Zoë Wundenberg | Scott Morrison's antics would have gotten him fired in business

Inability to be open to new ideas from others.

Inability to develop future leaders or empower other team members in an effort to protect their own turf.

These are the top three reasons why leaders or managers get fired according to research. They sound familiar, no? Who does this sound like? Someone who has demonstrated not one, but all three of these issues and while he's been demoted, he hasn't been fired?

The top job in this country, the prime minister, should be an office held with respect for the system in which it is created. However, since being ousted in May 2022, light has been shone on former PM and current member for Cook, Scott Morrison's silent takeover of the country.

The warning signs were there, and had been written about periodically over his term in office, but it has only been since May 21 that that the truth behind the apparent corruption has begun to be revealed.

On May 4, The Guardian reported that Morrison had "ratcheted up his warnings against a powerful national anti-corruption commission, arguing handing control over to "faceless officials" could turn Australia into "some kind of public autocracy."

However, at that time we had no idea just how autocratic we had become ironically because of the lack of protection through an integrity commission.

Remembering that an autocracy is defined as a system of government where one person holds absolute power to make decisions, I find it interesting that oversight is what Morrison believed would lead to autocratic national leadership.

Morrison secretly held five ministries at the time that article was published in The Guardian (presumably to step in when the appointed ministers didn't do what he wanted them to, as with former minister, Keith Pitt), and he was the only permanent member of the cabinet office policy committee allowing him to protect himself from scrutiny under the imposed shroud of secrecy for 20 years for any meeting with anyone he chose with regards to freedom-of-information requests.

Just last week, The Australian Financial Review published an article that shared the concerns of retired judges Keith Mason, KC (former president of the NSW Court of Appeal) and Leslie Katz, SC (former Federal Court Justice) regarding the constitutional validity of Morrison's March 2022 appointments to public office in the Australian Appeals Tribunal without the usual public individual gazetting that public office appointments usually herald.

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Their interest in the issue had been "piqued" by an Australian Financial Review article that "noted 26 current members of the AAT had been promoted or had their terms extended."

It seems that the Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, KC, shares their concerns with regular commentary on the "disgraceful" Liberal stacking of the AAT. He also recognised that Morrison's former attorney-general Michaelia Cash pushed through a slew of Liberal appointments the month before the election, ensuring ongoing Liberal influence into the future regardless of the democratic outcome in May. So much for separation of powers.

I'm not even going to touch the questionable political dealings of the $18 million grant that the Governor-General, David Hurley personally lobbied the Morrison government for, that Morrison reportedly approved in secret, and is now under investigation by the Albanese government.

But yes, absolutely, I totally believe that it is the establishment of a federal integrity commission that will destroy our democracy and instil autocratic leadership at the helm of our nation insert facepalm here.

With all of this coming to light, I am left wondering how Morrison can still be sitting in Parliament.

The leader who all but instigated a coup in this country under the sham of democracy, false committees and careful ploys to avoid FOI releases, hasn't been fired from his party, hasn't lost his seat.

So confident is he in the inability of any government to be held to account, safe in the knowledge that the AAT is stacked with people who owe him their jobs, that he has made silly memes on his own social media accounts making light of his actions.

This cannot be allowed to happen again.