Scott Morrison’s secret ministerial appointments made Australia vulnerable, home affairs minister says

The home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, has accused Scott Morrison of making Australia “vulnerable” with his secret ministerial appointments, with revelations that some of Australia’s top spy agencies were also kept in the dark over the former prime minister’s appointment to run their department.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is demanding government bureaucrats reveal information about who else knew of Morrison’s unprecedented takeover of five ministerial portfolios, with most of the ministers appointed to those roles – including his treasurer and trusted deputy, Josh Frydenberg – said to have been blindsided by the unfolding story this week.

“Stop playing this down,” O’Neil said in a Radio National interview on Wednesday morning.

“Don’t defend this man … he has done something that has never happened before in Australian history.”

Home affairs, one of the portfolios Morrison had himself sworn into in 2021, has jurisdiction over national security, law enforcement, counter-terrorism and cybersecurity, among other critical functions. It has oversight of key agencies including the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio), Australian Border Force, and at the time of Morrison’s appointment, the Australian federal police.

O’Neil, who became home affairs minister following the May election, said Morrison’s actions made Australia “vulnerable”. She cited potential confusion over decision-making with two ministers appointed to the same portfolio, citing the weekend’s shooting incident at Canberra airport as an example.

“What would have happened on that day if there had been two ministers for home affairs, two people with the same powers, having different views on how such a situation should have been handled? What would have happened if we had a significant terrorist attack during the time we had two ministers of home affairs?” O’Neil said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs confirmed department secretary Mike Pezzullo “was not aware the former prime minister had been sworn in to administer the Department of Home Affairs”.

The ABC reported on Wednesday that Asio director general Mike Burgess was also not aware until this week that Morrison was appointed to administer the department in May 2021. Guardian Australia has contacted Asio for comment.

O’Neil told Radio National that Burgess and Pezzullo did not know about Morrison’s appointment.

Coalition MP Karen Andrews, home affairs minister at the time of Morrison’s appointment, has called for the former prime minister to resign.

Albanese, speaking on 4BC radio, said Wednesday that Morrison’s actions were “beyond my comprehension”, accusing Morrison of trying “to centralise power”.

“Democracy relies on people being honest and transparent about what’s going on and people being accountable,” he said.

O’Neil pushed back on claims that no laws had been broken, claiming “we do not know the answer to that yet”. Morrison said he never used any powers of the home affairs, treasury, finance or health ministries, but O’Neil said she would not take the former prime minister at his word on that question.

“We have a prime minister who, like a despot in a developing country, accumulated vast powers of government for his own personal use … why would he take the powers if he wasn’t intending to use them?”

Former Liberal prime minister John Howard told ABC radio that Morrison was “unwise to have kept it secret”, but claimed some responses have been “over the top”.

Albanese expects to receive further legal advice from the solicitor general on Monday, and has so far declined to say what action, if any, the government may pursue. The Greens and some independent politicians have flagged a referral to the parliament’s privileges committee, while discussion has also turned to a potential censure of Morrison.

Independent senator Jacqui Lambie called on Morrison to resign, and criticised Morrison for claiming that he “had not recollected” being sworn into home affairs and treasury.

“You [Morrison] blatantly lied. Nobody forgets they’ve got five portfolios, let’s be brutally honest here,” Lambie claimed.

Barnaby Joyce, Morrison’s deputy prime minister until the election, defended his actions and claimed they were not illegal. But in a Radio National interview, he did concede that Keith Pitt, the resources minister, should have made the final decision on the PEP-11 gas exploration project, not Morrison.

He did not back calls for Morrison to resign.

“I think he himself, in reflecting on it, he has to come to the opinion that it probably wasn’t a good move. And, and on that issue, I agree with him,” Joyce said.

In a lengthy statement posted to his Facebook on Tuesday, Morrison said he had put in place the arrangements because of the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic “as a ‘break glass in case of emergency’ safeguard”.

“In the event that I would have to use such powers I would have done so disclosing the authority by which I was making such decisions. The authority was pre-approved to ensure there would be no delay in being able to make decisions or take actions should the need arise,” he said.

“The crisis was a highly dynamic environment and it was important to plan ahead and take what precautions could lawfully be put in place to ensure I could act, as prime minister, if needed.”

The deputy Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, also did not believe Morrison should resign.