The recent split between coalition partners, the Liberals and the Nationals, and the ensuing war of words, wasn’t entirely unexpected given their storied history of tension. Kaye Lee’s August 2022 article, republished below, highlights this friction, with Bridget McKenzie emerging as a key figure then just as she is in today’s verbal war.
Nationals leader in the Senate, Bridget McKenzie seemed outraged that Scott Morrison had breached the coalition agreement by usurping the authority of Nationals resources minister Keith Pitt in April 2021.
“Our coalition arrangements are a negotiated outcome and they include a ratio of cabinet portfolios in a coalition government.
By essentially removing the authority of one of those ministers and giving it to a Liberal minister… (he) breached the coalition agreement.
It showed complete disrespect for the second party of government… the National Party would not have agreed with having one of its ministers removed.”
Except Keith Pitt knew about the arrangement when he was overruled on the PEP-11 gas permit and he told Q&A host Stan Grant that Michael McCormack knew of Morrison’s co-ministering as well. So clearly the Nationals did know and allowed it to happen without comment.
McKenzie went further on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, calling the moves by Morrison:
“… absolutely unprecedented.
I think these revelations do bring into question our Westminster system of government, the conventions that underpin how we have confidence and trust in our parliamentary system.
As a former cabinet minister in the Turnbull and Morrison governments I took those conventions very seriously.
If there were two ministers effectively exercising the same authority within cabinet, who was the senior minister? What if they disagreed? What implications does that have for decisions?”
McKenzie added that the Westminster system has many conventions to keep government officials accountable, but they only work “if everyone within it abides by those conventions” and all parliamentarians should be held accountable, agreeing that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has made the right call to review Morrison’s secret appointment.
But what makes Bridget’s belated outrage even more ludicrous is the fact that her partner, Simon Benson, is the journalist who wrote the book, based on contemporaneous interviews, that disclosed Morrison’s secret power grab.
So spare me your pretence, Bridget. You and your colleagues were complicit in the reign of secrecy and dishonesty because your own political ambition outweighs any respect for good governance.
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With members like motor mouth McKenzie,I can’t understand why the Gnats don’t get more votes.
And this Benson character would have to get his head read,and not his book.
Is McKenzie REALLY surprised by the betrayal of the notoriously treacherous liars and callously inhumane psychopaths in the Liberal Party? Seriously? If you have any level of foresight or, indeed, one iota of intelligence but – DESPITE all the negative mounting evidence against the sociopathic male-dominated ranks of the LNP – continue to align yourself with the lying, conniving, unconscionably callous political psychopaths, nauseating bible-thumping hypocrites, treacherous backstabbers and misogynistic predators who take up every seat in the reprehensible un-Australian Liberal Party, expect them to turn on you in a heart beat!
Now, at long last, the so-called “National” Party have finally, and inevitably, learned just how treacherous and thoroughly disloyal the chest-beating alpha-male born-to-rule undemocratic fascists, pathological liars and heartless sociopaths in the Liberal Party REALLY are. Tragically, the Nationals’ sudden clarity and insight in how quickly they were (also) duped and betrayed by the hateful, racists and alpha male misogynists in the Liberal Party came too late. The truth is that there is absolutely NOTHING democratic or “liberal” about the Liberal Party! That nauseating bible-thumping hypocrite, Morrison – a signed-up supporter of the CULT of Hillsong – went out of his way to defend Frank Houston (a remorseless, child-molesting criminal) who just happened to be the notorious father of Morrison’s best friend, Brian Houston. As such, Morrison treacherously betrayed every decent Australian and vulnerable child in the country! This PROVES just how depraved – and totally lacking in the most minute levels of discernment – totally deluded, egotistical alpha male, racist right-wing extremists like Abbott and Morrison really are! If Morrison continues to have no remorse nor regret about his despicable, unspeakable betrayal of his OWN colleague, the ex-NSW LNP Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, in order to crawl to the top of the worst, most depraved, treacherous and dangerously undemocratic regime in our nation’s history – where does THAT leave the rest of us?
History has PROVEN that the ONLY people the stratospherically arrogant, misogynistic men in the not-so-Liberal Party maintain ANY shred of loyalty towards is the unconscionably corrupt, born-to-rule alpha male predator staring back at them from their mirror every morning!
C’mon McKenzie you can’t possibly be THAT stupid? Hmmmmm, perhaps it is better if you don’t answer that question, eh?