Former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison yesterday said he decided to be secretly sworn in to five key ministries during the COVID-19 pandemic because he felt the responsibility for the nation was his alone.
Morrison, who stepped down as leader of the Liberal Party after losing a general election in May, addressed a news conference to answer a barrage of criticism from the Labor Party government and his own party over the unprecedented move.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Morrison had attacked the Westminster system of government by secretly appointing himself to five portfolios including home affairs, treasury, health, finance and resources between 2020 and last year.
Photo: AFP
Three of the ministers were unaware Morrison shared power over their ministries until the revelations this week, they said.
“I was steering the ship in the middle of the tempest,” Morrison told reporters, recalling how the pandemic hit Australia in 2020.
“As prime minister, only I could really understand the weight of responsibility that was on my shoulders and on no one else,” he added.
Morrison said he did not “take over” the ministries, after being sworn in by Australian Governor-General David Hurley, and did not interfere with ministers except on one occasion, where he rejected a resources project.
He said he did not inform the ministers because he would only use the powers in an emergency.
“The fact that ministers were unaware of these things is actually proof of my lack of interference or intervention in any of their activities,” he said.
George Williams, a constitutional law expert at the University of New South Wales, said Australia has a Cabinet-based system that relies on a group of people governing a country and not a presidential system.
“The secrecy itself is what really gets to the heart of why this is a problem,” he said.
Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers earlier yesterday said that Morrison’s behavior was “dictatorial” and whether he remained in parliament was a test of Liberal opposition head Peter Dutton’s leadership.
Morrison rejected this, and said the emergency powers were put in place by a democratically elected prime minister and according to law.
Morrison’s secret accumulation of ministerial roles began with the health and finance ministries in 2020, because of concern these ministers could be struck down with COVID-19 while wielding emergency powers.
In May last year, Morrison was also sworn in as home affairs minister and treasurer.
Morrison said this was partly due to the national budget being delivered in May and negotiations with Britain and the United States over the AUKUS deal for nuclear submarines.
Australian Minister for Home Affairs Clare O’Neil told the Australia Broadcasting Corp that the intelligence agencies were unaware Morrison was home affairs minister.
“The head of ASIO [Australian Security Intelligence Organisation], an agency for which I am responsible, did not know that there was a second home affairs minister for an entire year... This creates real vulnerabilities for us as a country,” she said.
The solicitor general would advise on the matter to Albanese on Monday.
“This is fundamentally a trashing of our democratic system,” Albanese said yesterday, after listening to Morrison’s news conference.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not