Labor’s manager of opposition business, Tony Burke, has begun Monday’s sitting by asking to refer Christian Porter to the privileges committee to investigate whether he is in contempt of the House of Representatives resolutions relating to disclosure of members’ interests.
Burke cited Porter’s declaration that the Legal Services Trust had part-paid his legal fees arising from the private defamation case against the ABC. In the declaration, Porter claimed that as he was a potential beneficiary he had “no access to information about the conduct and funding of the trust”.
Porter has always maintained that he has properly disclosed his interests in accordance with the requirements of the register and the ministerial standards, but resigned as a minister in September on the basis the issue had become an “unhelpful distraction” for the government.
Burke told the house if this precedent is allowed to stand we “might as well not have a register of interests at all”. He argued that in other instances where MPs had declared a blind trust on the register of interests it was “clear whose money was being managed” but on “this occasion we have no idea”.
Burke said the precedent would “render the register completely worthless” because it “would mean that any member can set up a trust, instruct the trustee to accept donations on a confidential basis only – then receive cash from any source then claim they couldn’t say where it came from because it was given on the basis of confidentiality”.
Burke said it “beggars belief” that Porter has no idea who donated to the trust, because it would mean there is a “strange new breed of philanthropist” who would choose to invest in an “otherwise secret trust” to fund a private defamation case and then have “no interest” in ensuring Porter found out they had done so.
He noted that Porter had provided assurances that no prohibited donors had donated to the trust, which meant he had been able to discover some information about donors.
On the day he resigned from the ministry, Porter said in a statement:
I am not willing to put pressure on the trust to provide me with any further information, I respectfully informed the prime minister that I would not place pressure on the trust to provide me with information to which I am not entitled. I explained my reason for this was that I could not assist any process that would ultimately allow people who have done nothing wrong to become targets of the social media mob and I would continue to respect their position. Ultimately, I decided that if I have to make a choice between seeking to pressure the trust to break individuals’ confidentiality in order to remain in cabinet, or alternatively forego my cabinet position, there is only one choice I could, in all conscience, make. Consequently, I provided the prime minister with my resignation earlier today. It is effective immediately.”
Burke noted that and concluded that Porter “either does know who donated and is refusing to say; or he’s chosen not to take steps to determine their identity”, either of which he claimed could constitute a breach of the rules on disclosure and raises a question of whether there is a serious contempt of the house.
Burke asked the Speaker, Tony Smith, to grant precedence to a motion to consider whether Porter had breached the rules and whether MPs receiving anonymous gifts constitutes a contempt. Smith said he would consider the referral and report back to the house this week.
