Former minister Scott Morrison replaced has said he was aware of this information more than a year ago.
As the previous leader of the Liberal Party, Mr. Morrison secretly took five distinct oaths from Governor-General David Hurley in the years 2020 and 2021, including those for health, finance, resources, home affairs, and treasury.
The former resources minister, Keith Pitt, has acknowledged that he was aware of the unconventional arrangements that had started in April 2021 and had addressed this with Michael McCormack, the Nationals deputy prime minister at the time.
He said on Thursday night’s episode of ABC’s Q&A programme, “I had a discussion with Michael McCormack as leader of the Nationals as you would expect I would.”
“I had a special belief that Michael was the leader and was in charge of the understanding between our two parties,” the speaker said.
Mr. Pitt, a rural Queenslander who represents the Nationals, had been hesitant to revoke PEP 11, a gas exploration permission that covered the area from Sydney to Newcastle.
However, the controversial gas drilling project was scrapped by the previous prime minister in December 2021, with an election scheduled for May, after Mr. Morrison was also sworn in as minister of resources.
Mr. Morrison is in office in Cook, a seaside district in southern Sydney that includes Cronulla.
The Sydney and Central Coast coastal electorates of Wentworth, Mackellar, and Robertson, which were all lost to either independents or Labor in the May election, were held by the Liberal Party at the time the drilling exploratory project cancellation was revealed.
While former treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who lost his Melbourne seat of Kooyong, is reportedly outraged, former home affairs minister Karen Andrews has this week called on Mr. Morrison to resign from Parliament.
Former health minister Greg Hunt was believed to be the only cabinet member to be aware of the former prime minister’s unique arrangements. Mr. Morrison covertly signed himself into Mr. Hunt’s ministry in March 2020 at the outset of the Covid epidemic.
However, Mr. Pitt’s memories clearly demonstrate that other ministers were aware of the peculiar constitutional arrangements.
If I’m remembering properly, Michael could have attended one of those meetings, he remarked.
“I’m working my way through what is a very complicated diary,” I say. “It may have happened in a meeting that Michael was at with all of us, including the PM and his representatives, or it may have been a separate conversation.”
The crowd in Penrith, in western Sydney, shook their heads in unison when Q&A presenter Stan Grant asked whether the disclosures made sense to them.
‘Do you understand this?
I simply can’t even get an answer from you that makes sense since so much of this involves secrecy.
Why Mr. Pitt kept the information a secret for such a long time baffled Grant.
He remarked, “I simply don’t get what you’re saying here, Keith.”
“You were aware that Scott Morrison had sworn himself into your portfolio at some point in 2021,” the letter said.
On March 14, 2020, the day the Covid pandemic began, Mr. Morrison took the oath of office for the health ministry.
Two weeks later, on March 30, 2020, he assumed responsibility for the finance portfolio.
He assumed the resources portfolio on April 15 of that year, followed by home affairs and finance on May 6, despite the pandemic’s harshest effects having subsided by early 2021.
This Monday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese instructed his administration to make those information public and tasked Solicitor-General Stephen Donaghue with conducting an investigation.