[5] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Morrison established the National Cabinet, and Australia received praise during 2020 for being one of the few Western countries to successfully suppress the virus,[6] though the slow initial pace of the COVID-19 vaccination rollout was criticised.

[17] After leaving office, Morrison became involved in a scandal after it was revealed that he had secretly held several ministerial positions while serving as prime minister, which led to Parliament passing a censure motion against him.

[29][30] Morrison contemplated studying theology at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada, but he instead chose to enter the workforce after completing his undergraduate education, in part due to the disapproval of his father.

His contract was terminated in July 2006, which at the time was attributed to conflict with tourism minister Fran Bailey over the government's plans to further integrate the agency into the Australian Public Service.

A 2019 investigation by The Saturday Paper suggested Morrison was sacked due to concerns that Tourism Australia was not following government procurement guidelines for three contracts relating to the "So where the bloody hell are you?"

[34] In 2022, following the ministerial positions controversy, Fran Bailey revealed that Morrison showed no respect for his colleagues at Tourism Australia and he left her feeling bullied, also confirming that he “point-blank refused” to provide her or the board with any documentation or to answer questions about how the ad campaign was awarded to Saatchi.

[39][37] Morrison sought Liberal preselection for the division of Cook, an electorate in the southern suburbs of Sydney which includes Cronulla, Caringbah, and Miranda, for the 2007 election, following the retirement of Bruce Baird, who had been the member since 1998.

[49] In February 2011, Morrison publicly questioned the decision of the Gillard Labor government to pay for the relatives of the victims to travel to funerals in Sydney, arguing that the same privilege was not extended to Australian citizens.

[52] In the same month, it was revealed that Morrison had "urged the shadow cabinet to capitalise on the electorate's growing concerns" about Muslims and appeal to the public perception of their "inability to integrate" to gain votes.

[1] Based on a series of off-the-record interviews, in June 2014 Morrison was identified by Fairfax Media as the leader of an informal grouping of "economically moderate, or wet" government MPs, also including Greg Hunt, Stuart Robert, and Josh Frydenberg.

"[64][65] During his time as Immigration Minister, Morrison's dealings with the media and accountability to the public were widely criticised by journalists, Labor and Greens senators, and others for refusing to provide details about the matters within his portfolio.

[67][68][69][70][71] In November 2014, the Australian Human Rights Commission delivered a report to the government which found that Morrison failed in his responsibility to act in the best interests of children in detention during his time as Minister.

The overarching finding of the inquiry was that the prolonged, mandatory detention of asylum seeker children caused them significant mental and physical illness and developmental delays, in breach of Australia's international obligations.

[80] His time as minister was criticised by his opposition counterpart Jenny Macklin, who said that "Scott Morrison was appointed to clean up Kevin Andrews' mess but left behind more chaos, confusion and cuts.

[88][89] In his first press conference as Treasurer, he indicated a reduction in government expenditure and stated that the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) and White Paper on tax reform would arrive on time.

He voted against a royal commission 23 times between April 2016 and June 2017, and in September 2016 described it as "nothing more than crass populism seeking to undermine confidence in the banking and financial system, which is key to jobs and growth in this country.

"[97] In response to the commission's findings, in April 2018 he announced the introduction of new criminal and civil penalties for financial misconduct, including potential prison sentences of 10 years for individuals and fines of up to $210 million for companies.

He visited the Indonesian capital of Jakarta for the Australia–Indonesia Business Forum and met with President Joko Widodo, announcing the Indonesia–Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement that had been negotiated under the preceding Turnbull government.

[120] In November 2018, Morrison privately raised the issue of Xinjiang internment camps and human rights abuses against the Uyghurs in a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Singapore.

[142] The following month, Morrison and the Coalition successfully voted against a motion to investigate Porter's blind trust, in turn preventing the identities of the benefactors who donated to his legal costs from being revealed.

[172] On 30 November 2022, the House of Representatives voted 86–50 for a government motion to censure Scott Morrison for failing to disclose to the parliament and the public his secret appointments to a number of ministries.

[173][18] Two former senior judges have reported to the Commonwealth Attorney-General that, shortly before the 2022 Australian federal election was called, the Morrison government got an unusual number of people with political connections to the Coalition appointed to highly paid positions on the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

[178] On 30 November 2020, a Chinese diplomat, Zhao Lijian, posted on his Twitter page a digitally manipulated image of an Australian soldier who appeared to hold a bloodied knife against the throat of an Afghan child.

[223] Former ALP staffer Tim Soutphommasane and progressive activist Marc Stears criticised the government's management of the vaccine rollout in June 2021, saying it will likely be "taught as a case study of public policy failure".

[227] To describe Australia's prolonged vaccination rollout, trade unionist Sally McManus coined the term "strollout", with the phrase being named as the country's word of the year by Macquarie Dictionary.

[244] In August 2022, Morrison was involved in a political scandal when reports emerged that he had secretly advised Governor-General Hurley to appoint him as joint minister for Health, Finance, and Resources between March 2020 and May 2021.

[245] An opinion from the Solicitor-General, Stephen Donaghue, found that while the appointments may have been lawful and that Hurley was bound by convention to make them, their secrecy "fundamentally undermined" the principles of responsible government.

[17][247] Morrison took a job with consulting firm American Global Strategies, founded by Robert C. O'Brien, who served as National Security Advisor to former U.S. President Donald Trump, as a non-executive vice chairman.

[291] A study taken after his government's defeat in the 2022 federal election conducted by the Australian National University in December 2022 found that Morrison was the most unpopular major party leader since the beginning of the survey in 1987.

[301] In March and April 2022, New South Wales state Liberal MP Catherine Cusack accused Morrison of being a "self-serving bully", and using the Eastern Australia floods as a political tactic.