Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is tomorrow to release legal advice on former prime minister Scott Morrison’s secret ministries as criticism continues to mount over the latter’s conduct.
Former Australia Post CEO Christine Holgate said it is “very concerning” that Morrison was secretly finance minister while she was subject to an “independent” inquiry by the agency.
“I was as disappointed as everyone else to learn the former PM had secretly taken on the most important roles in Cabinet,” Holgate said in a statement provided to Guardian Australia yesterday.
Photo: AFP
Holgate was stood down in October 2020 due to a political backlash over her decision to gift four senior managers Cartier watches later valued at US$20,000 and after Morrison used parliamentary question time to urge her to step down.
She was later paid A$1 million (US$689,880) to settle claims relating to her departure, describing Morrison’s behavior toward her in question time as “one of the worst acts of bullying I’ve ever witnessed.”
Albanese yesterday said Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Glyn Davis had received the solicitor general’s advice about Morrison’s portfolio grab, and he would receive a formal briefing yesterday afternoon.
The prime minister is to brief the Cabinet in Canberra today before making the advice public because of his regard for “politeness and proper process.”
“I intend to release that advice so that people can see it and be transparent about it,” Albanese said.
He said he would consider whether any changes needed to be made after receiving the advice, including whether a formal inquiry should be undertaken.
“Quite clearly, there are real questions to be answered here. There is a question of legality,” he said. “There hasn’t been a suggestion of illegality but ... there have been questions raised about how this could occur, how it fits in with the conventions and the normal accountability mechanisms, and checks and balances that are there in our parliamentary democracy. They are matters that need to be considered,” Albanese said.
“There is a basic fundamental weakness in checks and balances — if no one knows who the minister is, then how can they be held to account for decisions which are made?” he added.
The office of the official secretary to the governor-general yesterday defended its role in the non-disclosure of Morrison’s ministerial appointments.
A spokesperson said in a statement that Morrison was approved to administer a department, not sworn in as a minister to hold office.
“They are neither the first nor the last examples,” the spokesperson said.
“How these appointments are communicated is the prerogative of the government of the day... There has been no deviation by the office from past practice,” they said.
“Acknowledging that the administrative appointments were not communicated — as expected, by the government of the day — the office supports a more transparent process to ensure that any appointments made under section 64 are made public,” the spokesperson said.
As Morrison resists calls to resign, he is facing fresh criticism for his decision throughout 2020 and last year to take on additional portfolios without advising his colleagues or making the information public.
Tasmanian Liberal lawmaker Bridget Archer said she welcomed calls for an independent inquiry into the matter and called on Morrison to reflect on his behavior.
“Australians generally agree that we don’t want to see this sort of situation occur into the future, so we need to examine how we got here and how we stop it happening going forward,” Archer told ABC Radio.
“It also is forcing other colleagues to ... defend themselves and their own records and I think that that’s unfair,” she said. “[Morrison] should reflect on that and, and certainly consider whether it’s the best thing for him to do going forward.”
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared martial law in an unannounced late night address broadcast live on YTN television. Yoon said he had no choice but to resort to such a measure in order to safeguard free and constitutional order, saying opposition parties have taken hostage of the parliamentary process to throw the country into a crisis. "I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
RSS