Scott Morrison has been accused of “trashing Australia’s democracy” after it was revealed he secretly appointed himself to five additional ministries while he was prime minister.
Anthony Albanese, the country’s current PM, has said he is exploring legal action after it emerged that the former premier had appointed himself to positions in several departments between March 2020 and May 2021.
Mr Morrison swore himself in to positions on health, finance, industry, science, energy and resources, home affairs and treasury portfolios without the public’s knowledge and, in some cases, that of the existing minister.
Karen Andrews, a former minister for home affairs, called on Mr Morrison to resign as an MP, saying: “This is totally unacceptable, for a prime minister to behave in this manner undermines everything that a federal government constitutionally should stand for.”
Former PM Malcolm Turnbull branded Mr Morrison’s secret portoflios “profoundly wrong”, adding: “What really, deeply troubles me is that there are other people in the system who clearly thought it was okay.
“The governor general is not just a rubber stamp. They have a constitution to uphold.”
Mr Morrison claimed he was added to the portfolios “just in case” it was necessary for him to become involved during the pandemic.
In a televised address, Mr Albanese said: “There have been revelations of an extraordinary and unprecedented trashing of our democracy by the former Morrison government.
“This has been government by deception… I used to say Scott Morrison had two jobs in government and he botched them both. It turns out I was wrong about there being just two jobs.”
Mocking a slogan of his rival’s campaign, he called Mr Morrison the world’s first “stealth bulldozer,” accusing him of operating in secret and “misleading parliament”.
Mr Albanese said on Tuesday he was seeking legal advice over whether to seek courtroom action over his predecessor’s behaviour.
Mr Morrison was prime minister for two terms from 2018 until May 2022, when the coalition led by his centre-right Liberal party conceded defeat to Mr Albanese’s Labour party.
The backbench MP told Sydney radio station 2GB that he “did not recall” having any influence over other committees but it was something he was looking into. Mr Morrison struggled to remember which departments he was privy to.
The arrangement allowed him to make quick decisions within ministerial departments if necessary.
“They were done purely administratively without any expectation of them ever being used,” he told host Ben Fordham. “They were put there as a redundancy just in case.”
In a further statement, Mr Morrison apologised to his former ministerial colleagues “for any offence”. He added the arrangement was a “break glass in case of emergency”.
“These were extraordinary times and they required extraordinary measures to respond,” Mr Morrison wrote in a long Facebook address.
The story was broken by two NewsCorp reporters promoting a new book documenting the Australian government’s handling of the pandemic.
