The Solicitor-General found that former Prime Minister Scott Morrison hadn’t committed any crime in appointing himself a Minister in five separate portfolios. However, he discovered that Morrison had seriously breached conventions or, put another way, fundamentally undermined the responsibility of government.
There will be those who will say; “so what,” he hasn’t broken any law. Others will say conventions are unwritten rules and fundamentality essential to any democracy. Within a constitution, conventions go beyond regulations to establish trust and accountability.
They allow for elasticity and flexibility that strengthens a constitution and allows for a smoother government function.
A good example is the United States, where “the Speaker of the House of Representatives is always an elected member and leader of the majority party in the house” even though the US Constitution does not make any specific provisions.
There are other examples: In Australia, we don’t vote for a Prime Minister. The majority party’s leader in parliament (the House of Representatives) becomes the prime minister.
A government will resign if it loses a confidence vote in the House of Representatives.
There are many examples, like pairing members to obtain a fair vote. A convention that Tony Abbott was fond of breaking.
Conventions have, in many instances, survived for hundreds of years as an accepted practice, without the authority of the law relying on shared values that have evolved over time.
After receiving advice from the Solicitor-General that Scott Morrison hadn’t broken any laws, attention will now fall on an inquiry to find out who knew what and why didn’t anyone confront him with the news that he was flouting convention.
In four short tweets, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull summarises just why an inquiry is needed.
The inquiry into the #SecretMinistries scandal must go beyond Morrison. Understanding, as I do, how PMO, PMC and the GG office are meant to work I remain astonished that there was apparently no pushback to Morrison when he embarked on his bizarre secret accumulation of power.
— Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) August 23, 2022
Morrison’s CoS, John Kunkel, had worked for John Howard. He must have known this was a bad move. Equally PMC officials including Stephanie Foster must have known this was utterly without precedent and wrong. What did they do and say. If they did nothing – the system failed.
— Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) August 23, 2022
At Government House – David Hurley has been CDF, Governor of NSW and Governor General. He knows how government works. He knows the GG is not a rubber stamp and can ask questions, give advice and warn. His Official Secretary Paul Singer has been at Govt House for many years.
— Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) August 23, 2022
How did all these experienced people allow Morrison to do this. If any of them had dug their heels in, pushed back, and done so in writing it is hard to believe even the self described bulldozer would have persisted. If they did not push back then they, and the system, failed.
— Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) August 23, 2022
It was his petulance for secrecy that angered his colleagues.
Conventions, wrote The Conversation a few years ago:
“… are accepted practices that don’t have the authority of law but depend instead on the force of shared values and expectations. They are more fluid and contestable than legal rules and tend to evolve over time.
All political systems extensively use conventions as part of their political culture. But such conventions are essential in systems based on the United Kingdom’s Westminster model.”
In an excellent piece on this subject on Pearls and Irritations (and reproduced on for The AIMN) – a must-read, in my view – John Waterford points out that:
“The novelty and dodginess of Morrison’s request should have tipped the GG to the need for caution and openness. The misjudgement stains his record, indeed is his lasting record.”
He also questions:
“The very novelty of what Morrison was asking, and the knowledge that Morrison regularly showed no regard for process, law or convention, should have suggested to Hurley a need for caution and personal conviction of a strong constitutional footing.”
And concludes that:
“Morrison is not yet telling the full story. We have no reason to believe anything he says. There is clear evidence of trying to get around the requirements of the constitution and breaking any number of conventions and understanding about how responsible democratic government operates. There’s been a long pattern of this. Morrison may now be dead meat, but the smell, the feel and the taste of his lawless regime will persist until there is a searching investigation.”
In the fullness of time, many questions will be asked, and convention will demand that the truth be told.
WORDS THAT MAKE YOU THINK
We have never been told who gave the order for Covid infected passengers to disembark from the Ruby Princess on 19 March 2020. Our PM became Health Minister on 14 March.There is a story about to hit on Scott Morrison's illegal multi-jobs saga.
— john lord. WORDS THAT MAKE YOU THINK (@saint13333) August 22, 2022
Questions:
Who told the book’s authors (the book that revealed about Morrison’s appointment to multiple portfolios: Plagued, by Simon Benson and Geoff Chambers, journalists with The Australian)?
Why were they not recorded in the Governor-General David Hurley’s diary?
Who were the compliant MPs?
Did Morrison defer a lockdown to allow the Hillsong conference to go ahead?
Was Barnaby Joyce putting the loss of a cabinet minister ahead of a convention that told him what he should do?
So when Scott Morrison attacked Christine Holgate, he was secretly one of the shareholder Ministers for Aust Post.
There was already questions over his political interference with the board. Now there are serious questions about whether he misled parliament and misused his power— 💚🌏 Sarah Hanson-Young (@sarahinthesen8) August 22, 2022
There will be an inquiry into this affair and a Royal Commission into Robodebt and one into the Coalition government’s handling and response of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the centre of each will be Scott Morrison.
They will be followed by other accusations before the new national integrity commission; Sports Rorts etc.
Probably Morrison’s worst act of disregarding caretaker convention was in the dying hours of his tenure as Prime Minister, when called then-home affairs minister Karen Andrews to demand the unorthodox disclosure of a suspected asylum seeker boat arrival. That was disgraceful.
And in November, Niki Savva will release her latest book on this sordid time in our political history.
In a lengthy piece on his Facebook page, Morrison stood by his self-righteousness but failed to mention the central point of the need for secrecy.
I just have to ask… is he guilty of lying to us, or just omitting to tell the truth?
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My thought for the day
The ability of thinking human beings to blindly embrace what they are being told without referring to evaluation and the consideration of fact, truth, and reason never cease to amaze me. It is tantamount to the rejection of rational explanation.
We would be a much better society if we took the risk of thinking for ourselves, rather than allowing ourselves to be manipulated and obstructed by the unadulterated crap served up by the media, self-serving government and self-interest groups.
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