Anthony Albanese has called a snap inquiry into Scott Morrison’s secret multiple ministries, setting up a standoff over whether the former prime minister will or won’t cooperate.
The inquiry will be headed by Justice Virginia Bell, who retired from the high court in February 2021 – one of a conga line of justices to come off the bench and move relatively quickly into a fresh inquisitorial role.
All week Morrison, the new Liberal leader, Peter Dutton, and the former PM’s ally Stuart Robert have been preparing the ground to argue that Labor has overreached and the inquiry is nothing but a “witch-hunt” or a get-square against Morrison.
Morrison has said he will cooperate with any “genuine” inquiry, which he claims must include the role of Labor premiers during the pandemic.
Dutton and Robert have pointed to the deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, calling for a “severe, political consequence” for Morrison as evidence of partisan motives.
On Friday, Albanese and the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, claimed Bell’s credentials proved the inquiry would be both serious and at arm’s length. The terms of reference are modest and sensible, they said.
There are still genuine questions to be answered.
In lengthy Facebook posts and during a press conference, Morrison had spoken about his appointments being like “break glass in case of emergency” powers. But still very little is known about how he thought they might be exercised and why he granted them when he did, collecting them in an ad hoc fashion over 14 months.
Albanese has said that “clearly” some in the then PM’s department knew what he was doing. What did they advise?
The former attorney general Christian Porter gave advice in relation to the health portfolio only, the first to be collected. What did it say and why was that template copied to four other portfolios?
With these questions still unanswered, it is unclear why, as Morrison would have it, we must delay the inquiry into his “meshuffle” until such time as we inquire into the handling of the whole pandemic.
By putting a condition on his appearance, Morrison was preparing an escape hatch should he decide to refuse to cooperate.
Albanese sought to slam that shut by noting that if he doesn’t, then “other measures could be considered”, meaning a possible parliamentary inquiry that could compel Morrison or find him in contempt if he doesn’t appear.
Does this set a precedent? A government obsessing over the peccadilloes of its predecessor, especially in the same week it called a royal commission into the robodebt scheme?
There is an argument that precedence has already been set. Tony Abbott called a royal commission into the pink batts home insulation scheme, which examined former Labor PM Kevin Rudd.
Abbott called a royal commission into “trade union governance and corruption” also helmed by a high court judge, Dyson Heydon, who agreed to speak at a Liberal fundraiser, forgot about it, then ruled it didn’t make him ineligible for the inquiry.
That royal commission examined former Labor PM Julia Gillard about her home renovations more than two decades prior and the Labor leader at the time, Bill Shorten.
By far the bigger risk for the Albanese government is that this will take the focus off other issues that Australians care more about: wages growth and the spiralling cost of living.
Albanese made sure to phone in to 2GB this week to talk cost of living and made no esoteric constitutional points. He attended the bush summit to talk flood recovery and biodiversity. His ministers conducted roundtables in preparation for next week’s jobs and skills summit.
Labor is determined to show it can do the bread and butter of governing while also getting to the bottom of an episode the solicitor general found “fundamentally undermined” responsible government.
