The only conclusion that I could draw from Scott Morrison's press conference yesterday, in which he attempted to answer criticism for asking the Governor-General to make him Minister for Everything, is that according to the former Health Minister, Resources Minister, Industry & Science Minister, Treasurer, and Prime Minister (Scott Morrison) he 'needed' to have those powers because he was 'responsible'.
Having lived through the period of Australian Politics during the height of the Covid-19 Pandemic, I would suggest that the only person who would suggest that Scott Morrison actually was 'responsible' for anything, is Scott Morrison. This is a man who personally managed to annoy both the French Government and the Eurozone, failed to procure vaccines until really late in the piece, and who for most of the pandemic proceeded to deflect as much blame as he possibly could for any inadequate responses to the state governments. Right through the pandemic and before the general election, Mr Morrison repeatedly attempted to gaslight the good and fair people of Australia, and now he is trying to turn the gas up and down at the meter box so that we all go mad, and wants to subsidise AGL billions for the gas (which he may have had the power to do, had he still be Resources Minister).
We have now seen copies of the written instruments by which the then Prime Minister, the "Honorable" Scott Morrison MP, was appointed to the several cabinet positions other than the Ministry without portfolio which is the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, during 2020 and 2021.
All of these written instruments look perfectly normal because they are. There is also nothing abnormal about a person taking on multiple cabinet roles. As I suggested in Horse 3050, this are in fact perfectly normal instruments in which the Governor-General has exercised perfectly normal powers under Sections 64 and 65 of the Constitution.
Admittedly, there is nothing illegal about the course of action which has taken place and this appears to be Mr Morrison's defence; namely that because he did nothing illegal, there is nothing wrong. Clearly this is a man who has successfully managed to bound and gag that still small voice of his own conscience and has achieved the same ethical standpoint as a cat; namely although he has Mens Conscia Recti (a mind aware of what is right), just like a cat, he simply doesn't care. This is a case of the difference between what is legal and what is right, being different from each other.
When Mr Morrison was asked if the Governor-General ever raised any questions about his taking on portfolios, his simple reply was: "I don't go into private discussions with the Governor-General". This is yet another thing which the former Prime Minister does not do; which includes holding a hose, comment on things inside the Canberra bubble, comment on things outside the Canberra bubble that are a matter for the states, comment about on-water issues, and comment on things which are matters for his ministers (which is again ironic given that he took on so many portfolios). Again under normal circumstances, this wouldn't have raised any eyebrows however, when this involves a Prime Minister successfully launching a legal and silent coup, we have strayed very far away from what is normal.
If it is possible for a metaphor to be strained and undergo a process of spaghettification, then Mr Morrison decided to take his press conference beyond the gaslight event horizon, from which not even gaslight can escape, by arguing that the fact that he didn’t tell anyone, actually proves that no-one needed to know needed to know what he was doing, or why. I do not know what the Governor-General David Hurley thought about this but he appears to be as spineless as a chocolate mousse or a moose made of chocolate mousse.
Mr Morrison's argument almost entirely amounts to the sum total of that because the Covid-19 Pandemic and the immediate emergency was unprecedented, the Australian public expected him to take action. By operation of history, he never did take action, short of making himself Minister for Everything. He argued that because he was held responsible for everything, that meant that he needed to have these powers.
The implication with this though is that he thought that he needed to have the powers to override his own ministers (presumably if they acted and made decisions which he happened to disagreed with), in the same way as he did with Pitt. If as Mr Morrison claimed in his press conference, he could make decisions as Prime Minister, then the immediate question is why he though he needed extra powers. The only example which he put forward though, was the Pep 11 project, which doesn't even have anything to do with the Covid-19 Pandemic but with the environment.
As far as I am concerned, all of the Former Ministers Scott Morrison (who we have to assume is now using they, them, those, collective pronouns) have done little more than try to run what has been politely called the "KFC Defence". When faced with a barrage of questions, Mr Morrison may as well have said: "Did somebody say 'KFC'?". Well quite frankly "I don't care" and no, I don't love it.
Aside:
As for the baying media pack and especially the rotters at News Corporation, whom we can now reasonably suspect knew about this because at least the Political Editor of The Australia X knew about it, you have no right to be shocked. To every single so-called 'journalist' who stood with stupid stunned and faux-horrified faces who today stood rapidly scribbling down the multi-ministerial Morrison news, you need to get in the bin. Practically all of the press pack spent the entire first week of the election campaign, reporting on a gaffe made by Anthony Albanese; yet we now now that at least part of you actively neglected to report on a soft coup in the highest political offices of the land. I do not know if Mr Murdoch knew about this like he did in October of 1975 but it would not surprise me. All of you, get in the bin.
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