Over the past two days Acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack has said some shocking things. Unfortunately, there’s no other way to put it. While Scott Morrison has been on leave, McCormack has:
- Compared the US Capitol insurgent riots to the Black Lives Matter protests in the US
- Compared the US Capitol insurgent riots to the Black Lives Matter protests in Australia
- Said “all lives matter” on national television…
- …And that “facts sometimes are contentious” on national television, claiming that is a part of democracy
- …And said that the “things” happening in America are “very unsavoury”
It’s bad for any politician to believe and vocalise these things, and even worse when it comes from a ‘leader’.
Michael McCormack goes the "all lives matter" and says there were 19 lives lost in BLM protests. Gets onto the war. On Capitol riot says things going on in the US now are "very, very unsavoury". #auspol pic.twitter.com/du83scGfOX
— David Marler (@Qldaah) January 12, 2021
But let’s take a step back: did you know McCormack’s name before yesterday? Do you know a Deputy Prime Minister even does when the PM isn’t on holiday?
If your answers to the above questions were No and No, we don’t blame you. Here’s the rundown…
Who is Michael McCormack?
McCormack is the current leader of the National Party, which also makes him the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, and the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development. He took over leadership of the Nationals from Barnaby Joyce in 2018, who resigned over sexual harassment allegations and an extramarital affair with one of his staffers (these are unrelated controversies).
His seat is the Riverina in NSW – it covers towns including Wagga Wagga (where McCormack is from), Cowra, Forbes and Gundegai. The Nationals have held this rural seat since the 80s. McCormack won the seat in 2010 and has held it since… He was actually the campaign director for the politician before him, Kay Hull, and ran for election after she retired.
Originally a journalist, McCormack was the editor of The Daily Advertiser from 1991 until 2002. The newspaper covers Wagga Wagga in NSW and the surrounding area. He was born there, grew up and worked there, and now serves the electorate as their Federal representative – all this to say that McCormack has a very deep and longstanding connection to the community of Riverina.
Does he normally say stuff like this?
Yes. Yes he does. This is a non-comprehensive list of things Michael McCormack has said, publicly, over the years:
About The LGBTQI+ Community:
McCormack has a history of writing homophobic columns while editor of The Daily Advertiser. Some of his beliefs from that time include:
“How can these people call for rights when they’re responsible for the greatest medical dilemma known to man – Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome?”
“I have no pangs of guilt for telling the truth about what gays are doing to the world and the decent people who live in it… If something isn’t done and done quickly to prevent homosexuals getting rights they don’t deserve then God help us.”
He since apologised for his views and said he had changed, but also voted No in the 2018 same-sex marriage plebiscite.
About Women in Sport:
More commentary from his editorship of the newspaper, this time about changes to the Olympics:
“The IOC’s decision to include beach volleyball, mountain bike racing and women’s soccer at the 1996 Atlanta Games has surely given hope to tiddly-winks one day becoming an Olympic event. I can see it now … the 2000 Sydney Olympics with egg and spoon, three-legged and sack races, jelly wrestling and marbles.”
About the 2019/2020 Bushfires:
McCormack dismissed the clear link between deadly bushfires and climate change, saying:
“We’ve had fires in Australia since time began, and what people need now is sympathy, understanding, help and shelter … They don’t need the ravings of some pure, enlightened and woke capital city greenies at this time.”
About Pacific Island Nations and Climate Change:
He said this while Scott Morrison was attending the Pacific Islands Forum, about the islands’ calls for Australia to take real climate action:
“They’ll continue to survive because many of their workers come here and pick our fruit, pick our fruit grown with hard Australian enterprise and endeavour and we welcome them and we always will.”
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Ugh. Honestly. What does the Deputy PM do, again?
The Deputy Prime Minister is the second-highest elected official in Australia, and technically second-in-charge of the country. They are always awarded a ‘substantial’ ministerial profile to oversee.
And of course, they step in to act on behalf of the Prime Minister while they are away. As Acting Prime Minister, they do have the full range of authority and power that the elected PM does.
If a Prime Minister was to resign or die, the Governor-General can appoint the Deputy PM as the temporary leader but that’s never happened.
So he doesn’t have that much power then?
It depends what you define as ‘power’. If it wasn’t for the National and Liberal Party alliance that forms the Coalition government, McCormack may have become more of a fringe politician with a smaller audience. As it stands, by virtue of being the leader of a minor party he has a significant platform… which he has used to normalise white supremacist language on national television.