The failings of Westminster: Scott Morrison's shadow government

Constitutional law academic Kim Rubenstein also shows a faith in the very system that produced such daring subversion on the part of Morrison. On Australia's Radio National, she offered the view that collective government responsibility and the Westminster system has a certain admirable accountability that, say, the US system lacks. This is parochial nonsense, given that the prime minister is drawn from Parliament and not directly elected by the voters. The US system may have appointed, unelected cabinet ministers, but the Westminster system comprising parliament, not the general voter, appoints the prime minister who, in turn, appoints the ministers who are then sworn in by the monarch's Governor-General. Hardly the paragon of accountable democracy.

The next step is to make a balanced assessment about a form of government that can so easily fall to usurpations of power by the executive. It throws up other vital matters: how war is declared; how military agreements can be made without public or parliamentary scrutiny; and how decisions affecting sovereignty are implemented at enormous cost.

The chances of having that broader debate are minimal. Albanese and his hounds smell blood, but the stains are not going to be that revealing. The Westminster model will be praised and defended; Morrison will be dismissed as pettily dictatorial. The fatuous notion of convention, the false assumption of gentlemanly conduct – for women do not feature in this – says everything about what is wrong about this rotten state of affairs. Inadvertently, Morrison acted consistently with, and enacted his belief: government cannot be trusted.