Christian Porter

Charles Christian Porter (born 11 July 1970) is an Australian former politician and lawyer who served as the 37th Attorney-General of Australia from 2017 to 2021 in the Turnbull government and the subsequent Morrison government. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Division of Pearce from 2013 to 2022 and a member of the Liberal Party of Australia. Porter also served as Leader of the House and Minister for Industrial Relations from 2019 to 2021, and Minister for Industry, Science and Technology in 2021 following his resignation as attorney-general. From Perth, Porter attended Hale School, the University of Western Australia and later the London School of Economics, and practised law at Clayton Utz and taught law at the University of Western Australia before his election to parliament. He is the son of the 1956 Olympic silver medallist, Charles "Chilla" Porter and the grandson of Queensland Liberal politician, Charles Porter, who was a member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly from 1966 to 1980.[5][6] Before his election to the federal House of Representatives, Porter had served in the Parliament of Western Australia. He first entered the Legislative Assembly after winning the seat of Murdoch in a 2008 by-election following the death of the sitting member, Trevor Sprigg, and he was subsequently elected to the new seat of Bateman at the 2008 general election. After the Liberals formed government, Porter was appointed Attorney-General in the Barnett Ministry. In December 2010, he was also appointed Treasurer and held both portfolios until June 2012, when he resigned from the ministry to contest the 2013 federal election. Before assuming his current position, Porter was Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister in the Abbott government from December 2014 to September 2015,[7][8] and then Minister for Social Services in the Turnbull government from September 2015 to December 2017. In March 2021 a historical rape allegation against Porter became public in the midst of the 2021 Australian Parliament House sexual misconduct allegations. Porter denied the claim and launched a defamation case against the ABC. The case was later dropped, with the ABC agreeing to pay all of Porter's mediation costs and appending an editor's note to the original article. Porter resigned from the front bench in September 2021, after media reports revealed that he was a beneficiary of a blind trust relating to his legal action against the ABC.[9] Following much controversy and media scrutiny, in December of that year, Porter announced his retirement from politics.[10][11]