Australian police close rape probe into Cabinet minister

Australian police ruled out on Tuesday investigating an unnamed Cabinet minister over an allegation that he raped a 16-year-old girl more than 30 years ago.

Several opposition Australian lawmakers said late last week they had received a letter detailing an allegation of rape against a male minister before he entered parliament.

New South Wales police had been in charge of the investigation since February last year.

“For various reasons, the woman did not detail her allegations in a formal statement to NSW police,” the statement said.

The decision by New South Wales state police adds pressure on Prime Minister Scott Morrison to establish an independent investigation to examine the accusation.

The 31-page letter contained a statement from a complainant, taken by her lawyer, that detailed her allegation of a rape she said occurred in Sydney in 1988.

The letter, which included excerpts from her diary and a photograph from 1988, was forwarded by the lawmakers and Morrison to police.

The woman, who has not been named, took her own life in her hometown of Adelaide in June at the age of 49.

Morrison rejects calls for minister to quit

Morrison on Monday rejected calls to stand the minister down and to establish an inquiry, saying police should investigate first.

But police said in a statement on Tuesday that "there is insufficient admissible evidence to proceed."

The woman had asked for advice from South Australia state police in Adelaide about reporting her allegation in November 2019
Morrison said the minister "vigorously and completely denied the allegations."

But the woman’s lawyer, Michael Bradley, and several critics of the government have called for the minister to step down while an independent inquiry investigates the evidence.

Pressure builds for minister to be named

The accused minister is also under mounting pressure to make his own identity public.

The minor Greens party has left open the option of naming the minister under the legal protection of parliamentary privilege when Parliament resumes on March 15.

The contentious privilege, common in British Commonwealth legislatures, prevents lawmakers from being sued or prosecuted for anything they say in Parliament.

The legal immunity also extends to media that subsequently report the lawmakers’ words in the chamber.

Former PM wades into row

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, whom Morrison replaced in a power struggle within the government in 2018, said the minister should be named and removed from office.

Turnbull said the complainant wrote to him in 2019 seeking advice on what she should do with her allegation.

"He should out himself and he should provide a comprehensive statement about what he knows about the allegations," Turnbull said in an interview with Australian broadcaster ABC. "If he’s vigorously denied the accusations to the prime minister, he should vigorously deny them to the public."

Former staffer seals apology

The police decision to drop the investigation comes two weeks after Morrison apologized in Parliament to a former government staffer who alleged she was raped by a more senior colleague in a minister's office two years ago.

Brittany Higgins quit her job in January, but reactivated her complaint to police after initially not pursuing the case because she felt it would have affected her employment.

On Tuesday, the Australian government announced it had set up an independent and confidential 24/7 telephone service for current and former parliamentary employees to report allegations of improper conduct.

jf/msh (AP, Reuters)