{"id":293676,"date":"2025-09-30T13:07:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T03:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=293676"},"modified":"2025-09-30T13:07:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T03:07:21","slug":"scott-morrisons-big-secret-handshake-on-sacking-by-tourism-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=293676","title":{"rendered":"Scott Morrison\u2019s big secret \u2018handshake\u2019 on sacking by Tourism Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Scott Morrison<\/a>, former PM and architect of Robodebt, got a large \u2018secret handshake\u2019 payout when sacked by Tourism Australia. After a 4-year battle the FOIs finally surface for\u00a0Jommy Tee<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The political career of Scott Morrison was built on punching down at welfare recipients. Yet, in a bitter twist of irony, the architect of the pernicious Robodebt scheme was himself the beneficiary of a massive, secret overpayment when sacked as managing director of Tourism Australia in 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newly released documents, finally brought to light after a four-year Freedom of Information (FOI) battle, reveal that Scott Morrison was, according to the Remuneration Tribunal, overpaid by up to $212,000 in a \u201chandshake\u201d severance deal designed to facilitate his swift and quiet exit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Morrison later launched his infamous Robodebt<\/a> \u201cwelfare cop\u201d blitz a decade later \u2013 fronting the media straight-faced determined to crack down on rorters and those that had been allegedly overpaid \u2013 the highly inflated severance payment he himself received was never widely reported.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FOI documents expose the hypocrisy at the heart of the matter: how the political class take care of their own while the innocent are fair game to be hunted, harassed and bullied. Morrison\u2019s own windfall, paid out to ensure a \u201ccertainty and seamless\u201d separation from the public service, was never pursued.  No \u201cwelfare cop\u201d was sent to his door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Minister Fran Bailey initiates Scomo\u2019s sacking<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The move to sack Scott Morrison from his post as Managing Director of Tourism Australia (TA) began with a single, decisive phone call in the last days of July 2006. It followed the \u201cWhere the bloody hell are you\u201d campaign. New documents detailing the crisis \u2013 specifically the minutes and papers of Board Meeting No. 18, which spanned three days \u2013 reveal the machinations around his highly paid exit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sequence of events was swift and brutal. According to the board minutes, then Tourism Minister, Fran Bailey, who had reportedly clashed repeatedly with Morrison during his tenure, rang TA Chair Tim Fischer to deliver the message: she and the government had officially \u201clost confidence\u201d in Morrison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further Reading: https:\/\/michaelwest.com.au\/brawl-over-scott-morrisons-big-secret-payment-on-sacking-by-tourism-australia\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott Morrison, former PM and architect of Robodebt, got a large \u2018secret handshake\u2019 payout when sacked by Tourism Australia. After a 4-year battle the FOIs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":293677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,999,35],"tags":[14075,18308],"class_list":["post-293676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-australia-politics","category-breaking-news","tag-scott-morrison","tag-tourism-australia"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=293676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":293678,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293676\/revisions\/293678"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/293677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=293676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=293676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=293676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}