Wake up, people!  I know most of you have had a gutful of watching zealots impose mob rule on our society but now is not the time to tune out. This is happening on our watch and we must find ways to stop it. This is a defining moment and needs our proper attention and action now.  

What we have witnessed over the past fortnight is not just a shameful feeding frenzy by a partisan media determined to take out Attorney-General Christian Porter and hence the Federal government. This is simply the latest round in an ongoing campaign to discredit our justice system and establish an alternate system designed to find more accused men guilty in sexual assault cases.  

For years now, activists have been working hard to undermine the authority of our justice system by alleging rape victims don’t receive fair treatment, that rape is rarely reported, and wrongly asserting that convictions are rare in such cases. They prepared the ground and now have decided it’s time to declare their hand. “The gloves are coming off,” proudly announced once activist lawyer last week, declaring an end to the victimisation and silencing of women. 

Suddenly everyone started singing from the same songbook, declaring that the police and the criminal courts can’t offer justice to rape victims and calling for an independent inquiry into the Christian Porter case. There was Kristina Kenneally, the shadow minister for home affairs responsible for the Federal Police, suggesting we need an inquiry to determine whether Porter was a “fit and proper person to be at the Cabinet table”.  And Pauline Wright, past President of the Law Council of Australia, arguing an independent inquiry would give Christian Porter the opportunity to clear his name. And look at this hogwash from a law professor. 

Dig deep and you find lawyers spelling out the advantages of this alternate approach to the justice system. It is all about an “independent system”, taking evidence far from public scrutiny and messy due process rules. And its crowning glory? It would use a lower standard of proof, just like the campus kangaroo courts – the “balance of probabilities”.  

Scott Morrison has so far been standing firm, saying he won’t have two systems of justice in this country. Interesting that no one has noticed there already is a second tier of the justice system – the campus kangaroo courts. These quasi-judicial systems are in place on campuses across the country, busily usurping criminal law using a system of secretive independent investigations to make decisions behind closed doors, disrupting the education and ruining the lives of accused male students across the country. 

The call for independent inquiries has been an overarching theme right from the start of this. Our ABC leapt into action with a heavily foreshadowed 4 Corners based on comments from friends of a deceased alleged victim of a historical rape by a Cabinet Minister. Then came Tweets from activists claiming the friends sought an urgent investigation “like High Courts on Dyson Heydon.” (Of course, this actually means a one-sided investigation where the accused never gave evidence.)    

That’s it – the game plan was exposed. No matter that the police then announced the case was closed since there was not enough admissible evidence. And that the alleged victim had withdrawn her initial complaint before she tragically suicided. And that her poor parents had not wanted her to proceed with the complaint, warning their daughter suffered mental illness and expressing concern she might have “confected or embellished” the allegations.  

The politicians and media who took up the charge had no interest in any of that, downplaying these inconvenient facts in their media barrage against Porter and anyone who supported him.  

It is maddening watching a campaign succeeding in convincing our community that the courts are still biased against rape victims while knowing the struggle families of accused young men now have to receive fair treatment. Believe-the-victim justice already has an incredible grip on our justice system, with even the most dubious cases being pushed through to court. 

As Peta Credlin says, this is not just a fight for the likes of Christian Porter. It is our fight too.  

 What to do? Well for a start we need to support the Prime Minister and everyone else who is standing up against the mob and resisting calls for this proposed dangerous new tier of our justice system.   

Credlin suggests Labor believes this campaign will win women’s votes but rightly points out that most ordinary people have men in their lives they care about and don’t want them accused in a system which denies them proper protection.  

The Mothers of Sons group has responded by posting draft letters on their website that people can use to write offering support to the PM and Christian Porter, and to MPs voicing concern about the current push. Anyone can use these letters, also as drafts to key media commentators, editors, anyone joining this dangerous campaign.   

And please write to support school principals who are being pounded for making sensible suggestions about consent and risk-taking behaviours including the impact of alcohol.  

That’s only the beginning. We need to bring together powerful voices to take on this attempt at mob rule. There must be hundreds of retired lawyers and judges out there who shudder at where all this is heading. We owe it to the generations of young men who will face an even tougher world if we let this happen.