This is going to go on forever – be warned !
Lawyers Weekly Australia report
The legal team behind former attorney-general Christian Porter has indicated some of the material that may form the evidence in the Federal Court proceedings and has requested information from the ABC to avoid “wasted” time and costs.
In new submissions to the Federal Court, Christian Porter’s lawyer Rebekah Giles said the legal team was collating material that may prove the Australian public was aware that he was the cabinet minister accused of a historic rape after either reading the article in question or learning about its contents via other means.
Ms Giles said that they would be using data that suggests Google searches of Mr Porter’s name “increased significantly” and “much more so than any other senior male cabinet” after the article was published. She also claimed the same could be said for the LinkedIn profile of Mr Porter’s wife, Jennifer Porter.
By midday Wednesday, 3 March, the team also claims that in response to a Google search of “who is the minister accused of rape”, Mr Porter’s name appeared.
“There were also an overwhelming number of members of the public who named Mr Porter as the minister… but did not specify how they came to that knowledge. Some of those people contacted our client. The sheer number of such persons lead to the conclusion that his identification was reasonable even without knowing how each such person came to that conclusion,” Ms Giles wrote in the submission.
Under aggravated damages, Ms Giles set out a number of grievances with the article or with relevant behaviour that the team will be relying on during the hearing. The first is an alleged failure to disclose in the article that the “statement” by the supposed victim was unsigned and that her parents said it could be embellished.
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