Scott Morrison (Image: ABC)
Scott Morrison (Image: ABC)

What happens when a politician famous for his obsessive, damaging and pointless secrecy — to the extent of being determined to jail those whose revelations embarrass him and his friends — leaks supposedly confidential information?

In the case of the ever-popular Scott Morrison, they get a narky, passive-aggressive letter from the attorney-general berating them.

“Disclosures of cabinet discussions and deliberations undermine cabinet confidentiality and solidarity,” Mark Dreyfus wrote to Morrison yesterday. “I trust there will be no further disclosures from your period in government that undermine national security and the integrity of the cabinet process.”

Morrison’s many critics were cock-a-hoop on platforms like Twitter. The fact that this related to Morrison’s absurd vanity project with News Corp staffers Simon Benson and Geoff Chambers made it all the more enjoyable.

The fact that that vanity project had blown up in his face, with the power of a New Year’s Eve fireworks display, over the revelation of his many secret ministries, was even better. This is a whole sumptuous meal of schadenfreude.

Trouble is… what exactly has Morrison done wrong? Sure, he misled his colleagues etc etc, but in revealing what he revealed to Benson and Chambers what did he do wrong? He broke no laws, as Dreyfus’ letter makes clear. Dreyfus complains about breaches of the “expectation of discretion regarding sensitive cabinet discussions”. What breaches?

The disclosure that the then-secretary of your department briefed cabinet on planning on Chinese economic coercion and that the national security implications of COVID-19 were further discussed at the national security committee of cabinet and which includes alleged quotes from you and paraphrases discussions allegedly from those meetings. Additionally, references to a ‘secret intelligence briefing’ from the Office of National Intelligence would appear to be contrary to the confidentiality of information from the intelligence and security agencies.

Except there’s nothing in these “breaches” to concern anyone. Politicians breaching the “expectation” of discretion around cabinet confidentiality is as old as the hills on all sides of politics. At least in this case this is literally a former PM revealing information about what happened in his own cabinet. He can reveal whatever the hell he likes about his own government.

It’s true that exposing national security information obtained from intelligence officials in cabinet is potentially problematic, if for example it could lead to the lives of intelligence officers being endangered, or foreign sources of intelligence being revealed. But there’s no suggestion of that here.

In fact Australian governments are far too eager to invoke national security as a reason for secrecy. Dreyfus’ letter to Morrison is a perpetuation of the fiction that anything tangentially connected to national security must be treated as a subject above discussion by the mere public. It’s a reflex that has helped protect generations of intelligence officials and politicians from embarrassment and worse.

And yes, Morrison is a profound hypocrite. Under his prime ministership, journalist Annika Smethurst and the ABC were raided by federal police goons. David McBride was prosecuted for revealing war crimes by ADF personnel. And the disgusting prosecution of two national heroes, Witness K and Bernard Collaery, was pursued in as vexatious a manner as possible, with Morrison’s government attempting to conduct the trial in secret using evidence Collaery was not allowed to see — all to cover up the crimes of the Howard government.

All of these related to good journalism or serious revelations of misconduct that deeply embarrassed security agencies and politicians. None related to the vanity project of a discredited prime minister and his News Corp mates.

But Dreyfus’ letter treats anything related to national security as above public debate — the very fiction Morrison and his former attorney-general Christian Porter relied on to try to silence those who embarrassed them and their friends.

As for the “expectation of discretion” around cabinet discussions, that’s another tool to shut down transparency and accountability (and which Morrison himself gleefully used for secrecy).

The Queensland government has already accepted that cabinet confidentiality is a political myth without foundation, and is moving to release cabinet papers after 30 days instead of 30 years. There should be no expectation of discretion around cabinet deliberations. Everyone participating is a public official discussing how to use public money.

Give Morrison a kicking for his hypocrisy. It’s richly deserved. But there’s nothing wrong with politicians revealing anything except a tiny class of national security information that most will never even see. Insisting that there is just gives the next Morrison-style politician more opportunities to use secrecy for their own ends.

Should the federal government follow the Queensland move and release cabinet papers after 30 days? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.