THE former prime minister, Scott Morrison, gave a media conference yesterday to justify his actions in secretly appointing himself to the various positions that have made him the butt of anger, disbelief and laughter as the "Minister for Everything".
But the more that Mr Morrison tried to explain what he did - "I was steering the ship in the middle of the tempest," he said at one point - the further he dug himself into political and reputational quicksand.
Were Mr Morrison still in government he would face calls to resign as PM on the simple grounds of misleading the parliament - which by omission he certainly did.
As an opposition back-bencher and a servant of the Liberal Party and the voters who elected him, the honourable course for Mr Morrison is to resign from politics.
The scale of this controversy and the time for which it could run means that an early-term by-election is the least of the Coalition's worries.
At this stage, however, Mr Morrison appears determined to try to tough it out. If he does stay, he would at least be around to front whichever parliamentary committee, or committees, are charged with investigating this sorry and ill-advised saga.
It would be wrong to call this a constitutional crisis, because the issues involved are now no longer "alive", thanks to the May 21 election that ended the Morrison government and a decade of Coalition rule.
However Mr Morrison has certainly embroiled the Governor-General, David Hurley, whose involvement was confirmed yesterday by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, which published the four relevant instruments of appointment, signed by the governor-general, on its website.
There can be no peacetime rationale for accumulating secret powers. As we said here yesterday, it is not the legality or otherwise of his actions, but their secrecy, which renders his behaviour irredeemably wrong.
Even Mr Morrison's intervention in PEP-11 was misleading.
The assumption at the time was that he was announcing a broader cabinet decision, even if the resources minister, Keith Pitt, had nominal control. Now we know otherwise.
Mr Morrison is always more than ready to lecture Labor on ethics.
But ethics must start with honesty towards the electorate; an honesty Mr Morrison did not show in office, and is reluctant to recognise now.
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