Prefer to listen instead of read? Listen to the audio version of this article on Spotify.
At its core, the news about Scott Morrison subverting Australian democracy in a time of crisis is a story about secrets and power. It’s a story that should make you mad. While the focus is understandably on Morrison, he’s not the only character who was willing to betray your trust for his own gain. In big institutions, abuses of power rarely take place unobserved. Other people knew what was happening, they just chose not to tell us until the time was right. For them.
To see how widespread the culture of secrecy is around Parliament, we need to pay attention to where this news originated from. Because the Morrison Ministry is such a big story, covered by every local and international media outlet, the origin has been buried under the sheer volume of news and updates. But it’s arguably the most important part of the story itself.
The revelation that Morrison secretly made himself co-Minister for Health in March 2020 was not a scoop published in a typical news article. It’s actually a nugget of information in a book, Plagued, about what it was like on the inside as the government navigated the pandemic.
On Monday, August 15, The Australian published an excerpt from the book as part of the promotional push ahead of its release. The book was written by Simon Benson and Geoff Chambers, senior political journalists for the newspaper. The Australian is, of course, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Australia.
The only reason this information has shared with the public now is because it’s the right time to generate buzz for the book. It’s time to make money for the journalists and their publisher, Pantera Press.
Imagine learning that a PM with despotic tendencies has sworn himself into multiple portfolios secretly, thereby fundamentally threatening our system of government – then sitting on that information in order to publish a book some years later. Just imagine #auspol
— Sarah Holland-Batt (@the_shb) August 17, 2022
Most people expect that a journalist’s job is to inform the public about how the individuals and institutions that hold power, use power. Most people would expect that as soon as something of public consequence can be verified, it should be reported. Which begs the question: When did Benson and Chambers find out about the secret, and how long did they wait to tell us?
In his press conference on Wednesday, August 17, Morrison kind of gave us the answer. He confirmed that he directly told the journalists about appointing himself Health Minister, in interviews that were conducted “at the time… over the course of the pandemic.”
Reading between the lines, it means Benson and Chambers have known for a long time – potentially as early as March 2020. Given how long it generally takes for a book manuscript to go through the editing, printing, and distribution process, it’s safe to assume that they knew long before the election in May 2022.
Sky News anchor Kieran Gilbert tweeted that senior Liberals said if they’d known before the election, they would have forced Morrison out of the leadership. Withholding the information – and doing so for their own commercial benefit – changed things for the public, unbeknownst to us, in direct and indirect ways.
A number of senior Liberals have told me if this Morrison story erupted late last year, he would have been rolled #auspol
— Kieran Gilbert (@Kieran_Gilbert) August 17, 2022
In fairness to the authors, they weren’t the only ones who knew before the rest of us. Here’s a list of others who knew that the Prime Minister was behaving like an autocrat:
- Governor-General David Hurley, who is the only other person confirmed to have known about all five self-appointments – because he signed them off. In a statement released on Wednesday, August 17, Hurley said he simply followed the process in place, that his role is not to advise the PM, and he had no reason to believe any of it was being done in secret
- Then Attorney-General Christian Porter knew about the initial Health Minister arrangement, because he provided the legal advice that made it possible
- Some Ministers and other politicians knew: Greg Hunt, Keith Pitt and Barnaby Joyce each knew about at least one, but not all, of the appointments
- Morrison’s Chief of Staff, John Kunkell, and likely a very small number of other political staffers and advisers
- Authors Simon Benson (political editor of The Australian) and Geoff Chambers (chief political correspondent of The Australian)
- Presumably a handful of editors, marketers, and other staff at book publisher Pantera Press
This list of maybe 15 people is certainly incomplete. Some names will never be revealed.
Time now to ask another question. Why? I’m less interested in why Morrison was collecting jobs like Pokémon cards, and more interested in why these people decided it was better to withhold information clearly in the public interest?
We can only speculate on what each person weighed up. For those within the Coalition, it is standard practice to think party (and power) first, public second. It might have even become a valuable secret to hold. After being accused of rape, Porter was protected by the PM for a long time and allowed to remain in the party right up to his solemn resignation before the election. Governor General Hurley is affiliated with a mysterious ‘leadership’ foundation that secured $18million in federal funding just before the election, with full support of the Prime Minister’s office… despite having no transparency over how the funds would be used.
Understanding as we do now how many secrets these men know about each other, you can’t help but re-examine their decisions in a different light.
For Benson and Chambers the motivation to withhold looks purely commercial. They want us to wonder what other bombshell revelations lie hidden between the covers of Plagued. That’s standard practice for authors and, when it comes down to it, for journalists too. We want you to consume what we’ve made.
But that does not make it ethical.
Me asking former #Australia #PrimeMinister #ScottMorrison if possessing emergency powers in secret at the height of the #COVID19 pandemic was a slippery slope towards becoming an autocrat. Spoiler alert: he didn’t take it too well #auspol pic.twitter.com/jM2fH2uxoS
— Farid Y. Farid (@FaridYFarid) August 17, 2022
It reminds me of events surrounding the 2020 book written by John Bolton, former U.S. National Security Adviser. The first impeachment trial of then-President Donald Trump charged him with an abuse of power – claiming he withheld aid from Ukraine to pressure them into digging up dirt on Joe Biden. The Democrats wanted Bolton to testify, as he would have been in the room for many of these conversations. Bolton refused… only to release a book, containing details of the specific meetings in question. The title, The Room Where It Happened, is particularly gross.
The reason this story is so stunning isn’t because Scott Morrison did something terrible. That’s almost expected. But seeing the extent of the secrecy within the entire system laid bare is shocking. These covert moves and secrets kept are what allow someone like Morrison to move through the ranks of the corporate world, then politics, to the highest, most powerful positions. The individuals who earn their power through dishonest and self-serving means cause real-world hardship and pain for the public.
It’s not a one-off – it doesn’t matter if we change these particular laws to prevent a repeat. The culture of secrecy in Parliament is upheld by an entire network of people who ask us to trust them. They’ve all let us down, and put us at risk.
Comments are closed.