WION Spotlight | Great Scott! Morrison, Aus ex-PM, had secret shadow Cabinet
Scott Morrison
Corrupt heads of government whose terms are marked by sleaze and scandal often hog more media attention than those known for probity in public life.
Scott Morrison, who was Australia’s prime minister from 2018 to 2022, is now in the news for secretly appointing himself to several ministerial posts between March 2020 and May 2021.
“This is the sort of tin-pot activity we would ridicule if it was in a non-democratic country”, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on August 15. “Scott Morrison was running a shadow government”, he revealed; and, promised an early enquiry into what he described as “extraordinary” and “unprecedented trashing of our democracy”.
Albanese was told by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet that Morrison became joint minister for the health, finance, treasury, home affairs and resources portfolios in the two years before losing power in May.
A number of ministers, including Karen Andrews who held Home Affairs, and secretaries in his government did not know that Morrison had secretly taken over their portfolios. Andrews has asked Morrison to quit parliament.
In March 2021, Morrison’s government—now perceived to have been long on sleaze and short on substance—had to face an explosion of public anger over sexual encounters in parliament; a woman official revealed that she was raped by a senior colleague in a minister’s office. The toxic workplace culture was laid bare by Kate Jenkins, Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner, who found that 37 per cent of people then in parliamentary workplaces had suffered bullying and 33 per cent sexual harassment.
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Prime Minister Albanese, and others in authority, exposing the dark side of parliamentary politics and opacity of decision-making at the highest political level shows courage and confidence in the system. Only a strong democracy, Australia in this case, with robust institutions can make bold to let the voters see the rot within the political power structure in the hope of cleansing it.
The author is an Editorial Consultant, WION TV.
(Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.)
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