This week, former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who just stepped down in May, was thrust into the limelight of public opinion. He was exposed to secretly enlisting power during the prime minister's term, and without the knowledge of cabinet members, he concurrently served as the minister of health, finance, and resources minister, a total of 5 ministerial positions, causing an uproar. The British newspaper The Guardian sarcastically said that Morrison formed a "mini-cabinet" of one person.
"Secret" concurrently serves as five ministers
Morrison was ridiculed by the Internet
In early August, a new book called "The Epidemic" was published. The authors are Simon Benson and Jeff Chambers, current political reporters for The Australian, and the book reveals some unusual moves by former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison during the 2020 pandemic.
In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the book writes, "Morrison devised a radical plan that remains secret to this day." He will be health minister with Greg Hunt. ”
According to the book "Epidemic", the reason for this arrangement is to prevent one of the two people from contracting the new crown and losing the ability to work, and the other can quickly top it. Health Minister Hunt not only accepted but welcomed it. But Morrison is not the only minister he serves as a minister.
"Considering the government's economic policies and fiscal position, Morrison also served as finance minister, and he wanted to make sure that two people had their hands on the country's wallet."
- "Epidemic"
According to the Australian News Network, in April 2021, Morrison also served as the Minister of Resources.
On August 16, Australia's current Prime Minister, Albanes, confirmed that Morrison had held as many as five ministerial positions at the same time.
Prime Minister Albanes of Australia: Today, I learned from the Prime Minister and Cabinet Department that between March 2020 and May 2021, then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison served as Prime Minister in addition to being Prime Minister in five government departments.
It is reported that Morrison concurrently served as Minister of Health and Minister of Finance in March 2020; Concurrently served as Minister of Resources in April 2021; In May 2021, he was also appointed Minister of the Interior and Minister of the Treasury. After the insider exposure, the Australian media soon published two sets of portrait puzzles, which were extremely ironic.
The Guardian commented that Morrison was "collecting" ministerial posts like a fetish. The prime minister's part-time drama has also spawned a lot of online ridicule.
A Melbourne horticultural company joked that Morrison had secretly become our chief arborist and came to work without even saying hello. Morrison replied: "When will I be assigned a shift?"
The Sydney Morning Herald orchestrated a wonderful dialogue in which one person played multiple roles. Health Minister Morrison asked aloud: Who forgot to get vaccinated? Treasury Secretary Morrison responded: "That must be you." Prime Minister Morrison roared: How could this happen? Finance Minister Morrison replied: Vaccines are very expensive and we are committed to responsible fiscal management.
Australian Green Senator McKim even played a one-man show, mimicking Morrison greeting his different "doppelgängers" over and over again when he attended cabinet meetings.
"It's a shadow government"
In fact, Morrison had never publicly appeared as one of these part-time ministers before the revelations, and some key cabinet members were kept in the dark, unaware of senior intelligence officials, and even the then minister of finance and the interior did not know that his ministerial positions were shared by the prime minister.
Former Home Office Minister of Australia, Karen Andrews: Morrison has also held my ministerial position, and I have no idea about that.
Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia from August 2018 to May 2022, stepped down in May this year and later served as a Member of Parliament for Cook's Constituency. After the secret part-time scandal came to light, calls for him to resign as a member of parliament were heard.
Former Australian Home Office Minister Karen Andrews: He should resign, he should leave Parliament, that's what he should do now.
Morrison said he refused to resign. The New York Times said most Australians were proud of their "British" parliamentary democracy. They prefer the politics of cooperation to the authoritarian power of the president of the United States, which is why Morrison has sparked volcanic criticism.
Australian Prime Minister Albanis: That's an opaque government, a shadow government.
At the same time, the Australian media is also digging out how Morrison secretly took over the power of multiple government departments.
Australian law stipulates that as a Commonwealth country, only the Governor-General, nominated by the Prime Minister and appointed by the Queen, has the power to approve the appointment of ministers.
Under section 19(4) of the Australian Act of Interpretation, when ministers are ill, on leave or visiting abroad, another minister is sometimes required to exercise their powers on their behalf, but this is usually in the absence of the Chief Minister.
Section 34AAB of the Act of Interpretation expressly provides that the Minister implementing the Act may authorize another Minister to exercise the powers provided for in the Act on behalf of the Chief Minister, provided that the authorization is in writing. After the appointment is made, Parliament should also be notified and duly made public so that the public knows who is entitled to exercise specific powers.
Anne Twome, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Sydney: Only the Governor-General has the power to approve the appointment of ministers, and there are also reports that he did not go through the Governor-General, but found a way to have ministerial powers through executive orders, which is possible, paradoxical. A third report said that the federal government had submitted evidence to the court to prove that Morrison was inaugurated as Minister of Resources before the Governor on April 15, 2021, and if this did happen, it was done in secret, and usually the appointment of the Minister was recorded and published in the Government Gazette, but I spent a morning flipping through the Government Gazette and did not find this record.
On 15 August, a spokesman for Australian Governor-General Hurley confirmed in a statement that the Governor-General had indeed approved morrison's appointment to "a number of functions other than that of prime minister" on the recommendation of the Morrison administration at the time, but he also stressed that any "secret" was a decision of the Morrison administration.
On August 16, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation interviewed former Prime Minister John Howard, who has been re-elected for three consecutive years and has been in office for 11 years.
Reporter: In all the years you have been prime minister, have you ever secretly held a ministerial position?
Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard: No, I didn't.
We know Morrison did this 5 times, for what reason?
John Howard, former Prime Minister of Australia: That's his problem.
Malcolm Turnbull, another former Prime Minister who shares the Liberal Party with Morrison, criticized More bluntly that Morrison was "doing things in secret without the knowledge of the public and cabinet members" in a way that was simply "incredible".
"He has no idea what's wrong with him"
On August 16, incumbent Prime Minister Albanes announced that an investigation would be launched into the legality of Morrison's secret part-time job.
Australian Prime Minister Albanis: He was the world's first stealth bulldozer, operating in secret, hiding the operations of the government from the Australian people, misleading Parliament, not knowing who was holding what position and who was in charge.
A day later, Morrison held a press conference to defend himself.
Former Australian Prime Minister Morrison: In that [pandemic] situation, the Prime Minister has a public responsibility and the expectations of the people. I believe that it is necessary to have effective power in emergency situations, to exercise it in unforeseen extreme situations, which enables me to act in the national interest.
Morrison believes that during the epidemic, the prime minister's multiple ministerial positions are a precautionary preventive measure, and he also mentioned that in April 2020, then British Prime Minister Johnson was once admitted to intensive care due to the deterioration of the new crown infection. Asked why it was kept secret from Australians and even colleagues, Morrison claimed to be concerned that the arrangements could be "misinterpreted and misunderstood" and "create unnecessary anxiety".
Former Australian Prime Minister Morrison: I'm not doing the ministerial work, no two ministers are doing the same job. I didn't use those powers, but I had the right to act when necessary.
However, the British "Guardian" described Morrison as "provocative" when he made this statement. In the view of Australia News Network, Morrison's response shows that he does not understand what is wrong.
Australian Prime Minister Albanes: This is fundamentally a breach of our democratic system, a breach of the conventions and rules that have been running in Australia for 121 years, which is unprecedented.
More seriously, Morrison's secret part-time job has had an impact on the authorities. The Australian pointed out that Morrison had used his power as resources minister to halt the controversial "PEP-11" offshore oil and gas development project despite the opposition of then chief resources minister Keith Pitt.
Then Australian Prime Minister Morrison: After careful consideration, the government, through my personal decision, has formally rejected the application for an oil export license, the PEP-11 project.
It was eight months after Morrison had secretly assumed the position of Second Resources Minister, and on the eve of the Australian Federal Election. Morrison's Liberal Party, which hopes to win two constituencies in New South Wales in a general election, is a hot topic in both constituencies, where the PEP-11 project, which has been attacked by environmentalists. Albanes, the current prime minister of Australia, said on the 17th that morrison's secret purpose as minister of resources may be to intervene in the PEP-11 project.
In 2020, the Morrison government allocated funds to develop a mobile phone app called CovidSafe to track close contacts of COVID-19 cases, a project that has spent a total of $21 million over two years, but only found two positive cases, equivalent to the cost of finding each case more than $10 million. Due to the low cost performance, the software was officially discontinued this week, and whether there is a "lack of checks and balances" and "Game of Thrones" behind this has also aroused public speculation.
Prime Minister Albanes also blamed Morrison's part-time behavior for delaying Australia's vaccine procurement. "The minister of health at the time may have thought that Morrison should be responsible for vaccine procurement, and Morrison thought that it should be done by the chief health minister."
Australian Opposition Leader Dutton: The Prime Minister [Albanes] has sought legal advice and I think we'd better wait for the legal advice to turn out before deciding on the next step.
Morrison issued a long defense
The current Prime Minister asked him to apologize to the people
On Aug. 16, Morrison posted a lengthy post on social networking sites arguing that the accusations against him were politically motivated. To show he didn't care, on August 18, Morrison posted a picture on a social networking site, psing himself as part of the Australian comedy group Sooshi Mango, and using an emoji that "thought it was funny."
Soon he got a reply from "Sushi Mango": did Morrison appoint himself a member of "Sushi Mango"? Then let's appoint ourselves as the Minister of Taxation in Australia.
In the Australian's view, Morrison wanted to play down the scandal with funny, but the current prime minister Albanes criticized that it was not a "joke" and called on the former prime minister to apologize to the Australian people.
Bill Shorten, then-Labour leader who lost to Morrison in the 2019 Australian federal election, noted that Morrison had steered Australia down a very Trump-like path, bringing power together.
Coincidentally, on July 8, only one day after British Prime Minister Johnson issued his resignation statement, the British media exposed an estimate list of the 2020 renovation procurement of the British Prime Minister's official residence, which triggered the "wallpaper door".
In the list, Johnson's wife, Kelly Symonds, spent £2,250 on gold wallpaper, or more than $18,000; A drink cart costs £3,675, equivalent to nearly RMB30,000; The two wall lamps cost a total of £3,550, or more than 28,000 yuan. The total cost of the entire list is 208104 pounds, equivalent to about 1.68 million yuan.
According to the BBC, the British government has given the prime minister's official residence a subsidy of 30,000 pounds a year, but the Johnson family's expenditure has exceeded nearly 6 times. According to Dominic Cummings, Johnson's former chief adviser, Johnson intends to use political donations to "secretly pay" for the renovation of the apartment. The money was initially borne by the Cabinet Office and paid for by the Conservatives. The money was returned to Conservative party headquarters after the scandal came to light, and Johnson agreed to pay a bill outside the £30,000 budget.
The United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia are all known as the so-called "Anglo-Saxon" countries. In September 2021, the United States co-opted the United Kingdom and Australia to announce the establishment of the AUKUS tri-defense partnership, for which Australia revoked the $10 billion submarine order with France, and French President Emmanuel Macron accused the Morrison administration of lack of transparency.
French President Emmanuel Macron: I just want to say that respect must be mutual, and it must be consistent with words and deeds. I don't feel, but I know (Morrison lied).
After the Morrison scandal came to light, a new word "ScoMocracy" appeared on social media. The Sydney Morning Herald interpreted the term as a "Morrisonian regime", meaning to control a government "owned by Morrison, ruled by Morrison, and owned by Morrison". Arguably, Australia is now facing not just the political scandals of the former prime minister, but also the country's biggest constitutional crisis in decades.
Source: CCTV news client