Scott Morrison declares role with Saudi oil company

Scott Morrison noted that he had a relationship with a $2.5 trillion Saudi fossil fuel company whose board member was once appointed by Morrison to a COVID recovery task force.

Declaring interests to the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme is a requirement for former Australian office holders who are trading political or government influence on behalf of a foreign client.

One of the many registered foreign entities with which Morrison is currently involved is oil and gas giant Saudi Aramco, which is majority-owned by the government of Saudi Arabia.

While Morrison was prime minister during the COVID-19 pandemic, he led a National COVID-19 Coordination Commission set up to advise the government on the social and economic impacts of the outbreak. The commission’s manufacturing working group has proposed what the Morrison Coalition government calls a “gas-assisted recovery” from the economic collapse caused by the pandemic.

This task force was led by Saudi Aramco board member Andrew Liveris, a former Dow Chemical executive who was appointed to the task force post by Morrison. in April 2020.

cricket it doesn’t imply anything inappropriate, or even that Liveris had anything to do with Morrison’s new role.

The liver was: one of the guests At the first Trump administration state dinner hosted by Morrison at the White House in September 2019 (other notable Australian attendees included Lachlan Murdoch, Anthony Pratt, Gina Rinehart and Greg Norman). That same month, Liveris was also a guest at a garden party hosted by Morrison and then-US ambassador Joe Hockey at the Australian ambassador’s residence in Washington, DC.

It remains unclear how Liveris was appointed to the COVID-19 task force a few months later and exactly what his role there entailed. The Senate Covid-19 select committee, which examined the National Covid-19 Coordination Commission among other issues, wrote in its report: first interim report It was stated that, as of December 2020, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPM&C) had “failed to clearly explain the role of Mr Andrew Liveris”.

“However, DPM&C told the committee that Mr. Liveris was not initially required to follow the same conflict of interest process as the commissioners because he was not a commissioner but rather an ‘attachment,'” the report said. “It is not clear how the term ‘attachment’ is defined in the context of public sector governance, as it is not a widely used term.”

in it final report“As a result, Australians have to foot the bill of at least $6.5 million for a body that lacks transparency, ostensibly operates solely under the prime minister’s watch, publishes no studies publicly and fails to demonstrate how commissioners’ conflicts of interest were managed,” the committee wrote of the COVID-19 commission.

Like Guardian Australia In May 2020, a leaked draft report from Liveris’ task force reportedly recommended that taxpayers consider a major expansion of Australia’s gas industry and that the Morrison government “create a market” for gas. By September of that year, the “gas-led recovery” plan was no longer in effect. official government policy.

The production task force wasn’t the only role Liveris was nominated for by Morrison. In April 2022, in one of his final acts as prime minister, Morrison said, appointed Liveris, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games Organizing Committee.

“I have worked all over the world and have always attributed my success to my education at the University of Queensland, so Brisbane has a special place in my heart,” Liveris said in a statement at the time.

So what was Morrison’s role at Aramco? Saudi Arabia’s national oil company? In the record made public yesterday, it is stated that only he made a “strategic presentation on global relations” between August 2-3, 2025.

cricket He reached out to both Aramco and Morrison for more information.

The registry update also included several new roles for Morrison. He declared himself a member of the organization Democratic Party affiliated Center for a New American Security strategic advisory board since March; He has been a member of the strategic advisory board of the Hudson Institute China Center since November 2022; and has been a member of the strategic advisory board of the International League for Democracy, a right-wing political alliance, since November 2022. He also declared himself deputy chairman of the latter from September.