Scott Morrison says Labor’s weaponisation of Brittany Higgins a ‘new low mark’

Scott Morrison reflects on Labor’s weaponisation of events during his tenure as PM, including natural disasters, Covid and sexual assault allegations made by Brittany Higgins, after being awarded a King’s Birthday honours gong.

Former prime minister Scott Morrision was awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia in this year's King's Birthday honours list. Picture: John Feder

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Scott Morrison has urged the ­Coalition to embrace policies that give people economic choices in life and mount the case that governments in a post-pandemic era can only “treat symptoms for so long before it starts eroding your capacity to have a strong economy”.

The former Liberal prime minister and treasurer – awarded a Companion of the Order of ­Australia in the King’s Birthday honours list – said the Covid years had fundamentally changed the way Australians think about the major parties and economic security.

Mr Morrison, 57, who led the nation through the pandemic and deployed big-spending policies to insulate the country from economic and health shocks, warned that the goalposts have now ­shifted for political parties who simply promised to fix the budget.

Reflecting on massive losses suffered by the Liberal Party at the 2022 and 2025 elections, he ­described a “collision of significant forces”, including the disaggregation of politics that started with the Greens, Democrats and One Nation in the 1990s and has manifested in the rise of Climate 200-backed teal independents.

As Opposition Leader Sussan Ley conducts a review of Peter Dutton’s policies and the ­Coalition’s disastrous May 3 election defeat, Mr Morrison said “on issues like economic and national security, I think we (the Liberal Party) still retain, particularly on the latter, a very strong brand”.

“But on economic security, I question whether people think about economic security the same way they did before Covid,” Mr Morrison said in an interview with The Australian.

“Economic security can equally mean people looking to the government to insulate them from economic cycles, and we’ve seen a lot of that in government policy post-Covid. We had to do it in Covid to save the country but we were also resolute about turning it off.

“We’ve become more focused on treating the symptoms than treating the cause in policy. And that’s obviously a mantle for the Coalition to take up now.

“It’s not just about being ­responsible financial managers, or being stronger on economic growth and the things that produce that, be they lower taxes (or) sensible and flexible industrial arrangements.

“You can’t just say, oh, we’re going to balance the budget. Well, what does that mean? How is that helping me? How does that address the opportunities that I have?”

Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin.

Deborah Hutton.

Among other recipients of King’s Birthday Honours are film director Baz Luhrmann (Companion of the Order of Australia AC); his costume designer wife Catherine Martin ( Companion of the Order of Australia AC); Olympian Nicole Livingstone (Officer of the Order of Australia AO); former NSW Police Force commissioner Naguib ‘Nick’ Kaldas (Officer of the Order of Australia AO); media, publishing figure Deborah Hutton (Medal of the Order of Australia OAM); former Business Council of Australia chief Jennifer Westacott (Companion of the Order of Australia AC); and broadcaster, writer Phillip Adams (Companion of the Order of Australia in the General Division).

Mr Morrison said the Liberals and Nationals have an opportunity to “make that case again for economic policy that gives people economic choices in life”.

“A strong economy is what you need to fund essential services. You don’t have a pension system, you don’t have a hospital system, you don’t have defence forces if you don’t have a strong economy. You can’t take that for granted, and you can only treat symptoms for so long before it starts eroding your capacity to have a strong economy that underpins everything else,” he said.

Mr Morrison lamented as a “new low mark” Labor’s ruthless weaponisation of major events during his tenure as prime minister, including natural disasters, Covid and sexual assault allegations made by former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins.

Ahead of Anthony Albanese’s first in-person meeting with ­Donald Trump at the G7 summit in Canada next week, Mr Morrison also said Australia must shift from what is “effectively a peacetime operation to a warlike ­preparation” on the pathway to defence spending of 3 per cent of GDP.

Morrison with Donald Trump in 2019. Picture: AAP

The co-architect of the AUKUS submarine and defence pact, who recently returned from a visit to war-torn Ukraine, said “there’s a lot of inertia in our processes built up over 50 years or more that were geared to another time, and we need to orientate to a different time”.

Mr Morrison, an immigration minister under Tony Abbott who “stopped the boats” and established Operation Sovereign Borders, has been awarded an AC for “eminent service to the people and parliament of Australia” with notable contributions to global engagement, the Covid response, economic initiatives and national security enhancements headlined by AUKUS.

After more than one in three Australians last month voted for minor parties and independents, Mr Morrison said social media, new communications technologies and the post-pandemic “cultural shock” have supercharged the shift away from the major parties.

As the Coalition reconsiders Mr Dutton’s nuclear energy policy and the net-zero commitment enshrined under the Morrison government, the former Liberal leader endorsed the moratorium being lifted and re-adoption of his “all-of-the-above energy approach”.

Mr Morrison’s legacies include striking the AUKUS deal and re-engaging the Quad, his government’s management of the Covid pandemic, standing up to Chinese aggression, record mental health funding, winning the 2019 election just nine months after replacing Malcolm Turnbull, strengthening economic, military and diplomatic ties with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Japan and Israel, and securing free-trade agreements with India and Britain.

The former MP for the southern Sydney seat of Cook, who entered parliament in 2007 and retired from politics in 2024, amplified other achievements including getting “more than 300,000 Australians into their own homes” via programs Labor has continued and expanded, extracting Australian personnel, citizens and visa holders from Afghanistan in 2021, establishing the Australian Space Agency and Defence Space Command, being an early mover in supporting Ukraine’s war effort against Russia, and implementing the Pacific step-up to counter Chinese influence in the South Pacific.

Brittany Higgins and Scott Morrison.

Mr Morrison’s tenure as ­Australia’s 30th prime minister from 2018-22 also featured lowlights, including the fallout from the Robodebt scandal, his government’s handling of Ms Higgins’ alleged sexual assault, China’s trade bans, the furore over his family holiday in Hawaii during the Black Summer bushfires, and Labor’s criticism over him secretly swearing himself into multiple ministries during the pandemic.

“The weaponisation of natural disasters, and even what happened over the alleged events in Parliament House with Brittany Higgins, which you know now plays out in the courts, the weaponisation of these things politically by my opponents, both within the parliament and outside it, I think was a new low mark,” Mr Morrison said.

“There had been the practice that in times of natural disaster, there’s strong bipartisanship, and I can’t say I enjoyed a lot of that. The weaponisation, whether it was of Covid or of bushfires or other things, when I and my team were out there … the selective attacks that were made were very disappointing, but you had to push through them.

“Where I made mistakes, I openly apologised. The tone of politics and opposition politics over that period, I think, set new lows and that continued after I left office, sadly. I hope other prime ministers, when they move on, can have a less eventful time.”

Morrison, appearing during a joint press conference via video link to announce AUKUS with then British prime minister Boris Johnson and US president Joe Biden in 2021.

On the future of AUKUS, Mr Morrison said the deal he secured with Joe Biden and UK prime minister Boris Johnson had “survived changes of government in all three jurisdictions, and I think it’s stronger today than even when we first announced it”.

Mr Morrison said he “appreciated” how Labor had backed the AUKUS agreement and committed to supporting the government in demonstrating to both sides of politics in the US and Britain that “this is genuinely a national initiative”. He also believes there is no “real difference politically (between Labor and the Coalition) in our understanding of what the threat is, but there is a need to adopt a new culture of urgency, not just in Australia but everywhere”.

After US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth last week urged the Albanese government to lift defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP “as soon as possible”, Mr Morrison said the request was not being made in isolation to Australia but to all security partners in Europe and the Indo-Pacific.

“Sure, numbers of themselves don’t mean anything, but certainly there are a range of programs which have been reprioritised … and a range of other things that could certainly be re-engaged, which would start moving you with the capabilities that have been already keenly researched, and (where) procurements were well advanced. That would quickly make up some space.

“And then there are obviously other areas, particularly in the area of drones. I’ve just returned from Ukraine, and the incredible advancing in drone war-fighting capabilities, air, maritime, terrestrial, is just extraordinary.”