On 25 November 2022, the Hon Virginia Bell AC delivered the report of her Inquiry into the Appointment of the Former Prime Minister to Administer Multiple Departments to the Prime Minister, the Hon Anthony Albanese MP.
Report into former prime minister Scott Morrison’s secret ministries released ABC Australia. The report.
“You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses.”
Former High Court justice Virginia Bell described as “improbable” and “difficult to reconcile” some of Scott Morrison’s versions of the secrecy around his multiple ministries as she sought and failed to get a face-to-face meeting with the former prime minister.
A press conference and two Facebook posts by Morrison formed the bulk of his assistance to the inquiry despite Bell offering him a three-week window in which to talk directly to her, either in Sydney or his Canberra office.
Instead, Morrison relied on a solicitor to respond to Bell’s queries, including through a letter this week that warned Bell she would be unable to make any “inferences or conclusions” around national security issues because she would have to rely on incomplete information.
The review by Bell was ordered by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese after it was revealed in August that Morrison had himself secretly sworn in to administer the departments of treasury, home affairs, health, finance, and industry, science, energy and resources during his last term in government.
Bell’s inquiry shows the extent to which she went to hear from Morrison.
Bell wrote to Morrison on September 19 to “seek his assistance” with the inquiry. She proposed a meeting to hear directly his “account of the facts and circumstances” of his ministerial appointments, saying she could meet him on any date in the three weeks from September 26…
Former PM’s accounts of his decisions ‘difficult to reconcile’: Bell
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