Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday announced a new investigation into secret ministerial appointments by his predecessor, after an early probe found that Scott Morrison’s actions had risked undermining “responsible government.”
An initial legal inquiry released yesterday by Australian Solicitor-General Stephen Donaghue found that while Morrison had been “validly” sworn into additional ministries between 2020 and last year, the secrecy around the decision made it “impossible” to properly hold the government to account.
“Neither the people nor the parliament can hold a minister accountable for the exercise (or, just as importantly, for the non-exercise) of particular statutory powers if they are not aware that the minister has those powers,” the solicitor-general said in the preliminary report. “Nor can they hold the correct ministers accountable for any other actions, or inactions, of departments.”
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Albanese made the rare decision to release the legal advice from the solicitor-general publicly, telling a news conference in Canberra that he would boost transparency around the appointment of ministers in response to the Morrison controversy.
“Mr Morrison’s behavior was extraordinary, undermined our parliamentary democracy and he does need to be held to account for it,” Albanese said.
The prime minister announced a second, full inquiry into the secret appointments would follow, but said his Cabinet had not yet agreed on the time frame or the scope of the investigation.
Albanese said an investigation would be aimed at discovering “why this occurred, how this occurred, who knew about it occurring, what the implications are.”
Morrison was sworn into the health, finance, home affairs, treasury and resources and industry portfolios by Australia’s governor-general during his last term in government, often without telling even the original minister that he was shadowing them.
In a statement on Facebook yesterday, Morrison again defended his actions as necessary due to the “extraordinary circumstances” of the COVID-19 pandemic, and said he was “proud and thankful” of what his government accomplished.
“I accept that many Australians will not agree with, accept or understand all the decisions I made during those difficult times” he wrote. “I can only state that I took the decisions I did as prime minister with the best of intentions.”
The revelations have sparked outrage from across the political spectrum in Australia and calls from his own party for him to leave parliament, including from his former Minister for Home Affairs Karen Andrews.
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