Australia's attorney general vehemently denied on Wednesday allegations that he raped a woman over 30 years ago, adding that while he will take a short leave of absence, he will not stand down from his Cabinet position.
Holding a press conference in Perth, Christian Porter publicly revealed for the first time that he is the Cabinet minister at the center of a report by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Friday.
The country's chief law officer, who doubles as minister for industrial relations, said "nothing in the allegations that have been printed ever happened."
According to media reports, the complainant, who cannot be named, prepared a 33-page statement for her lawyer about the "brutal rape" that she alleged occurred at a debate competition held at the University of Sydney in 1988. At the time, the woman was 16, and Porter 17.
Porter admitted he knew the woman through debating but denied having had any sexual relationship with her.
"I did not sleep with the victim. We didn't have anything of that nature happen between us."
Although the woman contacted police in 2019, New South Wales police said she did not make a formal statement before taking her own life last June.
In a statement on Tuesday, the police said they closed an investigation into the matter due to "insufficient admissible evidence."
The woman's statement, along with a letter, was sent to several politicians, including Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who said he forwarded the matter to the Australian Federal Police.
But Porter, who previously worked as a crown prosecutor before entering politics, said he has never seen a copy of the statement, nor had police or any journalists "ever put the details of the allegations to me in a way that will allow seeking a response."
"All I know about the allegations is what's in the media," he said.
Porter said he will take "a couple of short weeks" medical leave to take care of his mental health but will not stand down.
"If I stand down from my position as attorney general, because of an allegation about something that simply did not happen, then any person in Australia can lose their career, their job, their life's work based on nothing more than an accusation that appears in print," he said.
Morrison has previously said he believes Porter's denial. However, long-time friends of the woman have also publicly supported her claims.
Australian politics has recently been rocked by multiple complaints of sexual assault and harassment.
In February, Brittany Higgins, a former staffer of the ruling Liberal Party, came forward alleging she was raped by a male colleague in a government minister's office in March 2019. Higgins said she did not make an official statement at the time out of fear of losing her job.
Days later, local media reported that a survey of 100 political staffers found one in eight said they had been sexually harassed or assaulted in the workplace in the past year.
In November, an ABC investigation found former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had warned Porter about inappropriate behavior with a young female staffer at a bar in 2017, describing the matter as "unacceptable."
The actions, which Porter reportedly did not deny, along with a consensual affair between former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and his then chief of staff, prompted the then prime minister to formally ban sexual relations between ministers and their staffers.
