Former prime minister John Howard says Scott Morrison should remain in parliament to avoid a by-election

Former prime minister John Howard says Scott Morrison should not resign as a Liberal MP because it is not in the interests of the Liberal Party to have a by-election.

Key points:

“I don’t think it’s something that is so reeking with principle as to require an unwanted, expensive, unnecessary by-election,” he said, referencing news Mr Morrison secretly appointed himself to multiple ministries.

In an interview with 7.30’s Sarah Ferguson, Mr Howard said Mr Morrison had “contextualised” his reasons for doing so.

“There are reasons why he did it. And part of the conservative tradition is to always understand the context,” he said.

It has been revealed Mr Morrison secretly appointed himself to the health, finance, treasury, home affairs and industry, science and resources portfolios between 2020 and 2021.

On Tuesday, Mr Morrison defended his decisions as being necessary during the pandemic.

John Howard and Scott Morrison at the 2022 Liberal Party campaign launch in May.(ABC News: Matt Roberts)

Senior Liberal frontbencher Karen Andrews publicly called on Mr Morrison to resign from parliament, but Mr Howard said that would be bad for the party. 

“Apart from anything else, it’s not in the interests of the Liberal Party — a by-election at the moment, in a very safe seat — particularly as in the state of New South Wales we will face a state election in the early part of next year,” he said.

Mr Howard said he did not believe “any criticism can be offered at the Governor-General” for signing off on Mr Morrison’s appointments to the ministries, because on the face of it, it was “nothing illegal”.

Liberal Party was lacking ‘long-term plan for future’, Howard says John Howard says the Liberal Party was missing a “manifesto for the future” at the last election.(ABC News: Shaun Kingma)

Mr Howard agreed the Liberal Party lost some votes to teal candidates at the last election over the issue of climate change and that it had become a decisive issue.

“I think it influences elections but that doesn’t mean I have to automatically change my view,” he said.

The dominant cause of the election loss, he said, was a failure to present a long-term plan to the electorate. 

“I think the main reason we lost was that we didn’t present a manifesto for the future. You’ve always got to offer a plan for the future, particularly if you are a party that set a record of economic reform,” he said.

On the upcoming referendum on a Voice to Parliament, Mr Howard said he would prefer a referendum on recognising Indigenous people in the constitution’s preamble.

“Something which recorded the undeniable historic truth, that the first people on the landmass of the Commonwealth were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. I think that would be something that all Australians could unite behind,” he said.

“The Voice is far more problematic than that.”

Watch Sarah Ferguson’s interview with John Howard on 7.30 on ABC TV and ABC iview.