Liberal leader Peter Dutton and senior opposition MPs including Barnaby Joyce and Bridget McKenzie said Morrison should not resign from parliament - putting them at odds with Andrews.
“It’s time for cooler heads to prevail,” Dutton said. “The prime minister’s come out of his holiday swinging and obviously,this is an issue that he’ll get his teeth into. But there are bigger issues,frankly,that families in Australia are dealing with at the moment.”
Former prime minister John Howard said Morrison had explained his reasoning for secretly appointing himself to the five ministerial positions,and added that calls for his resignation were unnecessary.
“I don’t think it’s in the interest of the Liberal Party to have a by-election in a very safe seat ... I don’t think it’s something that’s so reeking in principle as warranting an unnecessary,expensive by-election,” he said.
Joyce said that he did not think Morrison should resign as “there was nothing illegal done”.
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“Should it have happened in the form it did? No. Should it have happened at all? Probably not,” he toldThe Australian.
But Andrews,now opposition home affairs spokeswoman,called on Morrison to resign.
“It is absolutely time for him to resign from parliament;this is unacceptable,” she said.
“I did not know. When it was all unfolding over the last 24 hours I wondered if Home Affairs would come up for no reason other than he had launched himself into a range of portfolios. I had nothing from him,nothing from[the Prime Minister’s Office],no knowledge.”
Andrews also revealed the former prime minister had rung her on election day to ask her to release a statement about the interception of a Sri Lankan asylum seeker boat. She said the text message from the Liberal Party “was never canvassed with me,the text message[sent to voters announcing a boat interception],that was put out by others”.
One conservative MP said Morrison’s actions went to the heart of the Liberal Party.
“This is not the party I’m a member of,” the MP said.
Another former Liberal MP said:“We had two treasurers and still no economic narrative.”
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Former immigration minister Alex Hawke,a close political ally of Morrison,confirmed he also did not know the former prime minister had joint control of the Home Affairs department,which included his portfolio.
“I was surprised,I was unaware of the arrangement and it appears to be a pandemic administrative measure,” Hawke said.
The Sydney Morning Herald andThe Age have been told Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy and Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo did not know that Morrison had been sworn in as treasurer and home affairs minister in May 2021.
While Morrison told radio station 2GB on Tuesday morning he could not recall if he had any extra ministries,he later apologised “for any offence to my colleagues” in alengthy Facebook post. He argued he had appointed to himself to the five extra portfolios “as a belts and braces approach” at the height of the pandemic.
Morrison defended his actions as “prudent and responsible”,but conceded his actions had “clearly caused concern” and admitted taking on the treasury and home affairs portfolios in May 2021 had proved unnecessary in hindsight.
“The use of the powers by a prime minister to exercise authority to administer departments has clearly caused concern. I regret this,but acted in good faith in a crisis,” he said.
Morrison was appointed health minister on March 14,2020,alongside then-minister Greg Hunt,who knew of the appointment. He was subsequently appointed finance minister,in addition to then-minister Mathias Cormann,who was unaware of the move,on March 30,2020. The following year in April,he was jointly appointed resources minister,alongside Keith Pitt,and became co-minister for home affairs and treasury “sometime after May 2021”.
Morrison said his decision,announced publicly in December 2021,to reject a controversial gas exploration licence was the only occasion he exercised his powers as co-minister. It has since emerged that he acted unilaterally as resources minister,overriding Pitt. The decisionis now being appealed in the Federal Court by Asset Energy.
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Constitutional law expert Greg Craven said it was not the role of the governor-general to push back or ignore advice from the government of the day.
“David Hurley is completely innocent in this entire saga,” he said. But while Morrison had not done anything unconstitutional or illegal,Craven said the former prime minister had “violated a basic constitutional precept” that ministers had a duty to protect the Crown and not make it a subject of political debate.
Albanese backed Hurley,saying on Tuesday the governor-general should act on advice from the government of the day.
“It’s very clear here that the responsibility for this undermining of our parliamentary democracy rests with those people in the Morrison government,including the former prime minister,who were a party to this,” he said.
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But others,including former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and constitutional law expert Rosalind Dixon said Hurley must explain his role and say if he ever questioned the plan or sought legal advice.
Albanese said his department was still investigating whether Morrison made any decisions in the portfolios he took onother than his refusal of the PEP11 oil and gas exploration licence. He said he did not believe Morrison had been paid any extra salary.
The prime minister said he was taking advice from the solicitor-general about what measures could be taken to prevent such a situation from happening again.