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Hmmm... I guess this thing surrounding the former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has really highlighted some of the real problems that society is facing at the moment. The biggest problem is that many of our "leaders" in the corporate or other spheres have demonstrably proven themselves to have very little of the wider societies interests at heart. And much of this is demonstrated in the concept of defending otherwise morally questionable actions with the defence of "it wasn't illegal...".

So, for a quick whirl around of the current Australian situation. The Australian government is governed in the style of the Westminster system, where the Prime Minister is only a first amongst the cabinet of ministers, and generally more importantly, the leader of their particular political party. They appoint the ministers, but the ministers have the real discretion, authority, and responsibility for their portfolios. In many case, the decisions are arrived by party and cabinet consensus... but for some of the critical portfolios, the ministers have some pretty serious unilateral discretionary powers to make individual judgements on matters of quite important national significance.

Keep in mind, that this is the norm for Australia... and it means that we don't have a central authority figure (aka the President) that has ALL the discretionary powers like the United States. Although, I sometimes think that many Australians have started to be brainwashed by the American media domination and think that we have a system that resembles the United States... thankfully, we don't.

Anyway, the critical thing about this system... is the idea that for the unilateral discretionary powers, the public knows who the buck stops with. There is only a single responsible person who will make these hard calls on these tough individual questions... and they will have the ultimate responsibility to stand up and defend the call, in public and in court.

Now... at the start of the pandemic, our former Prime Minster decided that it was wise to have a second person at the head of the Health portfolio... which had just been given some pretty serious unilateral powers in the form of the BioSecurity Act. The rationale was that in case the Health Minister was down with Corona, that things could be still approved and acted upon with haste. On the face of it.. this is not too controversial... although, in the case of an emergency, there have been historical instances of a temporary minister being sworn in within hours anyway. So, understandable... but not of utmost critical importance.

Where things start to go off the rails... is that the Prime Minster decided that he should be the additional Minster for Health... AND more critically, that this would NOT be made public at all. In fact, there is some indication that there was some effort to make it as quiet as possible... even the governor general's diary didn't include any mention of the swearing in.

Now... keep in mind, that none of this was illegal at all. It was just common practice and convention to announce any moves like this, but there was no binding law. So, here we start to touch upon the idea of "Not Illegal, but...". Should the public be informed if there is a significant shift of power, where a person comes into the ability to make unilateral decisions that will affect the entire nation? Probably... I would think that is just polite... if not a matter of the importance of governmental transparency and accountability. If we are going to have a large bully that keeps the corporate bullies in line, then it does NEED to be fettered by the rules of transparency and accountability... otherwise, we just have an uncontrolled bully (PS, I don't advocate for the dismantlement of government, as that is the only chance that the public has against the corporate).

Anyway... if the entire affair stopped there, then it would be a passing interest story and a possible mishap/miscommunication. However, over the next year and a bit, the former Prime Minster Scott Morrison secretly elevated himself to a total of five portfolios that had unilateral powers... namely, Finance, Industry/Science/Energy/Resources, Home Affairs, and Treasury. In some of these cases... not only did he neglect to inform the public, but he neglected to inform his own party colleagues AND the actual minister that was responsible for the portfolio.

This starts to look less like a mistake in the chaos days of Corona, and more like a consolidation of power that really belongs in countries like the United States, China or other similar countries. Add to that, the reported news that the former Prime Minster actually asked his cabinet in a meeting... "Which one of your ministries have unilateral decision making power?", and then subsequently appointed himself to be the co-minister, in secret and without anyone else knowing (apparently, he didn't trust others with powers greater than his own).

Now, it appears that nothing untoward was done... except for the potential reversal of a large contract for gas or something like that. But again, that really isn't the point... the potential was there for all sorts of things happening, and that sort of unilateral decision making power should NOT lie in the hands of a single minister... let alone a Prime Minster whose office doesn't appear in the Australian Constitution (remember, we aren't the United States...). And this particular Prime Minster had a profound tendency for lack of transparency, a flouting of rules and conventions, and avoidance of all empathy and responsibility for well... anything.

So, that brings us to the central point of all of this... our former Prime Minster is completely at a loss to understand what all the fuss is about. And that brings us to the class of people that "lead" society... namely, corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, and political climbers, who are generally classed as borderline (if not fully) psychopathic. They have no empathy or consideration for their actions beyond their own self-interest... and rules and conventions have no binding power over them, as they feel that those are just arbitrary constraints on their ability to shine.

This is the "not illegal" defence... which eventually can degrade to "I'm sorry... that I got caught". This is sheer shitty human behaviour... and for some reason, these are the people that rise as the "cream" of society... and weirdly enough, we are collectively enabling that!

Maybe I'm looking back with rose-tinted glasses... but where are the days of admitting fault and responsibility and taking the consequences of actions. Why does the rest of society need to pay? And why do we idolise those who play fast and loose with the rest of us?

I can also be found cross-posting at:
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