Scott Morrison apologises to Karen Andrews after calls from senior Coalition figures

Scott Morrison has apologised to the former home affairs minister Karen Andrews for secretly swearing himself in to her portfolio, after she revealed he hadn’t previously reached out to her in the wake of the growing scandal.

The apology came after the opposition leader Peter Dutton said Morrison made “the wrong call” by secretly taking on five ministerial portfolios, with the Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie claiming Morrison’s actions may have breached the Coalition agreement.

It’s understood Morrison reached out to Andrews and gave an apology on Thursday, after she earlier told Sky News she hadn’t yet heard from the former prime minister. That was despite Morrison having contacted Mathias Cormann and Josh Frydenberg since news broke of his covert ministerial appointments to portfolios including treasury, finance, home affairs, health and resources.

Guardian Australia has contacted Andrews’s office for comment.

Earlier, she told Sky News she still backed her previous calls for Morrison to resign, and said she hadn’t received a call from him.

“I understand that he’s made a broad apology to his colleagues and I’m entirely fine with that, so it’s not an issue with me,” Andrews said.

“He hasn’t spoken to me. The last discussion that I had with Scott Morrison was during the last sitting week in Canberra.”

Dutton joined calls for Morrison to personally apologise to Andrews, but said the member for Cook had no reason to resign.

Speaking on 2GB radio, Dutton said it was “inappropriate for him to be assuming these powers”.

“My colleagues are rightly angry and aggrieved and I understand that. Scott has made the wrong call … and if he hasn’t spoken to Karen [Andrews] then I believe he should,” he said.

“He’s apologised for it. He’s no longer occupying the office and there’s not much more. You can continue to trail over it but it’s all out there now.”

Dutton called for the discussion to “move on”, claiming there should be more focus back on issues such as cost of living.

But McKenzie, the Nationals’ Senate leader and a former minister under the Morrison government, upped the criticisms from the junior Coalition partner by claiming the secret arrangements may have been against the agreement between the two conservative parties.

The Nationals have been more scathing of Morrison after revelations he overruled the then resources minister Keith Pitt and reversed a decision on the Pep-11 gas exploration project.

“Complete disrespect for the second party of government, the National party,” McKenzie said on ABC Radio National.

“Our Coalition arrangements are a negotiated outcome and they include a ratio of cabinet portfolios in the Coalition government. And by essentially removing the authority of one of those ministers and giving it to a Liberal minister without that minister’s knowledge, [it] essentially breached the Coalition agreement.

“My view is that the National party would not have agreed with having one of its leaders removed … It shows great disrespect on behalf of the prime minister to our party.”

She too called on Morrison to apologise directly to the ministers whose roles he secretly joined, saying “the right thing to do would be to call all ministers concerned”.

In response to an article about Morrison’s failure to call Andrews, the new resources minister Madeleine King tweeted: “Stay classy”.

The former Liberal MP Craig Kelly, who quit the Coalition and joined the United Australia party after a dispute with Morrison over his opposition to mandatory Covid vaccines, also called for Morrison to resign.

He claimed Morrison presided over “a veil of secrecy” in the Liberal party room.

“Scott Morrison, the member for Cook, should be ashamed of himself and resign in disgrace,” Kelly said in a statement.

Morrison rejected calls for his resignation at a defiant press conference on Wednesday, defending his decision as necessary during the pandemic.

“I believed it was necessary to have authority, to have what were effectively emergency powers, to exercise in extreme situations that would be unforeseen, that would enable me to act in the national interests,” he said.