An Interview with Christian Porter

An Interview with Christian Porter

Simon Creel< Managing Director, HHG Legql Groue_ An Interview with James Versteegen Article Cl~rk, HHG Legal Christian Porter The first in a series of interviews I suspect that is something to do with the nature of some of the with former and current Attorneys­ traditional, conservative aspects of Australian business and legal General. society. I hope that is changing and I suspect that because of the Former Attorney General and demographics of the baby boomer generation retiring that there Treasurer of Western Australia and will be a greater requirement to give more responsibility to younger the current Liberal Party candidate people. for the federal seat of Pearce. In politics the flip side of early responsibility is the fact that experience Mr Porter, your involvement in counts for a lot in politics. You have to have some scars and see how politics is, on one level, very much a people win and lose in the great marketplace of ideas. If you go into family affair. Can you take us through it fresh without that experience you take on a very significant degree your family history with regard to Australian politics? of risk. By the same token you have a great deal of enthusiasm and a belief in your ideas, so you pursue them very vigorously, but politics My grandfather was a first-generation immigrant. He came out to Queensland as a boy with his parents from England and he was a is a high-risk game for young people. man for whom I had a great deal of respect. Did you ever feel that there was a risk you were being set up to fail Now this is all second and third hand, a story handed down simply because of your relative youth? through the family, but the story goes that Robert Menzies asked Failure is an ever-present outcome in politics but I didn't think I was my grandfather to help him establish the fledgling Liberal Party in being set up to fail, for me I think it was a case of a field promotion. Queensland. I believe he was the inaugural state director of the party There was simply a need for someone of a certain qualification and before later becoming a sitting member and a minister in the Bjelke­ background and willingness to get the job done. Petersen government. By all accounts he got on well with Sir Joh, but was very skeptical about some elements of his policy agenda. Again, though, there were risks involved. I went into Parliament and My father similarly had a background in politics. Following a successful had five months as Shadow Attorney General doing battle with Jim career in athletics, having represented Australia in high jump at the McGinty, who was a highly experienced political performer. 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne and the 1962 Commonwealth Games in Perth, he helped establish the Fremantle division of the You can get carved up very quickly in that situation. You don't have Liberal Party. He would go on to be the state director of the Party, time to sit back and watch and learn and observe parliamentary a position he would hold for nearly a decade, so politics was always process. You just make sure you know as much as humanly possible, discussed around the dinner table. which meant a lot of long nights spent reading. You were elected as the Member for Bateman in 2008 and then very Your resignation as Attorney General and Treasurer in May 2012 quickly thereafter elevated to the ministry as Attorney General in caused quite a stir; many believed you could have been the next the new Barnett government. At the time you were deemed to be Premier of Western Australia. Tell us more about what was behind very young to hold such a position, in fact you were the youngest your decision to resign. Attorney General the state has ever had. What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of your relative youth at the time When journalists talk to me about this, many of them are dying to of your appointment as Attorney General? know if there was a secret conversation between myself and Colin That is a very interesting question. Barnett before my resignation. Was there some kind of succession I would start with a general observation that one of the failings of arrangement that went sour? There was nothing like that. modern Australian corporate society, political society, and I think the legal profession to an extent is that they are very slow to promote Unfortunately, there is a very cynical view in some corners of the and give serious responsibility to young people. journalistic world that the only thing that people pursue in politics is a prize, and that is peoples' fundamental motivation for entering One of the enduring legacies of conservatism within the legal political life. profession in Western Australia is the failure to always promote and reward the merit of younger practitioners. My motivation isn't about prizes and positions. It never has been. Politics is always about compromise and you can't hope to be I am not saying I was necessarily hugely meritorious but my observation is that in the military for instance you can be quite victorious in the marketplace of ideas with every single idea that you tender aged and be in command of an extremely large number hold true. However, there are ideas that are very important to me and of troops making critical decisions, but very rarely do you see that I felt I would be better placed to pursue those ideas in federal rather responsibility put on young people in politics or the law. than state politics. 28 Brief August 2013 What is the philosophical drive underpinning these ideas that has What would you consider your proudest achievements as Attorney seen you make a move towards federal politics? General? I think the nation has taken a wrong turn and I want to be a part of As Attorney General I think the enduring achievements will be in a group of people that tries to get Australia back on track and that selections and appointments. I think that as a government we made means addressing major fiscal problems at a federal level. Things very good selections to judicial office at the Magistrates, District can go bad in a budget very quickly, as they have done under the and Supreme Court levels. I think some of those appointments will federal Labor government and restoring a sound, conservative fiscal make an enduring lifetimes contribution to the Australian legal approach is now looming as a huge and hugely important task. environment. Do you have any regrets at all about the decisions you have made In a public policy sense, law and order was a huge policy issue in the last year? within the 2008 election. I think that as a government there was an No, none; however, there is a lot of personal and family sacrifice that acknowledgement that there was a lack of control being exerted by goes on around federal politics. For instance, my wife Jen was an the Labor government of the day over its processes and outcomes in experienced lawyer and was conducting her first trials at the time I relation to law and order. We went a long way in the first four years resigned from my Cabinet positions, but we had to make a decision of the Barnett government to change both the reality and the public very early on that if I looked at federal politics we would travel perception in relation to that. together as much as humanly possible. Jen has had to reorganise A decrease of overall rates of reported crime by 10% in a State where her thinking about her career to suit me and that is a huge sacrifice. the population is growing by 1,600 people a week is not an easy thing It was a big decision to make and we both had to be comfortable to do. The legacy of the strong decisions and implementation of new that we are doing those things and making the decisions for the policy by the Barnett government in that first term is the fact that right reasons. There are no regrets but we are more open-eyed to the fewer crimes are being committed against Western Australians today. realities of political life now than we were five years ago. Are there any embarrassing or stressful moments that stand out? How would you summarise the true role of the State Attorney General? My chief-of-staff pointed out to me that most of our mistakes were too small for us to learn from. The role of Attorney General is more than just being responsible for a department and a policy area. I think that managing the Attorney Particularly with younger lawyers in mind, how would you General portfolio is a particularly difficult balancing act. summarise the standout differences between a career in politics and a career in a legal practice? There is a tendency for some people to cling in a purist way onto You earn more money in legal practice. That is one standout the idea that the Attorney General's paramount role is to defend the difference. But of course the rewards are meant to be different in judiciary. I think that view no longer represents conventional wisdom each field. The practical difference is the breadth of your exposure and it certainly doesn't represent practical reality. to people's opinions and viewpoints is also exponentially larger in Sometimes it is the case that the policy views of government will politics than in law.

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