The report by former High Court judge Virginia Bell into the secret ministries to which former prime minister Scott Morrison was appointed opens the door slightly ajar to the way in which public servants responded to the then-government’s activities during the pandemic.
Bell’s report details the different perspectives within the senior ranks of the public servants who discussed the best way to deal with Morrison’s quest for five additional ministerial powers to his original (and publicly known) one.
Morrison wanted a sixth, and had papers prepared for it. Number six was deemed unnecessary.
Bell’s report reveals that even the first of these ministries, the Ministry of Health, deemed it unnecessary to work out how to make it happen.
It also documents that the Health appointment was made regardless of the views or preferences of senior legal minds within government departments.
Former deputy secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet Stephanie Foster had understood that the Health ministry was discussed at a ministerial level on 9 March 2020, and she sought advice from the Attorney-General’s Department to confirm whether it was possible to have Morrison ‘cross sworn’ into the Health portfolio.
At the core was the notion that the then-prime minister could be sworn in and then exercise emergency powers should then-minister for health Greg Hunt be incapacitated.
Then-secretary of the Attorney-General’s Department Chris Moraitis sought further advice from others and multiple parties expressed that view that swearing Morrison into the Health portfolio was unnecessary.
The report outlines the way in which the question about Morrison’s appointment as minister for health bounced around the public service like a rubber ball.
“Mr Moraitis referred Ms Foster’s request to Mr Leo Hardiman, then AGS’ Deputy Chief General Counsel, and to [Adam Cason, senior general counsel with the AGS]. This was the first time Mr Cason, who was working closely with the AGO in relation to the COVID-19 response, had been asked to consider the exercise by the Prime Minister of the powers conferred on the Health Minister under the Biosecurity Act,” the Bell report says.
“Mr Cason concluded that the most obvious, and possibly the only, means of achieving the desired outcome was to appoint Mr Morrison to administer the Department of Health. Mr Cason conveyed this view in an email to Mr David Lewis, General Counsel (Constitutional) in AGD. The two had been working together on the draft of the protocol.”
Lewis expressed a view that the move to have the Prime Minister seemed “a bit like overkill”.
“It does seem a bit like overkill as any Health portfolio minister will, under the protocol, need to consult the [Prime Minister] and other relevant ministers,” Lewis said.
“I don’t really see why we are trying to reinvent the process under the Act and usual cabinet government, but there you are.”
Lewis sent an e-mail to Moraitis further expressing reservations about the notion of appointing the Prime Minister to the health portfolio.
“The idea of having the [Prime Minister] exercise the emergency biosecurity powers seems unnecessary to me,” Lewis told Moraitis.
“A junior health minister could exercise the powers if Mr Hunt were incapacitated. Under the protocols proposed, that junior minister would need to consult other relevant ministers including the [Prime Minister] before exercising the powers.”
Lewis also said that he did not imagine a junior minister would exercise powers without consulting the then-prime minister.
Moraitis told Lewis that he understood it was the government’s preference that a senior minister exercise emergency powers under the biosecurity legislation.
Hardiman also expressed a view that it was unnecessary to appoint Morrison to administer the portfolio but that in order for him to exercise the biosecurity act powers he would need to be sworn into the portfolio.
Paperwork was prepared by Prime Minister and Cabinet on the instructions of the Prime Minister’s Office for Morrison to be appointed to the health portfolio despite the fact various public servants — in an understated manner — said such moves were unnecessary.
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Bell report on Scott Morrison’s secret self-appointments to ministries absolves G-G
