Scott Morrison job scandal: ‘I can’t understand the fuss’

Scott Morrison’s decision to secretly appoint himself minister of several key portfolios was a “sensible precautionary move in uncertain times”, argues Joe Hildebrand.

For the life of me, I just can’t understand all the fuss about former prime minister Scott Morrison secretly appointing himself to five portfolios including health minister, finance minister and resources minister.

I mean clearly this was simply a sensible precautionary move in uncertain and unprecedented times.

For example, if the other health minister, Greg Hunt, was instantly killed by Covid-19 someone would have to make all those vital pandemic decisions — and it’s not like the PM could simply appoint an “acting minister”. When has that ever happened?!?

Likewise, the PM needed to make himself finance minister just in case the government needed to instantly spend a huge amount of money at the exact same moment Mathias Cormann got unexpectedly vaporised.

Scott Morrison secretly appointed himself to five portfolios during the pandemic. Picture: Gary Ramage

And why would you want to tell your mate Mathias what you were doing? Who wants to have their imminent spontaneous combustion hanging over their head?

And, of course, it is vital in the interests of public health that if there is another Covid outbreak and the resources minister happens to instantly die that the PM can use his secret powers to block the renewal of a gas exploration project.

It just makes sense.

Columnist Joe Hildebrand.

In fact, the real surprise is that Scott Morrison stopped secretly giving himself everyone else’s jobs. And why even stop at the cabinet?

The former PM should also have made himself a qualified teacher so he could fill the staff shortages caused by isolation rules, and made himself a trained police officer so he could break up Covid parties.

And most importantly he should have changed his name to Karen so he could tell people off for not wearing masks in Bunnings.

To think the former prime minister of this country could have single-handedly solved the nation’s entire skills shortage with the stroke of a pen but tragically stopped short.

On an unrelated note, I have some good news for readers: I’ve just found out that on the off chance I happen to suffer any mysterious misfortune there’s a stand-by columnist already waiting in the wings to deliver next week’s article — and apparently his CV is very impressive.

Originally published as Scott Morrison job scandal: ‘I can’t understand the fuss’