Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is seeking legal advice over reports that his predecessor, Scott Morrison, was secretly sworn into three ministry positions while in government, accusing the former prime minister of “running a shadow government.”
Without the knowledge of some senior cabinet colleagues — including then-Australian minister of finance Mathias Cormann — Morrison allegedly had himself secretly appointed as the minister for health, finance and resources at various times in office.
In April last year, Australian Governor General David Hurley also reportedly appointed Morrison to oversee the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, according to federal court filings obtained by the Australian newspaper.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Morrison’s then-Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce described the alleged arrangements as “very bad practice,” while a constitutional law expert said the alleged secrecy around the move was “bizarre.”
“This is extraordinary and unprecedented,” Albanese said at a news conference in Melbourne, calling the alleged appointments “the sort of tin-pot activity that we would ridicule if it was in a non-democratic country.”
“Australians knew during the election campaign that I was running a shadow [opposition] ministry. What they didn’t know was that Scott Morrison was running a shadow government,” Albanese said.
A spokesperson for the governor general confirmed he had “appointed former prime minister Morrison to administer portfolios other than the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.”
“It is not uncommon for ministers to be appointed to administer departments other than their portfolio responsibility. These appointments do not require a swearing-in ceremony — the governor general signs an administrative instrument on the advice of the prime minister,” the spokesperson said.
“The decision whether to publicize appointments to administer additional portfolios is a matter for the government of the day.”
Guardian Australia has confirmed that Cormann, the former finance minister, was not aware that Morrison had given himself the powers of the finance minister, and only learned about the extraordinary alleged assumption of powers this week.
The former health minister, Greg Hunt, is understood to have discussed plans for Morrison to be appointed health minister in meetings with then-Australian attorney general Christian Porter in early March 2020, as the government developed internal protocols for the application of the Biosecurity Act.
While it is not believed to have been signed off by a full meeting of cabinet, sources suggest it had been taken to the National Security Committee of cabinet.
It is understood that Morrison did not use the ministerial powers for the health or finance portfolios.
Reports published in the Australian and News.com.au over the weekend said Morrison sought legal advice from then-Australian attorney general Christian Porter that two ministers could be sworn into the same portfolio, and that Morrison could swear himself into the role via an administrative legal instrument.
The Australian reported that Morrison swore himself in as health and finance minister during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, partly to safeguard against those ministers being struck down by the virus.
An upcoming book by political reporters from the newspaper, titled Plagued, reported that Morrison saw it as an “elegant solution to a problem they were trying to solve — safeguarding against any one minister having absolute power” during the pandemic.
Sydney University constitutional professor Anne Twomey described the situation as “bizarre.”
“What on Earth was going on, I don’t know, but the [alleged] secrecy involved in this is just simply bizarre,” she said. “If they had done it and made it public, it probably would have been seen pretty reasonable for people, but hiding it?”
Twomey said ministerial appointments would normally be recorded in the government gazette, but that no record of Morrison’s swearing-in appears to have been published.
University of New South Wales constitutional law professor George Williams said section 64 of the constitution gives the power to unilaterally swear in a minister to the governor general.
“It’s a little bit ambiguous, it says the governor general can appoint officers, but it doesn’t only say there shall only be one officer or minister,” he said.
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