Secret ministries: Morrison officials asked industry department for brief on Pep-11 gas project.

Extract from The Guardian

Australia news

The unusual request in December 2021 came because the-then PM had already designated himself in charge, Senate estimates reveal.

Scott Morrison and Keith Pitt in November 2021. By the following month, the PM had secretly taken control of Pitt’s resources ministry and decisons on the Pep-11 gas project

Katharine Murphy Political editor

@murpharoo

Wed 9 Nov 2022 00.04 AEDT

Last modified on Wed 9 Nov 2022 00.06 AEDT

Officials from Scott Morrison’s department asked their counterparts in the industry department to provide a briefing to the prime minister on the Pep-11 gas project in December 2021, because Morrison had designated himself the decision-maker.

Senior bureaucrats from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet sought the highly unusual briefing on the controversial gas project on 8 December according to Meghan Quinn, secretary of the Department of Industry, Science and Resources.

Quinn was asked in a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday night whether or not the portfolio minister, Keith Pitt, was given the same briefing material as Morrison last December, given he was the federal resources minister.

Quinn said: “I don’t believe so”.

Morrison used his extraordinary ministerial powers to overrule Pitt on the controversial Pep-11 project, without a transparent signal to voters or stakeholders that he had appointed himself responsible for the resources portfolio.

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While Morrison did not disclose his secret ministries publicly, Quinn told Tuesday night’s hearing there was “an awareness” in the industry department that Morrison had been appointed to the portfolio on 21 April 2021.

Furthermore, there was “an awareness” by December that the prime minister, and not Pitt, would be the decision-maker for Pep-11.

“It was clear [to officials] who the decision maker was,” Quinn said on Tuesday night. “It was made clear the decision maker for that [project] was the prime minister”.

The secretary said to the best of her knowledge, Morrison only sought the briefing from industry department officials on the Pep-11 project and not any other matter in the resources portfolio while he held the ministry.

“I understand from the information I have on a particular matter the department provided advice to the decision maker, the prime minister, and for other matters, they provided information to the single decision maker, being the minister for resources,” Quinn said on Tuesday night.

“I’m not aware of circumstances where there were two paths.”

After Morrison’s secret portfolios were revealed following the Coalition’s election defeat in May, the current prime minister, Anthony Albanese, appointed the former high court justice, Virginia Bell, to head a snap inquiry, with a reporting date of 25 November.

The Bell inquiry is considering Morrison’s appointments from March 2020 to May 2021 to administer the departments of health, finance, industry, science, energy and resources, and home affairs, and the treasury.

Before convening the Bell inquiry, Albanese released advice from the solicitor general finding Morrison’s additional ministry appointments were legal but “fundamentally undermined” responsible government.

In the advice, the solicitor general, Stephen Donaghue, concluded that Morrison was “validly appointed” to administer the department of industries, science, energy and resources on 15 April 2021, because disclosure of the appointment was not required for it to be effective.

But he added it was “impossible for parliament and the public to hold ministers accountable for the proper administration of particular departments if the identity of the ministers who have been appointed to administer those departments is not publicised”.

Morrison has defended the extraordinary ministerial arrangements as a “necessary” safeguard in “extraordinary circumstances” of the Covid-19 pandemic that were done with the “best of intentions”.

Ahead of Morrison designating himself as decision-maker on the gas project, Liberal MPs in coastal seats had raised concerns directly with the prime minister’s office about the Pep-11 project’s unpopularity, and expressed frustration that Pitt had not rejected the permit renewal after it expired in February 2021.

Pep-11 is a petroleum export permit covering coastal electorates between Sydney and Newcastle. It was strongly opposed by communities in seats targeted by teal independents in the run up to the May contest.

Morrison made public his rejection of the application on 16 December – five months before the federal election – citing widespread community opposition, a lack of financial support underpinning the project and insufficient justification to extend the exploration permit as reasons for the refusal.

While Morrison’s additional portfolios were not made transparent to the public, the prime minister signalled at a press conference at the Terrigal surf life saving club he had made the Pep-11 decision, not Pitt. Morrison said he had listened carefully to the community backlash, and had killed the project “through my own decision”.

The validity of Morrison’s decision is being tested in the courts. In an application for judicial review filed with the federal court in June, the Pep-11 proponent, Asset Energy, alleges Morrison “predetermined the application and the purported decision was infected by actual bias” after he secretly took over the portfolio from Pitt.