-
Scott Morrison, the Minister for Everything, convention, and the law
In a statement yesterday, a spokesperson for His Excellency the Governor-General of Australia David Hurley confirmed reports that, during the height of the response to the COVID pandemic in 2020, he had accepted advice from then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison to secretly appoint him to various ministerial portfolios. This post discusses the legal provisions and political […]
-
What is democracy? — A procedural approach
In a previous post responding to an article in The Atlantic which argued that Australian democracy was at risk, I wrote that “democracy is a process, it is not a set of values”. I note here that, in the earlier post, I did not actually define what I meant by democracy beyond this assertion. The […]
-
About that time Malcolm Fraser created a fake department…
With the controversy erupting earlier this year over Scott Morrison’s decision to keep embattled ministers Christian Porter and Linda Reynolds in his cabinet, it may be worth remembering how much worse it could have been had the Prime Minister not been able to find “real” jobs for Porter and Reynolds. He could have, as Malcolm […]
-
The crisis of the 2021 Samoan election
Last month’s election in the small Pacific Island nation and the constitutional crisis that continues into this week has me asking: Was Samoa ever a democracy? By any intuitive account, yes. It has free elections for a parliament from which ministers are appointed and a head of state is elected, and the Samoan constitution grants […]