It's interesting @ScottMorrisonMP left Tourism Council of Australia (TCA) in 1998 at the same time that Bruce Baird entered Federal parliament. By December 1999, the TCA was technically insolvent, despite a questionable “start-up” loan of $2.3 million by the Howard government.
@ScottMorrisonMP It was eventually tipped into administration under Grant Thornton in December 2001 and disbanded. “The damage was done by Bruce and Scott,” a former staffer noted. In 1998, Morrison moved to New Zealand as the inaugural director of the newly created Office of Tourism and Sport.
@ScottMorrisonMP After a widely reported power struggle with the independent NZ Tourism Board a 1999 report by the NZ auditor-general criticised Morrison’s role, particularly his commissioning and handling of a report critical of the board.
@ScottMorrisonMP Returning to Australia, a year before his contract was up, Morrison took up a what appears to have been a short-lived stint at KPMG Consulting, where people in the industry said he was “knocking on doors trying to drum up work”.
@ScottMorrisonMP The common thread here appears to be Tony Clark, former New South Wales MD for KPMG. Clark was famously John Howard’s golfing partner and was subsequently also a supporter of Tony Abbott when prime minister and was an attendee at Abbott’s post-budget “Jesuit old boys” dinner.
@ScottMorrisonMP Clark was at the same time serving as a long-time deputy chairman at Tourism Australia and its predecessor body the Australian Tourist Commission. Clark did not respond to a request for comment. Requests to both Morrison’s office and KPMG also went unanswered.
@ScottMorrisonMP By late 2000, Morrison had been installed as the NSW director of the Liberal Party. He would get his first taste of the political power of “the boats” when the Tampa incident flipped the 2001 federal election the Howard government’s way.
@ScottMorrisonMP This thread is made up of extracts from this excellent article about the rise of @ScottMorrisonMP. I thought it would be a good idea to create a thread to highlight some important points about who he was connected to at each stage of his political career. msn.com/en-au/news/aus…
@ScottMorrisonMP PS: Tony Clark was on the board of Ramsay Health for 17 years. The founder Paul Ramsay was a devout christian and also founded the 'Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation'.
quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/…
quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/…
