Morrison ‘saved lives’: Why former PM deserves highest honour in the land

Every Australian former prime minister since 1975 – except Paul Keating – has been offered and accepted the appointment to the Companion of the Order of Australia. However, reaction to Scott Morrison receiving the nation’s highest honour has been mixed.

Speaking to our deputy federal editor Nick Bonyhady on The Morning Edition podcast, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald’s senior economics correspondent Shane Wright discusses the 830-name-strong 2025 King’s Birthday honours list and why, despite some branding it “the worst insult to all Australians”, there is a case that the 30th prime minister of Australia deserves to be included on it.

Click the player below to listen to the full episode, or read on for an edited extract of the conversation.

Bonyhady: What’s the reaction been like [to Scott Morrison’s King’s Birthday honour]?

Wright: Well, a bit like the reaction to Scott Morrison in general. I think that’d be the best way to describe it. There are those who recognise that this is a recognition of just how hard the job is and the period in which he was prime minister. So remember, he gets elected in 2019 … he is in charge during COVID-19, which, by any stretch of any imagination, [was] one of the more telling and difficult periods for administrations around the world ... plus they’ve tacked on AUKUS and striking the deal with Britain and the United States for a large number of very expensive submarines right into the defence space. So that’s what the recognition is.

Then Prince Charles with former prime minister Scott Morrision in 2019.Credit: News Pool

But the reaction is falling a bit on political lines, so former prime ministers don’t often get much love, especially if they’ve been voted out of office ... you can see some of that is, “Why the hell did ScoMo get this? It should be going to somebody more deserving.” But of course, you then have to ignore the fact that every prime minister has had recognition of them because ultimately, running the country for however long is almost the pinnacle of political life, of public life in this country. So that’s a recognition of that.

Bonyhady: You covered the ups and downs of his time in office, the JobKeeper payments, but also the scandals around robo-debt. On balance, do you think he deserves the award?

Wright: Yeah, I think so. I think so, you can focus on robo-debt, and we’ve had a royal commission into that space. You haven’t touched on the fact that he managed to become minister for six or seven other portfolios without bothering to tell anyone. But ultimately, no one is perfect, and this is recognition of just how much was involved in dealing with COVID-19.

Scott Morrison can rightfully say he saved the lives of thousands of people.

Bonyhady: And that’s a massive thing.

Wright: That is a massive thing. And I think that if you are so, so ignorant of the importance of that role, and you come back to, say, what was happening in New York in the first half of 2020, when New York was running out of space to bury people, and they were having to put up freezer trucks outside hospitals as temporary morgues – that did not happen in this country. So yes, there are people alive today because of the decisions that Scott Morrison led.

Now you can quibble, and people have, about elements of that, especially once you got further on. Like, as an economics writer, you talk about how much money was spent and whether that added to inflation – that is an issue to debate.

But ultimately, there are people alive because of Scott Morrison, so ... I think it’s being more than churlish to say, “well, he doesn’t deserve any recognition”. And ultimately, we all make mistakes. Prime ministers, all of them, make mistakes, and you can criticise those, but does that outweigh that broader effort that he has been recognised for?

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