Parliament House sexual assault and harassment allegations
Moderator: bbmods
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-16/ ... /100464856Pies4shaw wrote:That's correct. They're just paying the costs of the mediation last Friday. Those will be, in legal terms, trivial. By implication, the parties are bearing their own costs of the legal proceedings.
I'm not going to get into a back and forth about this, at all, but plainly, in technical legal parlance, he has been "pantsed".
Pulling back from the legal niceties, he has managed to achieve by his press conference back then and ill-conceived, now aborted litigation something akin to a guarantee that people will always talk about him henceforth in connection with - or referencing - these allegations.
This is going well for him:
Porter's legal bills are ... reported to be in the range of $600,000 to $1 million.
....
Some of the [sic] Porter's colleagues are privately baffled at his judgement. Doubts are growing he will recontest his West Australian seat of Pearce. That's ultimately a matter for him.
More urgently, the Prime Minister must make clear where he stands. Is he OK with his cabinet ministers receiving large anonymous donations? Is this a standard he’s willing to accept?
Once again, Morrison has turned to the Secretary of his Department, Phil Gaetjens, for an answer. He's seeking advice on "any implications for the ministerial standards". In other words, the Prime Minister is worried his own standards have been breached, but wants Gaetjens to make the call. This is unlikely to end well for Porter.
- stui magpie
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And, he's walked: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-19/ ... /100474754
Christian Porter has resigned from Prime Minster Scott Morrison's ministry after revealing he had accepted an anonymous donation to help cover his personal legal fees.
Mr Porter's future on the frontbench had been in doubt following his declaration that a "blind trust" had paid for part of his discontinued defamation case against the ABC and journalist Louise Milligan.
Mr Morrison had offered no defence of his Industry and Science Minister and asked the head of his department, Phil Gaetjens, to investigate whether the declaration was in breach of the ministerial standards.
On Sunday, Mr Morrison announced Mr Porter had been unable to provide the necessary information to "avoid any perception of conflicts of interest" and had decided to resign.
- stui magpie
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- stui magpie
- Posts: 54760
- Joined: Tue May 03, 2005 10:10 am
- Location: In flagrante delicto
- Has liked: 112 times
- Been liked: 138 times
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-02/ ... /101725242
ACT Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold announced this morning that the sexual assault charge against Mr Lehrmann will be dropped, because of an "unacceptable risk to the life of the complainant".
....
This morning, Mr Drumgold said he needed to "consider the harm that could be occasioned to a party, particularly a complainant from an ongoing prosecution."
"I have made the difficult decision that it is no longer in the public interest to pursue a prosecution at the risk of the complainant's life," he said.
"This has left me no option but to file a notice declining to proceed with the retrial of this matter, which I have done this morning. This brings the prosecution to an end.
"Before concluding, during the investigation and trial as a sexual assault complainant, Ms Higgins has faced a level of personal attack that I have not seen in over 20 years of doing this work."