Ex-prime minister Scott Morrison’s decision to secretly appoint himself to several ministries was “corrosive” to the public’s trust in government, an inquiry has found.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese released the inquiry’s report on Friday afternoon, the same day he said he received it.
“The unprecedented and inexcusable actions of the former prime minister were emblematic of the culture of secrecy in which the previous government operated,” he told reporters.
Former High Court justice Virginia Bell’s report into the ministries affair recommends new transparency legislation that would guarantee the public is told when ministers are sworn in.
Morrison appointed himself minister of five different portfolios without letting most of his cabinet colleagues know.
Even some of the colleagues Morrison shared portfolios with didn’t find out until it was revealed earlier this year by media reporting.
Morrison’s first extra ministry was health, in March 2020. In that case, it had been suggested by then attorney-general Christian Porter as a check on the power of the responsible minister, Greg Hunt, to use extraordinary pandemic powers.
The same pretext was used to appoint Morrison as finance minister later the same month, as COVID-19 spread across the country.
Bell deemed both appointments “unnecessary”.
“If Mr Hunt or [then finance minister Mathias] Cormann had become incapacitated and it was desired to have a senior minister exercise the health minister’s expansive human biosecurity emergency powers or the finance minister’s significant financial authorities, Mr Morrison could have been authorised to act as minister for health or minister for finance in a matter of minutes,” she wrote.
The later appointments, to the portfolios of industry (April 2021), treasury and home affairs (May 2021) had “little if any connection to the pandemic”, Bell wrote.
Among the key revelations in the Bell report were:
- The only people who knew about the health appointment were a few senior ministers, including Hunt, and some senior public servants, including the then chief medical officer and the Department of Home Affairs secretary
- The appointments to finance, treasury and home affairs weren’t disclosed to “anyone other than some members of the [Prime Minister’s Office] and officers in PM&C involved in arranging the appointments”
- Then resource minister Keith Pitt was one of the few people who knew about the appointment to that portfolio
- Morrison’s PM&C secretary, Phil Gaetjens, viewed the health and finance appointments as appropriate, but warned his boss the industry appointment could be legally dicey because Morrison used that role to rule on a resource extraction application.
Bell made six recommendations:
- A legal requirement for new ministers to be recorded in the Commonwealth Gazette
- Authorisations of acting ministers who remain in the role for more than two weeks should also be gazetted
- Department websites should periodically publicise all acting arrangements
- A document identifying ministers and their responsibilities should be published on the PM&C website
- A website should be created for ministerial appointments
- A requirement for departments to publish lists of ministers that administer them, and include the information in annual reports.
Albanese said he accepted all of the report’s recommendations.
