Despite three brutal weeks in which his legacy collapsed and his character and leadership style were condemned as deceitful, controlling and strange, Scott Morrison is showing no signs of remorse.
The former PM will face an inquiry led by a former High Court Justice after he was revealed to have secretly taken on the powers of much of the Australian cabinet across five portfolios, assumed without telling all but one of the colleagues who had been the responsible minister.
But in an interview on Sky News on Monday night, Mr Morrison at times variously discounted the significance of the scandal and suggested it had been used as cover for a piece of political payback.
Rising above it
The former PM said he declined to respond to recent criticism because it was part of a cycle of viciousness in modern politics, one he would now rise above.
“I’m certainly not going to get bitter about it,” he said.
“I think many people can see through these things.
“They have been having a big crack at me. I’m just not engaging in it.
“Someone has to sort of break the circuit here.
‘‘I could respond to this claim and that and this slur and all the rest of it, but I don’t wish to do that.’’
Sky interviewer Paul Murray is a close friend of Mr Morrison and invited the former PM to play down the significance of what has elsewhere been described the greatest breach of Australia’s democratic procedure in nearly 50 years or a power grab without parallel in the history of Westminster democracies.
The former PM suggested lots had to be thrown out the window in the face of the pandemic, often to his own detriment.
Mr Morrison said a new book about his government during COVID-19 portrayed the tension between strong leadership in crisis and combative modern politics.
Mr Morrison said that the “circus” of public life produced easy sledges on his character or decision making, but he had chosen not to engage with it.
“Over the last three years, yeah, could I have been more engaged in the political fight over that time?’’ Mr Morrison said. ”
‘‘Governing should come first over politics and if I’ve paid a political price for that, fair enough.’’
The closing note of the foreword of the book, written by two News Corp journalists, floats the idea that Mr Morrison’s defeat at May’s election was not dissimilar to Winston Churchill’s in the 1945 British general election after leading Britain to victory in the European theatre.
Mr Morrison declined to provide further explanation or apology about why he took on his colleague’s appointments without telling even those closest to him, such as former Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
“I’ve said what I’ve had to say about the issue, particularly about the ministries,’’ he said.
“I was trying to do what was best for the country and there was just so much happening.
“There was just one thing after the other, after the other. We made thousands of decisions.
“I’ve explained the situation and I don’t expect everybody to agree with me.’’
That’s democracy
A review by the government’s solicitor-general said Mr Morrison had “fundamentally undermined” Australian cabinet government and three previous Liberal prime ministers have joined the public condemnation.
Mr Morrison had said he will meet Justice Virginia Bell, who is leading an inquiry into his behaviour in the prime ministership. But he suggested he did not fear the appointment.
“People will pore over this one and that one,” he said.
“That’s our democratic process, for people who choose to pursue that.’’
He shot in the directions of the state leaders who served alongside him in the national cabinet, the governing body he created for the health emergency.
Mr Morrison said the institution had made his leadership so difficult during the pandemic but also distracted from scrutiny of how premiers had exercised their own pandemic powers.
“Australia had a lecture or lesson in federation over the course of the pandemic,” he said.
Mr Morrison said many people thought he had powers ‘‘that I did not have’’.
“Our federation puts enormous powers in the states,’’ he said.
“People were really frustrated about the powers and the decision that premiers took.
“They have got to be accountable for those, like I had to be accountable for the decisions that I was responsible for. But as a prime minister, it is the job to herd cats.”
Perspective
The interview was Mr Morrison’s first since he led the Liberal Party to the worst election result in its history and gave the first acknowledgment into how the loss affected him.
On the night of his defeat Mr Morrison said he thought mainly of Europe.
“We’ve lost an election,” he said.
‘‘But here we are living in a country where we’re not having to defend ourselves against an aggressor coming across our borders.’’
Then rugby league provided perspective.
“Equivalently, applied to grand finals, I lost one on one, one. In any other sort of normal life, that’s a pretty good outing.”
On life after politics, he said he planned to stay mainly in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire and take things a little slower.
“There is a weight that is lifted, one that you’ve been privileged to carry,” he said.
“The pace of your day, which was non-stop before that, isn’t there, and you sort of get quite accustomed to moving at that pace and you sort of wake up each day ready to do a million things.
“And after a while, you sort of go ‘oh’.”
‘‘I’m fine,” he said in a message to Murray’s viewers.
“I’m philosophical about political life. If you want fair, don’t go into politics and expect it to be. It’s not going to be and that’s not what it’s about.”
