Thought you had a busy job? Spare a thought for poor ScoMo, who secretly took on five extra government portfolios – all while he was prime minister of Australia. Ben McKay explains.

Not content with running Australia poorly, it turns out Scott Morrison was job-sharing with his cabinet colleagues during the last government. Who knew! Certainly not his cabinet members – some of his closest allies in politics. And not even ScoMo, who forgot about a couple of his jobs until new PM Anthony Albanese reminded him. The kerfuffle has made international headlines and trashed the otherwise pristine (ahem) reputation of Australian governance. Scott, how could you???

What’s the story here?

It started with an excerpt from a new book, Plagued: Australia’s Two Years of Hell — the Inside Story, by Simon Benson and Geoff Chambers, two journalists at The Australian. Plagued revealed that Morrison took on the health and finance portfolios at the outset of the pandemic, which Morrison justified as a backup arrangement. “I trust you mate but I’m swearing myself in as health minister too,” Morrison apparently told his health minister Greg Hunt. What did he tell finance minister Matias Cormann? Turns out Cormann didn’t get a heads-up – and nor did Australians.

Morrison didn’t stop there. A year later, he returned to the governor general to be sworn in as resources minister, and then home affairs minister and treasurer, picking up jobs like All Blacks cards from Weetbix boxes. In a lengthy Facebook post (though only half as long as Gaurav Sharma’s) on Tuesday, ScoMo both justified the power grab – “necessary to put in place safeguards” – but also kind of acknowledged it was extra – “in hindsight these arrangements were unnecessary” – but also that he didn’t remember it – “There was a lot going on at the time.” In ScoMo’s defence, that is definitely true.

So how many extra jobs did Scott Morrison have?

On Tuesday, we thought it was three. But then the ex-PM dialled up his radio station of choice – Sydney talkback outlet 2GB – and said “there are no other portfolios I’m aware of but there may have been others that were done administratively”.

Later that day, PM Anthony Albanese held a press conference to reveal all five. Oops! Remember though, Morrison says he wasn’t actually doing the jobs he was sworn in to do, he was just there as backup in case someone got Covid or got stranded overseas due to flight cancellation or somesuch.

Oh – except that one time he used those powers which actually had nothing to do with Covid-19.

As the election loomed, Morrison vetoed a gas exploration project off the NSW coast. (Let’s pause briefly to consider the irony of Morrison intervening to *stop* a fossil fuel project.) He said he did so as prime minister, although legally, this was a decision for the resources minister, Keith Pitt. Now we know Morrison vetoed the project as the (second and secret) resources minister. According to reports, Pitt wanted to approve the project. Pitt (of nominative determinism fame) complained to his boss, Nationals leader and deputy PM Michael McCormack, who said “he’s the prime minister”. On Facebook, Morrison said he intervened “in the national interest”.

What’s been the fallout?

It’s fair to say all of Canberra has collectively lost its mind. The central charges are that Morrison has treated voters with contempt and trashed the convention that cabinet ministers should be left to do their jobs, and not be bullied by a president-style autocrat.

Albanese started out calling it “just weird” but quickly upped the attack. “I cannot conceive of the mindset that has created this… And I cannot conceive of how a cabinet allows this to happen.”

Morrison’s predecessor Malcolm Turnbull called it unprecedented, sinister, and “one of the most appalling things I’ve ever heard in our federal government”. “I’m even more astonished the governor general went along with it,” he told the ABC.

Karen Andrews, Morrison’s home affairs minister, called on him to quit. “The Australian people have been let down, they have been betrayed,” she said. It’s worth noting that Morrison started to shadow her job at the time the government threatened to lock up any Australians who tried to come home from India.

It has also spurned many a meme.

By far the most enjoyable part of all this.

Where does this story end?

The threads of this story are only just being untangled. The federal court is reviewing the legality of Morrison’s decision to intervene on the gas project. Albanese has ordered a review from the solicitor general. Crossbenchers, including teal independents and Jacquie Lambie, want a parliamentary inquiry. This is all to say nothing of the governor general, who has defended swearing Morrison into the roles. Morrison says he won’t be resigning from parliament.

However, it is clear the revelations have been unbelievably damaging to Morrison, who despite his election defeat, takes pride in his management of Covid-19 and defends it at any opportunity.

As respected gallery scribe Phil Coorey writes, it’s the secrecy that stinks. Why hide it from Australians, and why hide it from your colleagues? We can be astonished by Morrison’s move, yet we should not be surprised, given his career-long aversion to transparency.

Still, Morrison is atoning. He has called the ministers affected to apologise. Except one. As savvy news.com.au political editor Sam Maiden notes, Morrison didn’t pick up the phone to the only female minister involved: Andrews. And he has form.

After an election campaign where he was whacked from pillar to post by influential women, and then booted out of office by them, it seems a fitting postscript. You just can’t help but wonder whether ScoMo should have asked Jenny for advice.

Ben McKay is the sole Australian in Wellington’s Press Gallery, as the New Zealand correspondent for Australian Associated Press. These are his personal views.

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