Prime Minister Scott Morrison was sacked by the Liberal Party in 2006 as Managing Director of Tourism Australia for likely fraud and theft. This is the same person who announced in the budget that Australia is set for at least a decade of deficits with government debt climbing to $1.7 trillion in 2031.

Australia now has a Liberal Party failure and fraudster, who personally oversaw the $100 million Sports Rorts scandal which is very similar to the fraud he ran at Tourism Australia, running the country at one of the most important times in Australia’s history.

There can be no doubt that numerous federal politicians will use the increased government spending to corruptly line their and their friend’s pockets and based on history Scott Morrison and his mates won’t miss out.

Scott Morrison’s sacking as Managing Director of Tourism Australia

In June 2019 I published an article titled “Looks like PM Scott Morrison was sacked as Managing Director of Tourism Australia in 2006 because of fraud and theft” which started off:

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 Mossison 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. (Click here to read the full article)

Scott Morrison’s sacking as CEO of Tourism Australia by the Liberal Party should have been the end of his political career and it reflects very poorly on the Liberal Party and Australian media that he has been able to climb to the position of Prime Minister. 

As Scott Morrison said on the ABC in the below video in 2015. He doesn’t care what people think.

Scott Morrison’s sacking as CEO of Tourism New Zealand

Scott Morrison also left Tourism New Zealand in a hurry in 2000 with similar complaints about his performance and conduct so he is consistent at least. (Click here to read more)

Fraud and theft of taxpayer’s money has already started

White-collar criminals, such as Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Stokes, started making a move as soon the government boosted expenditure when the Coronavirus pandemic hit but with deficits climbing to over $200 billion and debt to $1.7 trillion they will be working overtime to steal even more of the public’s money. 

The scams have already started in the budget and a few examples are below but many more will be uncovered over the next few months and years. 

Kerry Stokes get more money for his delusional legacy 

When Kerry Stokes says jump Scott Morrison and the Liberal Party say “How high, Mr Stokes” because they want favourable media coverage by Seven West Media and the Labor Party are virtually blackmailed not to complain otherwise they will receive negative media coverage from Seven West Media. 

This has meant that hundreds of millions of dollars that could be used to help former soldiers are being used to build a shrine to boost Kerry Stokes’ ego as chairman of the Australian War Memorial. The SMH reported:

Seven West Media chairman Kerry Stokes can certainly claim to be a budget winner. The Australian War Memorial, which he chairs, emerged as one of the biggest winners on budget night, securing a $52 million funding boost for the coming financial year, to $117 million.

The Canberra museum will receive another $102 million in the year after that, and another $85 million in 2023-2024, a substantial bump on the government’s current capital works contribution of $65 million a year. The memorial is also nearing the sod-turning on an ambitious – and contentious – $500 million revamp, which Stokes has personally guaranteed will not go over budget. (Click here to read more)

Liberal Party slush fund used to bribe minor parties

The Labor Party have accused the Liberal Party of financing a slush fund with a $103 million boost in the budget which has been used to keep Pauline Hanson and the Centre Alliance Party happy. The Guardian reported: 

The Morrison government has tipped an extra $103m into a discretionary fund that will pay for a $23m grant to build a 16,000-seat stadium in Rockhampton announced by Pauline Hanson.

The $103m allocation for the community development grants program, contained in the budget on Tuesday, also pays for two $5m grants in the Centre Alliance-held seat of Mayo. The recipients of the remaining $70m are yet to be announced.

Labor has blasted the government for the move, arguing it has used the program as a “slush fund”. The program, administered by the infrastructure department, delivers government commitments for community or regional infrastructure, allowing it to select project recipients with no competitive application process. 

Labor’s shadow infrastructure minister, Catherine King, told Guardian Australia the government’s “idea of community development is nothing more than a slush fund they can use to pork-barrel their own seats”.

“This is the fund that saw $200,000 directed to the four Labor-held seats in Newcastle and the Hunter, but $20m spent in each of the two neighbouring Nationals-held seats,” she said. (Click here to read more)

We will be leaving debt at least for the next generation but it shouldn’t be as bad as it’s going to be. We could save $90 billion by cancelling the dodgy submarine contract, which Scott Morrison’s best mates David Gazard and Peter Costello profit from, and another $500 million by cancelling the Australian War Memorial upgrade.

I agree that governments need to spend money and run budget deficits during economic downturns to make sure the recession isn’t as bad as it could be but how many billions are being wasted or stolen by the federal government MP’s and their supporters?

When people say it’s “the Scott Morrison recession” there is at the very least some truth in it with the wastage identified above and there is a lot more than that which is known now and more with be uncovered in the future.

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