‘That stinks’: Stunning twist in Scott Morrison’s secret minister move revealed
Scott Morrison’s minister scandal has taken another wild turn after it emerged a senior minister taught him the “trick”.
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Scott Morrison secretly appointed himself to Christian Porter’s ministerial portfolio without his consent after the former Attorney-General taught him how to do it.
News.com.au has confirmed Mr Porter was left in the dark when the former Prime Minister asked the Governor-General to appoint him to the Industry portfolio - which Mr Porter had recently taken charge of - in April 2021.
It was a stunning twist to the “trick” Mr Porter himself had outlined to him in March 2020 when he held the Attorney-General’s portfolio, where he had explained how the Prime Minister could appoint himself as a second Health Minister.
As it emerged the nation’s spy chief, ASIO director-general Mike Burgess, was left in the dark that Mr Morrison had appointed himself to Home Affairs last year, new details are coming to light about the strange practices in the Prime Minister’s office.
The first time Mr Morrison used the secret mechanism to appoint himself to portfolios was on the advice of Mr Porter as Attorney-General.
In March 2020, he appointed himself as joint Minister the Health portfolio with Liberal frontbencher Greg Hunt’s knowledge and consent, and on the advice of Mr Porter.
However, once armed with the knowledge, Mr Morrison would go on to use the mechanism to secretly appoint himself to four other portfolios – including Finance in 2020, Industry in April 2021, and then finally Home Affairs and Treasury in May 2021.
The Australian columnist Janet Albrechtsen said she believed it was a closely guarded secret.
Sources tell me former AG created the legal template for Morrison to take health in March 2020. Morrison used that same template, without the AG knowing, to take hold of other ministerial responsibilities. It’s the secrecy that stinks. And they tell me…
— janet albrechtsen (@jkalbrechtsen) August 16, 2022
“Sources tell me the former AG created the legal template for Morrison to take Health in March 2020,’’ she said.
“Morrison used that same template, without the AG knowing, to take hold of other ministerial responsibilities. It’s the secrecy that stinks.”
News.com.au has independently verified that Mr Porter was left in the dark on Morrison’s extra appointments.
While the Prime Minister has tried to use the pandemic to explain some of the decisions behind his secret power grab, there appears to have been no Covid-19 element to his decision to seize Industry just a month after he appointed Mr Porter to the job.
At the time, Mr Porter had gone on mental health leave after facing historical rape allegations – that he strenuously denied and never faced criminal charges over – before shifting from the Attorney-General’s portfolio to Industry.
Mr Porter has told colleagues he helped Mr Morrison and then Health Minister Greg Hunt come up with a plan to share “extraordinary” powers during the pandemic, to ensure there was additional oversight.
A new book, Plagued, revealed at the weekend one option being considered was to delegate the powers to cabinet, but Mr Porter’s advice was that these powers could not be delegated and could reside only with the Health Minister.
“Morrison then hatched a radical and until now secret plan with Porter’s approval,’’ the book states.
“He would swear himself in as Health Minister alongside Hunt. Such a move was without precedent, let alone being done in secret, but the trio saw it as an elegant solution to the problem they were trying to solve – safeguarding against any one minister having absolute power.
“Porter advised that it could be done through an administrative instrument and didn’t need appointment by the Governor-General, with no constitutional barrier to having two ministers appointed to administer the same portfolio.
“I trust you, mate,” Morrison told Hunt, “but I’m swearing myself in as health minister, too”.
News.com.au revealed on Sunday, however, that another portfolio – Resources – was involved and those arrangements were without the minister Keith Pitt’s knowledge or consent.
Mr Porter has now told colleagues that when Scott Morrison later used the trick to appoint himself to other portfolios, he didn’t know about it.
Mr Porter was appointed to the Industry portfolio in March 2021. Mr Morrison appointed himself to the portfolio in April 2021.
But he only used the powers in December 2021, months after Mr Porter resigned from the portfolio on 19 September 2021.
His replacement in the Industry portfolio was Angus Taylor, who also did not know the Prime Minister had appointed himself to the portfolio.
Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has described Scott Morrison’s secret ministerial power grab as “unusual and strange and unorthodox”.
Speaking in London on Tuesday night, Mr Abbott defended Governor-General David Hurley’s decision to agree to his secret requests to take control of portfolios.
“Certainly it does seem unusual, it does seem unorthodox and it does seem strange that at least some of the ministers didn’t know about it,’’ he said.
“As for the Governor-General, I have every confidence that he would have acted not just on the basis of the political advice of the Prime Minister but that he would have got legal advice that what was happening was appropriate, legally appropriate, whatever of you might think of the politics of it.”
However, former Prime Minister John Howard said that there was no evidence to date it was illegal.
“I understand why it’s been criticised, but it’s not some kind of constitutional crisis. And I think these calls for a sort of semi-Royal Commission and so forth into what happened are a bit over the top,’’ he said.
“I think what happened was unwise. Was it illegal? No, I haven’t seen anything illegal.”
Originally published as ‘That stinks’: Stunning twist in Scott Morrison’s secret minister move revealed
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