that his behavior has been tolerated and after a certain amount of time the silence means that it's condoned and it's considered acceptable and i'm here because i don't think that his behavior should be tolerated and it is not acceptable christian porter was always destined for political leadership a private school boy from perth he had a proud liberal pedigree his father was an olympian who had become a king maker in western australian politics young porter was a champion debater who was selected for australia's national schools team we met christian porter in 1986 for the first time he was very charming he was very confident [Music] we were all quite confident back then he had that assuredness that's perhaps born of privilege but he was you know brash blonde and breezy christian was quite slick in some ways uh and he had an air of entitlement around him that i think was born of the privilege from which he came christian porter studied arts economics and then law at the university of western australia he was at uwa for the better part of a decade i've known christian since i was 16 years old i was a member of the wa state debating team and he was brought in to assist coaching as a lot of university students were at the time and i knew him later when i was at the state solicitor's office in western australia and he was at the dpp so i've known him for a long time for all of that time i've known him to be someone who was in my opinion and based on what i saw deeply sexist and actually misogynist in his treatment of women in the way that he spoke about women kathleen foley is a barrister who also sits on the victorian bar council she did arts and then law at uwa in the 90s where she collected prizes for her academic achievements she spent a lot of time with christian porter as she too was a champion debater he was a really powerful figure he was a dominant personality and many people at the law school looked up to him because they felt that he was going to really be a powerful person one day he spoke about the fact that he wanted to be prime minister people knew that his father was a liberal party power broker so he carried a lot of weight and he threw that weight around christian porter's nickname on campus was chiller after his olympian dad he gained a reputation as a hard-drinking party boy and womanizer christian's persona particularly at uwa was the sidelining of women in any kind of forum in which they wanted to be involved they were treated as a joke they were objects of ridicule the only point to women as far as i could tell from christian's way of treating women was for him to hit on them or for women to be made fun of particularly for the way that they looked chiller was a frequent contributor to the law students magazine briefs where he's quoted as saying i'm going to smut my way through law school he joked about his drinking and his rowdy behaviour particularly at the so-called ru barking pub crawl competition which he attended six times they would have plastic bags tied to their wrists and as you did the pub crawl you would vomit into these plastic bags that were tied to your wrists so you would be going through the streets of perth vomiting into bags and carrying the vomit around it was it was really extreme i never did it because it wasn't the kind of thing that i was into but the the commentary around that the way that uh the men spoke about that and the way that the women who participated in that were talked about and treated was really off-putting [Music] porter wrote of what he called the chick teams that they were about as gratuitous and off-putting display of female sensuality that has ever occurred on are you barking writing about a debate on whether lawyers are just well-dressed prostitutes porter said our opposition's case had more holes than snow white's hymen a graduation profile of porter when he was 26 said he'd be remembered for vomiting all over himself on the dance floor it predicted that in 10 years time porter would be running for pm being kicked out of the liberal party for being a fat unattractive sexist political power broker who tried to stick his tongue in a secretary's ear the fact that they're talking about him being sacked for putting his tongue in a secretary's ear everyone knew what kind of guy he was everyone knew how he felt about women and how he treated women [Music] after he graduated christian porter was nominated for clio magazine's bachelor of the year in 1999. in the article he was asked what song he'd choose to serenade a woman he selected another one bites the dust by queen the self-portrait for the magazine was a stick figure which had to be censored because he'd drawn it with large genitals [Music] i would see christian around the traps at functions and we moved in some of the same social circles at the time he didn't change at all christian remained exactly who he had always been i remember distinctly a couple of things that he said at the time i remember him commenting that he would never date a woman who waved over 50 kilograms that stood out to me i also remember a relationship of his that ended and he commented that the woman involved was was thin enough but she didn't have big enough tits and the next woman that he was going to date needed to be as thin but have bigger tits we'll look at many cases of theft of people in positions of trust relate to solicitors and accountants but our submissions have always been in his thirties christian porter became a crown prosecutor he married his first wife but left her for a junior colleague while christian porter was a prosecutor he worked part-time at the university of western australia as a lecturer in the law of evidence four corners has spoken to some of his former uwa students who described incidents of inappropriate behaviour they included sexualized comments about female students and a gratuitous focus on violent and sexually graphic material in the legal cases he taught christian porter's political ambitions were realised first in wa state politics [Music] then with a move to federal politics in 2013. i would also like to thank all of my new coalition colleagues and genuinely the welcome here has been collegiate and very warm i am intent madam speaker to bask in this warmth before people get to know me and it grinds to an inevitable halt thank you mr deputy speaker in fact this is my christian porter was quickly promoted to the front bench as social services minister domestic violence his language on women changed as he spoke up strongly on domestic violence policy if we can change the attitudes and make sure that young boys understand what a respectful relationship is understand what are the proper boundaries understand what's acceptable and not acceptable they will go on to be good fathers and good husbands and good partners and we won't have to have as many men's programs as we presently need he was long touted to one day become prime minister his reputation is one of a rising star very competent a man who has a great capacity and a man who as a child was referred to by his own father as a future prime minister [Music] but in the corridors of canberra christian porter was developing a reputation in late 2017 his behavior came to the attention of then prime minister malcolm turnbull on the 6th of december 2017 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 and he 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 [Music] the incident that prompted the prime minister's concern occurred at canberra's public bar in monica it was a wednesday night when politicians staffers and journalists head to public bar for drinks and gossip one of the people there was liberal media advisor rachelle miller who was out for a drink with her boss minister alan tudge so we often on a wednesday night would go out to some of the bars that were just around parliament house during sitting week there would be always at public bar lots of journals lots of staffers lots of ministers mps rochelle miller spotted christian porter with a young woman at the time mr porter was tipped to soon become the next attorney general he had a wife and toddler at home in perth when we're at the bar i noticed that minister porter was with someone in the corner and they were clearly very intimate they were cuddling they were kissing it was quite confronting given that we were in such a public place and we're in a place where we had multiple press gallery journalists multiple mps and senators and i i was quite surprised by the behavior and while you know we all like to go out and have a drink and sometimes people drink too much i thought that this was probably a step what was definitely a step too far mr porter's companion was a young female staffer who was working for another cabinet minister they were kissing and cuddling and i remember turning around to allen and just going oh my god like cannot believe i'm seeing what i'm seeing what are we gonna do and we you know i sort of switched right into media advisor mode and kind of scanned the room to see well who else is seeing what i'm seeing and who's in the room four corners has spoken to five other people including coalition staffers who were at public bar that night and who saw minister porter's behaviour with the young woman and they were shocked by it one man who witnessed it was a public servant he thought minister porter was opening himself up to compromise he picked up the phone of a journalist and he took a photograph we spotted a group of journalists and i said i said to alan look you know there's a group of journals over there it looks like someone's taken a picture i saw somebody with their iphone out i was concerned from a work perspective i suppose it sounds quite unfeeling but i was really worried about it ending up in the papers it would do a lot of damage to the government it would be a scandal that we didn't need we were completely really stressed out by it and we sort of hatched a plan to you know head over there and actually confront them and say look you know you're taking photographs so alan did did head over and and he he asked the peop the person taking photographs to to to stop taking photographs alan tuj angrily demanded that the journalist delete the photo of his friend christian porter he was certainly quite firm and kind of demanded that you know hey this is not what we do on wednesday nights this is an off the record environment we don't take photos of each other and he was quite angry about it mr tuj later contacted the journalist again insisting that the photo be deleted to erase the evidence the news travelled back to the prime minister's office malcolm turnbull delivered christian porter a stern ultimatum i noted that i'd heard reports of him being out in public having had too much to drink in the company of young women i reminded him that canberra was full of spies uh not all of them worked for us and of course in the age of the smartphone you know pictures can be taken by anybody so it is just not acceptable and 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 so the risk of compromise is very very real you know it's not just the stuff of spy novels uh people who put themselves into positions where they can be compromised or blackmailed are really taking risks and unacceptable risks what was his reaction he clearly didn't enjoy it nobody enjoys a discussion like that but uh he he took it off he you know he took it on board and noted it and i i you know the message was very clear that if there was uh you know reports like that emerged in the future that would have uh uh very very severe consequences for his role in the ministry uh under my leadership at a time when there is a strong debate about foreign influence and foreign interference most especially in a place like canberra the risk i think of compromise is far greater and that's why it's incumbent on all politicians irrespective of whatever position they hold to ensure that their conduct is one of the highest standard greens senator sarah hansen young volunteered this story to four corners about a young liberal staffer who confided in her one wednesday night at public bar about a secret relationship with christian porter sarah hansen young did not name the young woman she spoke to four corners believes it was the same woman seen with christian porter at public bar one particular conversation i remember went from being a general chat uh to a pretty um distressed young woman uh who was very upset about and what had been going on in the office that she worked in and how she was being treated as a result of people finding out so this young woman was talking about christian porter yes what did she say happened and she told me that she'd found herself um in somewhat of a relationship um and that clearly had found herself in a position that at some point um she didn't want to be there uh it was uh i'm not going to speculate as to why or how um but when she was talking to me about it she was clearly very distressed and she was in a situation she didn't want to be in and i think you know that's that's a terrible that's a terrible position for any young woman to find themselves in to feel to feel like you have to question your job your abilities your skills who you can talk to who you can trust in your workplace the sense i had from her is that she felt pretty isolated she was very guarded about what she said but she started crying and it was quite clear to me that there was a lot more going on than um than she felt she could say so there will be people who say well this was a consensual relationship between two adults shouldn't it just remain private well that's not really um that's you know that's not my business of course if people are in consensual relationships that's fine what i saw and i can only speak from what the experience i had was this young woman was really was not happy about the situation she was in was distressed about it and um she spoke about she spoke about feeling caught that she was caught in this situation 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 behavior is not okay and in fact i would say that given i've spent two years since coming out of parliament in the private sector that sort of behaviour is not tolerated on any level ten days after malcolm turnbull delivered his warning to christian porter mr porter posted this video with his family on his website our local community is such a great place to raise a family and i'm really looking forward to working with all of the members of my local community to put some big projects and plans together for 2018. ministers should be very conscious that their spouses and children sacrifice a great deal to support their political career and their families deserve honor and respect ministers should recognize they must lead by example values must be lived politicians are entitled to private lives of course they are but in the workplace they should and and in public they should hold themselves to a really high standard you know you can't get away from the fact that people look up to their leaders they look up to politicians and if they see politicians you know doing the wrong thing in any regard that undermines uh you know faith in the system it undermines it's just sets a bad example i mean it's it's kind of obvious isn't it the public bar incident remained inside the canberra bubble it never leaked [Music] christian porter did not respond to four corners multiple requests for an interview or answer our detailed questions he provided a brief statement about his meeting with mr turnbull in december 2017. mr porter said that in the meeting malcolm turnbull queried whether there was any accuracy to the story mr turnbull had heard according to mr porter the answer was no mr porter's statement continues malcolm then promoted me to attorney general about two weeks after in my time as a.g i never had any complaint or any suggestion of any problem from malcolm regarding the conduct of my duties as a.g until the last week of his prime ministership when we had a significant disagreement over the peter dutton citizenship issue the leader of the house mr speaker i presented last year scott morrison promoted minister porter to become leader of the house of representatives thank you and the next stage for the integrity commission will be a consultation phase and that will be detailed and it will be extensive minister porter has maintained his party boy reputation this footage was taken at a lawyer's weekly function in sydney last year in january minister porter released a statement announcing his separation from his second wife in the course of this investigation four corners has spoken to dozens of former and currently serving staffers politicians and members of the legal profession many have worked within or voted for the liberal party and many have volunteered examples of what they believe is inappropriate conduct by christian porter including being drunk in public and making unwanted advances to women the attorney general is the first law officer of the crown the attorney general is at the pinnacle of the legal profession to put it in those terms it would undermine the entire legal system if the attorney general is someone that doesn't share the values that the legal system shares equality before the law and non-discrimination is an essential part of our legal system so to have an attorney general who treats women and thinks about women in the way that christian does is to me profoundly problematic you're someone who has had a long career in the law tell me about what is it that's so special about the role of attorney general and why perhaps that role has to be held to a higher standard even than some of the other ministerial colleagues the attorney general is the first law officer of this country and it is incumbent on all of us whatever the ministerial role was the highest level of integrity and the highest level of appropriate conduct and 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 the higher the office the higher the responsibility when we sign up to this job we sign up for public service we sign up as service to the australian public and so therefore there is an expectation that in service of the australian public we abide by the highest possible conduct and integrity four corners does not suggest only liberal politicians cross this line but the liberal party is in government and the liberal politicians in question are ministers of the crown all ministers must now abide by ministerial standards set down by prime minister scott morrison in 2018 they say serving the australian people as ministers is an honour and comes with expectations to act at all times to the highest possible standards of probity [Music] they also prohibit ministers from having sexual relations with staff this isn't just about whether a um this is a good look for a minister to be doing this or um mps to be behaving badly and you know if it ends up on the front page of the newspaper whether that's a that's a bad look for the government and this goes right to the heart of how we what type of environment our staff work in uh we work in as a a group of politicians um the culture that we are promoting and ultimately how we treat women and how that place treats women politicians make ethical and legal judgments that govern how the rest of society should operate including the treatment of women for the members of the liberal party we spoke to that means the least the mostly male ministers of the crown can do is to act with propriety and with respect for the women they work with and live the lives they say they do australians elect these people to represent them in parliament they pay for their salaries there's a certain expectation of a level of integrity that australians expect from their leaders and while you could argue that well that's his personal life it's got nothing to do with work i think that that attitude is quite outdated no one is conscripted to be a politician or a minister if you choose to take on a position like that you have to recognize that your life you know your private life is going to have to be perhaps more circumspect than it would have been or might have been if you're in a different line of work it's as simple as that [Music] 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 mean what you say and say what you mean is so important [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 242,945

Keywords: four corners, bonk ban, Christian Porter, Alan Tudge, Barnaby Joyce, Porter, Tudge, Joyce, auspol, investigation, canberra, ABC News, Louise Milligan, Australia, politics, politician, ACT, inside the canberra bubble, senate, senator, MP, member of parliament, bonk, Scott Morrison, Malcolm Turnbull, Parliament House, Parliament, ABC News au, journalism, documentary

Id: jm7a4vAnGGg

Length: 56min 0sec (3360 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 09 2020