Morrison, who resigned as leader of the Liberal Party after losing the general election in May, held a press conference to respond to a barrage of criticism from the Labor government and his own party for the unprecedented takeover. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Morrison had attacked the Westminster system of government by secretly appointing himself to five portfolios, including home affairs, the treasury, health, finance and resources between 2020 and 2021. Read more Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Three of the ministers were unaware that Morrison shared power in their ministries until the revelations this week, they said. “I was steering the ship in the middle of the storm,” Morrison told reporters, recalling how the pandemic hit in 2020. “As prime minister, only I could really understand the weight of responsibility that was on my shoulders and no one else’s,” he said. Morrison said he did not “take over” ministries after being sworn in by the governor-general, and no ministers intervened except on one occasion, when he rejected a resource project. He said he did not inform ministers because he would only use the powers in an emergency. “The fact that the ministers were not aware of these things is actually a testament to my lack of interference or interference 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 based on a group of people ruling rather than a presidential system. “The secrecy itself is what really identifies why this is a problem,” he said. Incumbent Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks during the second leaders’ debate of the 2022 federal election campaign at Studio Nine in Sydney, Australia, May 8, 2022. Alex Ellinghausen/Pool via REUTERS read more Governor-General David Harley acted on the advice of the government of the day and questions about privacy were an issue under the previous Morrison government, Harley’s spokesman said in a statement. read more “The Governor-General had no reason to believe that the appointments would not be communicated,” he said. Treasurer Jim Chalmers said earlier on Wednesday that Morrison’s behavior was “dictatorial” and whether he remained in parliament was a test of Liberal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s leadership. Morrison rejected this, saying the emergency powers were put in place by a democratically elected prime minister and in accordance with the law. Morrison’s secret backlog of ministerial roles began with the health and finance ministries in 2020, amid concerns that those ministers could be hit with COVID-19 while on emergency powers. In May 2021, Morrison also became home secretary and treasurer. Morrison said this was partly due to the budget delivered in May and negotiations with Britain and the United States over the AUKUS nuclear submarine agreement. Home Secretary Claire O’Neill told ABC TV the intelligence chief “didn’t know there was a second home secretary for a whole year”. “This creates real vulnerabilities for us as a country,” he said. The attorney general will advise Albanese on the matter on Monday. “This is basically a trashing of our democratic system,” Albanese said Wednesday. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Report by Kirsty Needham. Edited by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Robert Birsel Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
