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It was the “very real prospect” of Prime Minister, Boris Johnson dying from Covid that inspired a move that led to one of the most bizarre weeks in Australian political history.
So said former Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, this week when he outlined his rationale behind a scandal that has left his colleagues, opposition leaders and the public still scratching their heads over exactly what on earth their former leader was thinking.
This week it emerged that between March 2020 and May 2021 during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Mr Morrison secretly appointed himself to five ministerial roles – health, finance, home affairs, treasury and industry – without telling the ministers running those portfolios or the public about the move.
The appointments were authorised by Governor-General, David Hurley, who said he signed an “administrative instrument on the advice of the prime minister” – who was Mr Morrison – to give him the extra powers.
The move was first revealed in media reports which said Mr Morrison used his additional powers on at least one occasion, to overturn a decision by former resources minister Keith Pitt to approve a contentious gas project off the New South Wales coast.
Home affairs minister Karen Andrews, who was also unaware Mr Morrison had signed himself up to her portfolio, called on him to quit.
“For a former prime minister to have behaved in that manner, to secretly be sworn into other portfolios, undermines the Westminster system, it’s absolutely unacceptable,” she said.
Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who came to power after an election in May, said the “shadow government” operation was “just weird” and compared the saga to the secrecy in Fight Club.
“The first rule of power-grab club is don’t talk about power-grab club,” Mr Albanese said, calling for an apology. “The Australian people went to an election not knowing that any of this had occurred, not knowing that there was a shadow government operating in darkness.”
Mr Morrison attempted to explain his move in a lengthy Facebook post claiming the pandemic led to “extraordinary times and they required extraordinary measures to respond.”
“To achieve this we needed to ensure continuity of government and robust administrative arrangements to deal with the unexpected in what was a period of constant uncertainty during the nation’s biggest crisis outside of wartime,” he said.
He claimed the risk of ministers becoming hospitalised or incapacitated was “very real”, citing the fact the “UK Prime Minister was… facing the very real prospect of dying of Covid-19.”
But rather than appoint a deputy as Mr Johnson’s office did while in hospital, Mr Morrison said: “I took the precaution of being given authority to administer various departments of state should the need arise due to incapacity of a Minister or in the national interest.”
He said he considered the move “prudent and responsible” and only added the departments of treasury and home affairs added as a “belt and braces” approach. In the extraordinary post he failed to apologise for the move itself, only “offence to my colleagues”. He said the arrangements were unnecessary in hindsight and he did not recall having done it as “there was a lot going on at the time.”
He also blamed “partisan” commentary for criticism of the move and noted without a hint of irony: “In a democracy it is a positive thing for these issues to be discussed”.
Cue jaws hitting floors around the country with pages of analysis on the “red hot rage” of fellow ministers, as well as the extraordinary lack of trust in his colleagues the move revealed. The fact it seems more like something from the playbook of Australia’s arch frenemy, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, seemed lost on Mr Morrison – but then he always did have a tin ear for the public mood.
This is the same Prime Minister who opted to go on holiday at the height of the December 2019 bushfire crisis and was only rolled after being pictured with tourists. When asked to justify being missing in action, he responded: “I don’t hold a hose, mate, and I don’t sit in a control room”.
When a young liberal staffer broke her silence in February 2021 to allege she was raped by a colleague in Parliament House and then brought to a meeting about the incident in the same room it occurred, the move triggered a groundswell of action about treatment of women in parliament in beyond. Mr Morrison led his response by saying he had discussed the issue with his wife, Jenny, who “has a way of clarifying things.”
“She said to me, ‘You have to think about this as a father first. What would you want to happen if it were our girls?’ he said, in a speech that saw him ridiculed for not understanding that colleagues simply shouldn’t be raped, regardless of whether the situation was seen through the lens of his own daughters.
Further comments he made following a protest outside parliament in support of women’s rights that other similar events were “met with bullets, but not here in this country” led Natasha Stott Despoja, a former Democrats senator who was appointed to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, to say she was left “quite stunned”.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson Young joked perhaps there was a silver lining in the wake of the ministries scandal: “Just like we should be thankful of not being met with bullets, us women should be relieved Scott Morrison didn’t appoint himself Minister for Women… that would have been a step too far, even for him.”
Despite the fact Prime Minister Antony Albanese is seeking advice on the legality of the moves, Mr Morrison ended the week “feeling amused” at the furore.
“It’s been fun joining in on all the memes,” he wrote on Facebook in response to the public outpouring of jokes and ridicule. “But there are so many now I can’t keep up. As Aussies we can always have a chuckle at ourselves. have a good evening,” he signed off.
While some commenters remained supportive, others summed up the mood. “I supported you, what you did isn’t transparent and doesn’t pass the pub test,” Brendan Hall wrote.
“Maybe you should have spent more time making memes than secretly making yourself minister of everything,” Stevan Craygy replied.
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