Why is Scott Morrison hanging around? The weekend revelations that Morrison swore himself in to multiple portfolios without notifying the nation has sparked cries of outrage, in the political class at least.
Morrison had himself sworn in as a spare health minister during the first months of the Covid pandemic and also held the finance and resources portfolios during different periods in 2020 and 2021. He was also running industry, science, energy and resources. (On Tuesday the list of portfolios grew again, including treasury, unbeknownst to Josh Frydenberg, and home affairs.)
The health post was perhaps defensible as a crisis move to cover Greg Hunt if the health minister was incapacitated. The pandemic was throwing up challenges never tackled by any living politician, and Hunt was informed. But Nationals MP Keith Pitt, who unknowingly shared the resources portfolio, was not informed, and expressed shock at the revelations. Morrison used this power to reject a gas-drilling project off the NSW coast.
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The legality of these dual ministry posts is now being examined by the secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. On Monday Albanese said that while he had run a shadow cabinet, Morrison had run a ”shadow government”.
He described Morrison’s actions as:
Tinpot activity that we would ridicule if it was in a non-democratic country.
Nationals leader David Littleproud and colleague Bridget McKenzie aren’t happy either.
So why is ScoMo hanging round?
Just 12 weeks after the election loss, Morrison is already the second-longest serving ex-PM in Parliament since Billy McMahon departed in 1982. John Howard lost his seat on the way out, while Fraser, Hawke, Keating, Gillard and Turnbull made haste for the exits after vacating The Lodge. So did Kevin Rudd, at least the second time he lost the prime ministership. Only Tony Abbott contested another election in his seat, eventually being defeated by an independent.
Perhaps Morrison is sticking around because the Coalition fears dropping yet another seat. It lost 19 in the May 21 disaster, and a 20th loss would pole-axe the Dutton leadership in its early months.
Morrison’s southern Sydney seat of Cook has been held by the Liberal Party since 1975. But the seven electorates won by Teal candidates in May were solid Liberal too. Cook is not quite as affluent as those electorates, but it is not exactly Struggle Street, making it prime real estate for the right person from that well-funded movement.
So don’t be surprised if Scottie Boy elects to carry on until 2025. Even the reduced circumstances of a backbencher pay packet is a gig, and the PM pension for him and Turnbull is less generous than it was for their predecessors, all of whom entered parliament before 2004.
And being ex-prime minister gives him a licence to jump on a plane and hang out with other former world leaders. He has already conducted important statecraft in Tokyo with fellow international feather dusters from Canada, the UK and New Zealand, as well as with former US vice-president Mike Pence and former Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad.
This unusually tuned former leader looks set to continue generating good copy. The media habit of flogging ex-PMs for their sins can be tantamount to dragging medieval chieftains out of the ground to draw and quarter them; in other words, slightly pointless. But ScoMo is providing reasons to do just that.
Mark Sawyer is a journalist with extensive experience in print and digital media in Sydney, Melbourne and rural Australia.