Prime Minister Scott Morrison was sacked as Managing Director of Tourism Australia in 2006 and he has always refused to say why. One thing is for certain, it had to be massive wrongdoing by Morrison. Why? Because Scott Morrison, who was State Director of the New South Wales Liberal Party from 2000 to 2004, was sacked by a Liberal Party Minister in the Liberal Party John Howard government and they don’t sack one of their own for a minor reason or even a major reason. Morrison’s sacking had to be something, at the very least, bordering on criminal and more than likely actual criminal conduct.
Since 2006 Scott Morrison has refused to answer questions about his sacking and little has been known about the reasons for it until now. Journalist Karen Middleton published an article on Saturday (8/6/19) which she spent 6 months investigating and to me it makes it clear Morrison was likely sacked for deliberate lies and deception in relation to the awarding of government contracts worth $184 million.
Karen Middleton writes in The Saturday Paper:
Thirteen years after Scott Morrison was mysteriously sacked from a senior public sector job as managing director of Tourism Australia, a six-month investigation by The Saturday Paper has created the clearest picture yet of the events surrounding his dismissal.
Documents obtained by The Saturday Paper under freedom of information laws show Morrison received a pay rise less than a month before he was sacked, taking his annual base salary from $318,031 to $332,030, with discretion for his employer to add up to 2.5 percent on top.
Around the time of Morrison’s dismissal, it was suggested he was paid out after having his contract terminated more than a year early. Sources have since confirmed this.
It was long speculated that the sacking was the result of a personality clash between Morrison and Bailey or differences over her plans to restructure the agency.
But late last year, The Saturday Paper uncovered an auditor-general’s report from 2008 examining the handling of three major contracts, which had delivered a scathing assessment of Tourism Australia’s management.
The report provided the first indication as to the real reason Morrison was removed.
The contracts were worth $184 million, and the auditor focused most on the two biggest – those with companies M&C Saatchi for global creative services or advertising campaigns, and Carat for media placement.
The audit report revealed that information had been kept from the board, procurement guidelines breached and private companies engaged before paperwork was signed and without appropriate value-for-money assessments.
Both before and since becoming prime minister in August last year, Scott Morrison has refused to answer questions about why the tourism minister took the unusual step in July 2006 of sacking him as head of the agency. He has also refused to answer questions about the handling of the contracts, which were signed the previous year. He did not respond to questions for this story before time of press. (Click here to read the full article)
It’s starting to become more obvious by the day why Scott Morrison is so keen to crack down on whistleblowers because there are probably a few dozen people in government who know the real reasons for Morrison’s sacking and if they have access to the documents they could bring him down. Morrison has known he is in trouble for 6 months since Karen Middleton started her FOI requests for documents from government departments. That would be an added reason why the Morrison government have gone so hard after whistleblowers in the last few months.
It must be remembered that Scott Morrison has only been Prime Minister since the 24th of August 2018 and not much was known about his background before then so uncovering his history will heat up now with the article by Middleton. There won’t be any turning back and journalists will continue to dig until the truth comes out and even more so since the Morrison government has gone on the attack against journalists with the AFP raids over the last week.
I published an article on the 5th of April titled “Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his dirty deal with the Labor Party and Sam Dastyari” in relation to Morrison’s dirty tactics to be pre-selected for the Liberal Party in the seat of Cook in 2007 and the article helps fill in the pieces considering the new details of his sacking the year before from Tourism Australia. (Click here to read more)
It’s interesting that on Thursday (6/6/19) the Government and AFP trotted out the acting commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, Neil Gaughan, to threaten journalists further and deny that the AFP held back the raids on the ABC and the News Corp journalist’s home until after the federal election. One raid, maybe, but for 2 AFP raids on the media 3 weeks after the election, it is too much to believe it wasn’t a political decision by the AFP not to upset the government. Mr Gaughan didn’t do a very good job and was carved up by a Twitter user who specializes in body language as per below. (In the below tweet BL = body language)
From the pictures, it was not too hard to work out that Neil Gaughan was lying like there was no tomorrow at the press conference which might explain why AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin wasn’t there and he sent out a patsy to take the heat.
Morrison’s Wikipedia page says: “He lost his job in 2006, apparently due to conflict with tourism minister Fran Bailey over the government’s plans to further integrate the agency into the Australian Public Service.” (Click here to read more) That now needs updating given the new revelations.
This story is just starting and the pressure will keep building until something gives.
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