Former PM Scott Morrison has responded to his official parliamentary censure, claiming he thought people knew about his highly secretive appointments. 

A motion to censure Mr Morrison for secretly appointing himself to five ministerial portfolios passed with 86 ayes to 50 nos, marking the first time in Australian history a former prime minister has been censured.

It came after former High Court judge Virginia Bell’s inquiry into the multiple ministries, at which several top public servants, Home Affairs’ Michael Pezzullo, Finance’s Rosemary Huxtable, and Treasury’s Steven Kennedy, all revealed that they were not aware of Morrison’s appointment to their own departments. 

The inquiry found the secret appointments were an “exorbitant” way to overrule ministers in the event of disagreement about their use of their powers.

In his response to the parliamentary slap, Mr Morrisson said he had no intention of “submitting to the political intimidation of this government”.

“The authorities to administer departments were established as a dormant redundancy only to be activated in extraordinary circumstances,” he said. 

“Evidenced by the fact that no powers were exercised under these authorities, except in the case of the PEP-11 decision, as such circumstances were not realised and, therefore, none of these authorities were misused,” Mr Morrison said.

The former PM had to twist himself into a logical contortion to explain his seemingly contradictory behaviour. 

He said he did not inform the public about his backroom power grab because he did not want to alarm people, and thought it would have been misinterpreted.

However, he also claimed that he assumed the appointments were fact gazetted and made public, despite defending his need for secrecy. 

He claimed; “No instruction was given by me as prime minister or my office not to publish those arrangements in the gazette”, but that his office had told incoming finance minister Simon Birmingham - who replaced Mathias Cormann - about his own appointment to the portfolio.

Mr Morrison went on to add that if anyone had found out about his secret ministries, he would have been open about it. 

“Had I been asked about these matters at the time at the numerous press conferences I held, I would’ve responded truthfully about the arrangements I had put in place,” he said. 

Reporters have begun going back over Mr Morrison’s claims made while holding multiple ministries, as he frequently sought to quiet criticism by claiming certain actions - such as helping the Nadesalingam family - were not within his powers when, in fact, they were. 

All Coalition MPs except for Bridget Archer lined up to endorse Mr Morrison’s bold claims.