Former prime minister Scott Morrison says he doesn’t believe he deceived the Australian public and his ministry by not informing them he was secretly appointing himself to several ministerial portfolios.
Mr Morrison said he didn’t inform the involved parties because the move could have been “misconstrued and misunderstood”.
“I think there was a great risk that in the midst of that crisis, those powers could be misinterpreted and misunderstood, which would have caused unnecessary angst in the middle of a pandemic and could have impacted on the day-to-day functioning of the government,” he said. However, Mr Morrison said he believed the then minister of finance, Mathias Cormann, had been made aware of the changes.
“My honest recollection was that there’d been a communication between officers in relation to the Minister for Finance, that didn’t take place. I accept that, and I have apologised to then Minister Cormann before that.”
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