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On August 22, 2022, Solicitor-General Stephen Donoghue, provided the Albanese government with his opinion on the secret ministerial appointments made by the former prime minister Scott Morrison. The Solicitor-General indicated that, although nothing illegal had happened,
The end result is that, to the extent that the public and the Parliament are not informed of appointments that have been made under s 64 of the Constitution, the principles of responsible government are fundamentally undermined. Neither the people nor the Parliament can hold a Minister accountable for the exercise (or, just as importantly, for the non-exercise) of particular statutory powers if they are not aware that the Minister has those powers.
Following receipt of the opinion, Mr Albanese indicated that he intends to call an inquiry to ascertain the circumstances of Morrison’s allocation of ministerial portfolios to himself. However, if the former Prime Minister’s actions were ‘legal’, surely there is no need for an inquiry? The demand to have an inquiry may well be an attempt by the present government to gain political advantages by creating a thunderstorm where there is only a light drizzle.
By now, the story is well-known: Mr Morrison had himself sworn into five portfolios in addition to his prime-ministerial office. Over a period of approximately 12 months, between March 2020 and April 2021, Morrison secretly sworn himself in as a minister in charge of Treasury, Finance, Health, Home Affairs, and Industry, and Science & Resources. According to Tony Abbott, another former Prime Minister of Australia, Morrison’s decisions to allocate an additional five ministries to him and conceal it from the majority of those ministers was “unusual, unorthodox and strange”.[1]
According to Morrison, he did nothing wrong and these secretive arrangements were entirely acceptable, as “a break glass in case of emergency” safeguard during the COVID-19 pandemic.[2] “You mightn’t understand it because you haven’t been a prime minister in the middle of the worst crisis since the second world war”, Morrison told Sky News’s Andrew Clennell.[3] Certainly, Morrison’s point has some merit: it is always easy for outsiders to criticise the actions of a political leader, but it is infinitely more difficult for that same leader to make the hard decisions when designing an appropriate response to an unexpected crisis, in this instance the COVID pandemic. However, this pandemic did not amount to a war-like state of affairs. Not even Australia’s wartime prime ministers felt the need to give themselves secretive ministerial delegations or were prepared to undermine democratic transparency and the primacy of cabinet in the Westminster system.
“I believe it was necessary” to have these powers, which were “effectively emergency powers, to exercise in extreme situations that would be unforeseen”, Morrison said.[4] This argument would be reasonable if the secret commissions only related to those needed to fight the pandemic. But Morrison made himself also a minister for portfolios that did not directly relate to the management of the pandemic. In fact, Morrison even used the resources portfolio to arbitrarily cancel a gas project off the New South Wales coast, overriding then resources minister Keith Pitt. As Rocco Loiacano points out, “the cancelation of this project was vintage Morrison, playing politics to save the Liberal bed-wetters in once-safe North Shore Sydney seats under threat from so-called ‘Teal independents’’.[5]
When COVID-19 arrived in Australia in earnest — March 2020 — it triggered emergency powers that “damaged parliamentary democracy in ways that should never be repeated”.[6] According to Chris Merritt, vice-president of the Rule of Law Institute of Australia, instead of holding the executive branch of government to account, parliaments around this country “suspended proceedings and were complicit in an extraordinary transfer of power to federal and state ministers and officials. It left the impression that democratic law-making is a mere indulgence that can be set aside whenever important issues are at stake”.[7]
A revealing line in Morrison’s argument, presented on Wednesday, came in the following retort to one journalist: “You’re standing on the shore after the fact. I was steering the ship in the middle of the tempest”.[8] However, as noted by veteran political journalist Michelle Grattan, “a ship is operated by a crew, not just a captain. Why not tell his cabinet colleagues he’d had himself put into multiple ministries?[9] … If Morrison’s argument for his extraordinary action was so compelling, ministers would presumably have accepted the case. But it was full of holes and illogical”.[10]
In a democracy, it is important for the electorate to be concerned about and understand democratic processes and the rule of law. To be fair, it was not the first time a prime minister held multiple portfolios. Fifty years ago, Gough Whitlam was sworn in as Labor Prime Minister and held several portfolios. The difference, however, is that in 1972 this was done openly and transparently, not secretly. These secret transgressions are an affront to democratic accountability and are inconsistent with Australia’s parliamentary system of responsible and representative government.
Morrison’s news conference on Wednesday failed to dispel the concerns of the journalists, who attended the event. In this conference, Morrison referred to “the fear of the existing minister being incapacitated by Covid” as a plausible reason for secretly taking on all those ministerial roles.[11] And yet, David Speers, an Australian journalist and host of Insiders on ABC TV, correctly reminds us that
The Westminster system allows for acting ministers to be appointed immediately. There’s no reason why Morrison couldn’t have appointed someone else an acting minister if one of his team fell over. There’s no reason why he couldn’t have appointed himself as an acting minister, if he didn’t think anyone else was up to it.[12]
Morrison has said:
I believed it was as prudent, responsible action in the middle of a crisis to have those emergency powers in place to ensure that I could exercise the expectations of my responsibilities.[13]
This particular defence of accumulating several secretive ministries indicates that, in Morrison’s mind, writes journalist Sarah Martin, “these were the actions of a hero – a man who took his responsibilities so seriously that he was prepared to take on the burden of other portfolios just in case he was needed”.[14] According to Martin, Morrison believed that Australians have elected him “not as the member for Cook in a representative democracy, but as their micromanaging supreme leader, someone prepared to grab power wherever possible in order to respond to the demands of the pandemic”.[15] For her, “the cognitive dissonance of Morrison’s defence is mind-boggling. One on hand, he wants us to believe the actions were perfectly rational and justified in the context, while on the other he admits he could not tell his colleagues about the arrangements because he knew they would be shocked and unhappy”.[16]
And where was the Governor-General during all this secretive process of self-nomination to consecutive ministerial portfolios? Section 64 of the Australian Constitution provides that “The Governor-General may appoint officers to administer such departments of State of the Commonwealth as the Governor-General in Council may establish.” Admittedly, the Governor-General usually acts on the advice of the Prime Minister, but caught up in the imbroglio, he indicated that he had “no reason to believe that appointments would not be communicated”.[17] Surely, as section 64 suggests, the Constitution gives the Governor-General power to object to multiple appointments so as to uphold democratic transparency. When asked whether the Governor-General at any point asked him to make the arrangements public, Morrison limited his response to saying that criticisms of the Queen’s representative were “egregious”.[18]
To conclude, the pandemic played strongly to Morrison’s style of autocratic governance. It reminds the Australian electorate that it needs to urgently revisit their Constitution and the role of Governors-General so as to ensure that the outcomes and experiences under the alleged pandemic will never happen again in the future.
Augusto Zimmermann is professor and head of law at Sheridan Institute of Higher Education in Perth. He is also president of the Western Australian (WA) Legal Theory Association, editor-in-chief of The Western Australian Jurist and served as a member of WA’s law reform commission from 2012 to 2017. Zimmermann has authored numerous books, including “Direito Constitucional Brasileiro,” “Western Legal Theory,” and “Christian Foundations of the Common Law.”
Gabriël A. Moens AM is an emeritus professor of law at the University of Queensland and served as pro vice-chancellor and dean at Murdoch University. In 2003, Moens was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal by the prime minister for services to education. He has taught extensively across Australia, Asia, Europe, and the United States. Moens has recently published two novels “A Twisted Choice” (2020) and “The Coincidence” (2021).
[1] Latika Bourke, ‘Unusual, Unorthodox and Strange: Tony Abbott’s verdict on Morrison’s ministries’, The Sydney Morning Herald, at https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/unusual-unorthodox-and-strange-tony-abbott-delivers-his-verdict-on-morrison-s-mega-ministries-20220816-p5baed.html
[2] Rocco Loiacono, ‘ScoMo’s secret dysfunction’, The Spectator Australia, 18 August 2022, at https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/08/scomos-secret-dysfunction/
[3] ‘As it happened: Scott Morrison resists calls to resign amidst minister portfolio saga; governor-general’s role questioned by MPs’, The Age, August 17, 2022, at https://www.theage.com.au/national/australia-news-live-fallout-continues-after-revelations-scott-morrison-swore-himself-into-five-portfolios-while-pm-20220816-p5badb.html?post=p541t7
[4] Michelle Grattan, ‘View from the Hill, Morrison reverts to type in an unconvincing defence’, The Conversation, August 17, 2022, at https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-morrison-reverts-to-type-in-an-unconvincing-defence-188911
[5] Rocco Loiacono, ‘ScoMo’s secret dysfunction’, The Spectator Australia, 18 August 2022, at https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/08/scomos-secret-dysfunction/
[6] Chris Merritt, ‘Democracy damaged by Covid-19 overreach’, The Australian, August 11, 2022, at https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/legal-affairs/democracy-damaged-by-covid19-overreach/news-story/4cb66bdaf8ad16c669e43d3471caf8e4
[7] Chris Merritt, ‘Democracy damaged by Covid-19 overreach’, The Australian, August 11, 2022, at https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/legal-affairs/democracy-damaged-by-covid19-overreach/news-story/4cb66bdaf8ad16c669e43d3471caf8e4
[8] Michelle Grattan, ‘View form The Hill: Morrison reverts to type in an unconvincing defence’, The Conversation, August 17, 2022, at https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-morrison-reverts-to-type-in-an-unconvincing-defence-188911
[9] Michelle Grattan, ‘View form The Hill: Morrison reverts to type in an unconvincing defence’, The Conversation, August 17, 2022, at https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-morrison-reverts-to-type-in-an-unconvincing-defence-188911
[10] Michelle Grattan, ‘View form The Hill: Morrison reverts to type in an unconvincing defence’, The Conversation, August 17, 2022, at https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-morrison-reverts-to-type-in-an-unconvincing-defence-188911
[11] David Speers, ‘Scott Morrison gave two reasons for secretly taking on five ministerial roles. But his lack of trust is what’s most extraordinary’, ABC News, August 18, 2022, at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-18/scott-morrison-secret-ministerial-roles-lack-trust-extraordinary/101343202
[12] David Speers, ‘Scott Morrison gave two reasons for secretly taking on five ministerial roles. But his lack of trust is what’s most extraordinary’, ABC News, August 18, 2022, at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-18/scott-morrison-secret-ministerial-roles-lack-trust-extraordinary/101343202
[13] ‘As it happened: Scott Morrison resists calls to resign amidst minister portfolio saga; governor-general’s role questioned by MPs’, The Age, August 17, 2022, at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-18/scott-morrison-secret-ministerial-roles-lack-trust-extraordinary/101343202
[14] Sarah Martin, ‘The cognitive dissonance of Scott Morrison’s secret ministry defence is mind-boggling’, The Guardian, August 17, 2022, at https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/17/the-cognitive-dissonance-of-scott-morrisons-defence-is-mind-boggling
[15] Sarah Martin, ‘The cognitive dissonance of Scott Morrison’s secret ministry defence is mind-boggling’, The Guardian, August 17, 2022, at https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/17/the-cognitive-dissonance-of-scott-morrisons-defence-is-mind-boggling
[16] Sarah Martin, ‘The cognitive dissonance of Scott Morrison’s secret ministry defence is mind-boggling’, The Guardian, August 17, 2022, at https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/17/the-cognitive-dissonance-of-scott-morrisons-defence-is-mind-boggling
[17] Michelle Grattan, ‘View from The Hill: Morrison reverts to type in an unconvincing defence’, The Conversation, August 17, 2022, at https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-morrison-reverts-to-type-in-an-unconvincing-defence-188911
[18] ‘As it happened: Scott Morrison resists calls to resign amidst minister portfolio saga; governor-general’s role questioned by MPs’, The Age, August 17, 2022, at https://www.theage.com.au/national/australia-news-live-fallout-continues-after-revelations-scott-morrison-swore-himself-into-five-portfolios-while-pm-20220816-p5badb.html?post=p541t7
One wonders if mr albenese could also have an enquiry into mr whitlam, jim cairns, and rex connor whilst he is at it for whitlam and cairns ran wild in government as a two man band and rex connor did the Khemlani loans affair. PM Morrison never did pass the pub test but as the outcome of him granting himself the various portfolios was that he didn’t do anything illegal, let’s move on OR let’s drag out whitlam, cairns, connor and even that nice mr. rudd just to see what he would do for after all it’s only the taxpayers money they are wasting.
The key words here are, “inconsistent with Australia’s parliamentary system of responsible and representative government”.
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Therefore in the same way and for the same reasons, secret ministrys are as illegal under our Constitution as are prohibitions on political speech.
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But just what redress or how to combat it is available, I don’t know. One thing I am sure about though, I don’t want anyone messing with the Constitution.
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The question is was Morrison acting nefariously or was he just plain stupid. Either way perhaps he should just pack up and go.
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What a bonus this has all been for Albo and Co. to take the focus of them.
Of course Anthony Albanese is making the most of this and will continue to drag it out as long as he can and draw every drop of political advantage from it.
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Although it’s very hard to see, it’s still remotely possible he could overplay his hand. That’s the only hope the Coalition has to avoid ongoing political damage. It’s shown total incompetence on how to hand this.
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But … Scott Morrison has it coming and so do minister’s in his cabinet who knew and did nothing about it and those senior ministers who should have known and didn’t.
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Of course leading in the second category, the unknowing, is the man who now leads the Coalition, Peter Dutton.
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It’s a fine commentary on his leadership skills that as the minister in charge of Defence and Border security he didn’t know what was going on in the Treasury, Finance, Health, Home Affairs, Industry and Science and Resources portfolio. What sort of a very senior minister with such vital responsibilities which require vigilance could be kept in the dark to this extent?
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I’ll tell you what sort of a person : one who initially seemed to think ignorance was his main defence from the fall out of this saga.
That was until after more dithering he realised that wasn’t cutting it and he then switched to the line that it was time to “move on” – trivializing the issue.
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What he should have categorically said from the outset: it was wrong and it should be condemned and a government he led would never do this. But he dithered and pussyfooted all over the place and looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights.
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He’s not up to being leader of the Coalition.
Morrison was in contempt of Parliament.
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The Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987 defines contempt of Parliament as:
“Conduct (including the use of words)… [which] amounts, or is intended or likely to amount, to an improper interference with the free exercise by a House or committee of its authority or functions, or with the free performance by a member of the member’s duties as a member.”
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Get on with it Albo.
How come no one noticed at the time that there was no one in charge of Treasury, Finance, Health, Home Affairs, and Industry, and Science & Resources?
One has to love the alacrity with which the majority of our journalistic class snap into action when there’s a character to assassinate.
Never mind the serious economic and societal issues that are staring us in the face.
It was noted here quite a few times over the last two years or so that Morrison was sneakily and successively reneging on one position after another from those he espoused in the 2019 election campaign.
In my view, he hoped that such betrayal would win him the 2022 election. As usual, he thought that his “base voters” had nowhere else to go and embracing Net Zero at Glasgow would hold the Teal seats.
So he sneakily double-crossed his critical Cabinet Ministers to do 180’s on any Ministerial decisions he thought threatened his weasel re-election strategy. This is seen most clearly in him knocking back the gas exploration licence off Newcastle. (Although this is being appealed, I have no doubt Plibersek will eventually squash it).
In my view, he’s a despicable coward.
I’m somewhat bemused by the hypocrisy among politicians and the mainstream media on this issue.
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I guess it’s only natural for a politician like Anthony Albanese to milk it for all its worth. Particularly when he’s up against a dithering leader of the opposition who hasn’t a clue and doesn’t know where to look. An opposition leader whose focus seems to be restricted to sitting on the fence or digging holes for himself.
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Why do I say hypocrisy?
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There of course should be action to prevent this sort of legal – but highly inappropriate fiasco – recurring. It’s outrageous. But the hypocrisy comes in when you consider the other acts that have been allowed to occur before this with arguably a lower degree of outrage. And much enthusiasm from those politicians who perpetrated them on both sides of politics.
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Both our major parties have followed a highly inappropriate course in the fairly recent past of treating the highest position of political power in this country as if it were a revolving door. Their supporters have been right to assert that it’s been perfectly legal but the question is were the political assassinations of so many PMs, without recourse to voters, consistent with “the principles of responsible government”?
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Of course the media certainly drew our attention to these political assassinations. But they seemed to report it more as a political bloodsport to boost readership – consistent with how journalism is regarded as one of the least trusted occupations in Australia. And politicians just acted like politicians – also consistent with the standing of their occupation as one of the least trusted occupations in our country.
Going by how Scott Morrison’s multiple ministry saga was allowed to occur there are some other probably more outrageous scenarios which could also be legally possible but inconsistent with the “principle of responsible government”.
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For example would it be legal for a party to put a figurehead leader to the people at an election who was likely to have a high degree of personal popular support when the real leader lacked such a personality – but remove that popular leader from the leadership before they were even sworn in as PM and have the real leader assume the primeministership?
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The politicians who held the power in their party to do it might consider it a worthwhile strategy to get over the line at a very tight election even though there’d likely to be a huge political backlash after the election. They might figure that they’d get into power doing it but they wouldn’t going with their real publicly unappealing leader who held the power in their party. Also figuring they’d have three years for people to forget the outrage.
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Could it also be legally possible for a party to have a prime minister sworn in secretly while the party publicly referred to someone else, say more publicly popular, as the PM – not totally unlike Scott Morrison’s ministerial power as say Treasurer while the people believed Josh Frydenberg was the only one with the full power of Treasurer.
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These may seem highly improbable and outrageous scenarios but are worth considering in the context of the Governor-General’s role and what could be legally possible that perhaps needs to be ruled out with legislation. On the face of what’s happened the power of politicians needs to be limited here.
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Would the Governor-General intervene to prevent the above situations occurring? Or would it be argued that they were legal and a Governor-General should make such appointments on the advice of who commanded a majority in the lower house ( arguably the source of Scott Morrison’s actual power to do what he did).
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Considering the above scenarios, what actually happened and including the Solicitor-General’s advice that what went on was not consistent with the “principle of responsible government” – should the Governor-General’s role in the saga be getting more scrutiny?
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Is it for example reasonable to argue that the Governor-General was sort of at arms length of what went on and didn’t have the power to act to prevent it occurring or even to publicise what occurred to prevent the people ( and very important affected ministers) being kept in the dark on it? Did the Governor-General simply have to follow the orders of the government? It could be argued he was hardly at arms length in the saga but in the thick of it.
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Arguably these are issues to consider when looking at what actions need to be taken to prevent a recurrence of this outrageous situation.
Re Mr Hooligan, I’ll swear it was Whitlam and Barnard who had the multiple ministries, not Whitlam and Cairns.
When Fraser took over from Whitlam, he didn’t pursue Whitlam with inquiries and harassment. For example, the four Whitlamite members of Executive Council made a blatant lie to the GG that Rex Connor’s planned $4b borrowings from Middle East moneybags were “for temporary purposes”. The lie enabled Whitlam et al to bypass the Loans Council requiring State Premiers’ assent. A National Pipeline Grid and uranium enrichment plant weren’t exactly “temporary” matters. A lawyer called Sankey launched a private prosecution of the ExCo members in Queanbeyan Magistrates Court. The ministers claimed Crown privilege and only their permanent heads could be subpoenaed to give evidence. The key permanent head, Sir Lenox Hewitt (Rex Connor’s man) “happened” to be in transit in mid-air and unreachable during the case until the last minute, and the magistrate shut the case down without him. i.e. no result. I know all this because I sat in the court during the proceedings. One moral is that it is a bad thing, except in extreme cases, for one democratic regime to pursue their predecessor as this hampers peaceful transition of power. The persecution of Trump by Biden’s FBI is a negative example.
Thanks Tony, old age and a failing memory. Probably Morrisons intent was benign tho it wouldn’t pass the pub test, Whitlam and Barnard as was Connor, were acting with intent. The damage Whitlam either did or set in train lives with us to this day and in reality makes Morrisons foibles look amateurish.
Thanks Augusto, good piece. For a man of professed Christian faith Mr Morrison unsettlingly seems to make a quintessential clever, not to say ruthless, politician . What with playing fast and loose with supposed loyalties to get one Prime Minister deposed, ramping up and creating a crisis that should never have been ,then leaping on the stage at every opportunity with firm jaw and fighting posture to sort of take charge and fix it. “” Worst crisis since the second world war”….nonsense, though it certainly sounds good and makes dramatic reporting, but no one with a little wisdom and experience believes it…surely ?
Makes me wonder a bit about his Christian faith to be quite honest…is it all just for show I ask myself ?
I hope not, for his sake.
Like so many government actions, the rationale for this one is difficult to discern.
Did PMs in previous times of ‘crisis’ have themselves secretly sworn in to multiple portfolios already allocated to other ministers?
What was supposed to happen to make this necessary?
Perhaps at some stage, as the ‘crisis’ worsened, the PM was going to need to announce he had taken total control of some aspects of government – much as the ancient Romans appointed a dictator when the Republic was facing a major external challenge.
But where would Morrison get this idea from?
Surely not in the shower at the start of a busy day during the ‘crisis’.
Most likely, this little scheme came directly from an undisclosed source such as the WEF. Perhaps it came via an Australian who had been ‘trained’ in the WEF ‘Young Leaders’ program – or participated in the sinister tabletop pandemic simulation game known as Event 201.
Morrison had some reason for doing this which he has not disclosed. You can be quite sure it was not his own idea. It was undoubtedly done, like so much of the stupid government response to the alleged ‘crisis’, on ‘advice’.
Morrison’s actions were weird and unjustified. But all this angst about subversion by Morrison of responsible government may be a tad overstated. Essentially the doctrine means that government is responsible to parliament, not for how it conducts its cabinet, but for the decisions its ministers make and, in some cases, do not make. No decisions were made (or avoided) during the pandemic that could not be sheeted home to the government. There were no secret decisions by secret ministers. Let’s move on.
P.O’B; I disagree, we have responsible government in which Ministers of the Crown are directly responsible to Parliament. If the Parliament does not know who the Ministers are, there can be no responsible government.
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Of course the Government is making the most of it but it is too important to just move on.
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Meanwhile the opposition just dithers instead of moving on as they should be and putting the Government to account.
They are directly responsible to Parliament for the decisions they make, or don’t make. In this case no decision were made. I agree Morrison’s actions were potentially damaging to to responsible government, but no damage was done. Thus, as I said, I think it has been overstated.
In reply to Peter O’Brien.
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These matters are very important. They go to the heart of how our Westminster system of government operates. What happened here needs to be looked at carefully by an enquiry. It’s inappropriate to say: ” Let’s move on”.
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The essential doctrine in a democracy is that the government is responsible to the people. Responsibility to parliament is simply the means the Westminster system of democracy employs to achieve that end. Responsibility to parliament is not an end in itself but a means to an end.
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In our Westminster system the executive power an individual who commands a majority on the floor of the House of Representatives can wield is arguably more powerful than the power that any one person in the US can wield under its system of democracy.
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That is the power Scott Morrison wielded in this situation to secretly give him the ministries in which he’d be able to use the discretionary executive power of a minister in each of those ministries.
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In your post you’ve hit on a very important point: what did Scott Morrison actually do from any decision he made with the discretionary powers he’d secretly secured for himself? He’s said only one thing. He used the discretionary ministerial powers normally in the hands of the minister Keith Pitt, to stop the Pep-11 gas project.
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And Morrison very publicly took full responsibility for that decision. He very publicly said he actually personally made the decision. Arguably therefore that decision – the only one Scott Morrison said he made with these secretly acquired ministerial powers – was consistent with the “principle of responsible government”.
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However were more decisions made using these secretly acquired discretionary ministerial powers which we haven’t been told about? I’d say probably not. We’ll find out one way or the other fairly soon I’m sure from this enquiry established by the new government.
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Perhaps even more important : what was the total extent of the all the discretionary powers which had been secretly put in the hands of Scott Morrison and which could have arguably been exercised secretly if he so chose? And how many other powers could also have been acquired in the same way Scott Morrison acquired these? Could he have assumed the powers also of the Defence Minister for example?
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Is this potential situation one we should tolerate in our system of democracy? If not what do we need to do to prevent it occurring in future? On the surface no real harm has been done to our “system of responsible government” in this instance but what harm could potentially be done?
I’m perfectly happy to see Morrison figuratively tarred and feathered for as long as he remains in public life. What disgusts me, however, is the hypocrisy of the media that are piling on while pretty much ignoring their obligations to keep the current government honest.
They should be insisting that there is absolutely nothing to be gained by all these inevitably expensive “inquiries” that Albanese is promising that is not already well established.
No fan of ScoMo here, But dimwit and leadfooted Albo is a one trick pony , proud to admit that :Fighting Tories ” is his raison d’etre . More interested in point scoring than governing . A man less fit to lead I’ve not seen .
In reply to Doubting Thomas.
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It’s not only Scott Morrison who’ll continue to be figuratively tarred and feathered for this but the Coalition in general thanks to Peter Dutton’s poor handling of the issue.
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And yes the mainstream media seems to be loving this. Anything which makes the Coalition squirm seems to appeal to it. They’ll continue to rub it in just like Anthony Albanese has been. But surely the media can walk and chew gum at the same time. This issue per se should not be preventing them from holding Labor to account for its poor handling of the inflation threat for example.
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This multiple secret ministries issue has got quite a way to run yet. It’s likely to continue to be very damaging to Coalition electoral prospects everywhere, possibly even at the Victorian state election which is getting closer.
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The Coalition vote was already at a 70-year-low at the election under Scott Morrison but Peter Dutton has managed, as new opposition leader, to take it even lower, BEFORE this even broke.
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And his handling of this issue has made things a lot worse. His defence was initially largely ignorance – which failed miserably to cut it. It was arguably a reflection on his own astuteness as a very senior member of the Morrison cabinet. He then moved his emphasis more to saying we should move on – which appeared to trivialize the issue.
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Initially when this scandal first broke he failed to condemn it in the strongest possible terms and to vow he’d never ever do anything like it in a government he led. Initially he didn’t add his voice to support investigating how we can prevent a recurrence.
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In not acting strongly and forcefully enough against what Morrison did from the outset he’s made it very hard for the Coalition in general to extract itself from the fall out from an issue which was created largely by Scott Morrison.
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And like the mainstream media you’ve criticised Dutton has also failed to hold Labor to account for its poor handling of the inflation threat. Labor has failed to take any effective fiscal action to address the threat – leaving the responsibility to address it to the Reserve Bank. Arguably Labor’s rhetoric has also inflamed inflationary expectations.
@Peter Marriott: not that clever; he lost!
In reply to john mac.
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On the contrary we’re already finding that Anthony Albanese is more than a “one trick pony”. Look at the recent polls. They’re far more than a honeymoon aberration.
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He’s surprised me so far. I didn’t vote for him. He’s certainly not the problem that many thought he may have been, including me.
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The one exception – and it’s an important one – is his and Jim Chalmers’ handling of the inflation threat.
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But an already moribund opposition have nothing more effective to offer to address the inflation threat.
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So it’s not affecting the polls and probably won’t even if inflation gets out of hand. The government already seems to have successfully asserted that it was part the Morrison government’s fault ( which it’s not) and part overseas and covid factors ( which it is).
Morrison took administrative steps to permit him to lawfully take urgent action during the pandemic in the event of a minister being incapacitated. So what ! Sure, make it necessary to advertise those administrative steps in the future. Albo is playing student politics. Ditto with the Voice. Ditto with passing what he had admitted was unnecessary legislation in respect of the 42% emissions nonsense. Ditto with the upcoming talk fest. I wish we had the adults back in charge.
And of course, there was no crisis.
Morrison is either being disingenuous or is very stupid.
I agree norsaint that there may well have been no crisis, but nearly every government on the planet thought there was ,or said there was, so I can’t criticise Morrison for taking steps just in case.
Whilst we are talking inquiries and the Westminster system. I think that if ever a Minister should take blame it was that unmentionable Stuart Robert for his defence in Parliament of the despicable Robodebt theft scheme.
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Now that he is no longer a rooster and just a feather duster, he should just resign from Parliament. The great damage that government theft scheme did to vulnerable Australians was a disgrace. He lives on in my mind as a blight on our national image.