Education Minister Jason Clare says it’s too early to say if Scott Morrison’s secret portfolios are legal and whether parliament will take steps to censure the former prime minister.
Here’s what the Labor frontbencher told ABC News Breakfast a few moments ago:
Minister for Education Jason Clare. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
I don’t know [the legality of this]. We have to wait and get that advice from the solicitor-general. It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment on that until we see that advice.
The fact this was kept secret tells you that [members of the former government] knew this was dodgy as buggery. What happens next, well, we’ll wait for the parliament to decide.
There’s no good reason for the former prime minister to have ever done this. We heard yesterday some pretty weak, mealy-mouthed excuses by Scott Morrison’s colleagues, including Peter Dutton, saying, ‘hang on a second, we were in the [grip] of a pandemic and these were war-like situations’. Well, we’ve been to war, and we never did this. When war broke out in Europe, [Robert] Menzies didn’t do this. When the Japanese were on the march on the way to Port Moresby, John Curtin didn’t do this. [This is] something that never happened before and shouldn’t happen again.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has fronted Brisbane-based radio station 4BC to reiterate his criticism of his predecessor.
“Being prime minister is a pretty big job,” he said. “It’s pretty bizarre, I’ve got to say, that Scott Morrison chose to be not just the prime minister but the treasurer, the finance minister, the home affairs minister, the industry … minister.”
