Former prime minister Scott Morrison has further enhanced his international think tank credentials by joining the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a policy centre based in Washington.
Morrison is an honorary member of the CNAS strategic advisory board. He noted the appointment in his parliamentary register of interests yesterday, as revealed by transparency website Open Politics.
The CNAS describes itself as politically bipartisan. It is home to a host of powerful business, military and diplomatic figures. It was co-founded in 2007 by Kurt Campbell, who is now co-ordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs in the Biden administration.
Campbell was highly influential in bringing the US into the AUKUS agreement at a time when Morrison was working secretly with a handful of others throughout 2020-21, and has been close to Australian administrations for several years.
The centre’s other co-founder is Michèle A Flournoy, a US defence policy adviser in Democrat administrations. Flournoy is a member of US defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton and a former member of the CIA director’s external advisory board and the Defense Policy Board. The centre’s financial backers include the giant US defence contractor Northrop Grumman as well as other large US corporations.
In addition to his CNAS role, Morrison is on the advisory board of the Hudson Institute’s China Centre where he sits alongside extreme China hawk Mike Pompeo, Donald Trump’s former secretary of state. The Hudson Institute is a conservative think tank that also draws financial support from the US defence industry and heavily supports Taiwan’s independence.
Morrison is also on the advisory board of the politically conservative International Democratic Union (IDU), a position he declared in September last year, five months after losing office. The IDU’s deputy chair is senior Australian Liberal Party figure Brian Loughnane.
The former prime minister’s move comes amid speculation that he may take a role with a UK-based defence company “working in the AUKUS space”.
Morrison has neither confirmed nor denied the report.
Is it past time for Scott Morrison to leave Parliament? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
It’s rather disturbing to see Morrison and “think” in the same sentence.
Any think tank that uses his services is clearly very short on proper thinking capacity, and likely to get worse.
Even more so when “Morrison” and “Think” appear alongside “American”……………
Is there a word for “oxymoron on steroids”?
It shows that so called “think tanks” are not really there to think. They are there to pretend that they came up with the ideas all by themselves that their funders give them.
A Koch linked ‘think tank’ (former) communications manager via Tax Payers’ Alliance (one in Oz too) at Tufton St. London described ‘think tanks’ to ByLine Times TV as simply ‘PR lobbying outfits’ overpopulated by ‘pseudo experts’ to lobby MPs and Ministers, plus media on radical right policies.
He complained bitterly that the media make it easy when they are ignorant or have ‘childish understanding’ of economics, data and science, hence, unable to rebut or counter BS; too easy….
I really think you need to have a warning for readers if you are going to use a picture like that. I nearly brought up my lunch when I saw that smirk. As for the story – sadly sounds true to form.
We know such organisations are just lobby groups and retirement clubs with faux academic trimmings, but one wonders, do they do any due diligence at all. Morrison is a former PM yes, but his reputation is one of incompetence, mendacity and side show flimflam. He offers nothing of any intellectual weight whatsoever. In terms of opening doors, he would struggle to open the automatic doors at a Woolies. So what are they buying? Or is it just, what they are re-paying?
Perhaps we could offer to pay them to take him away…………………
What excellent news. Hopefully this brings him a step closer to getting a job with a Christian Nationalist outfit in the US where he will be at home and the voters of Cook can deliver us a more useful parliamentarian.
Neither a liberal nor as are now being called the US a Talibangenical!