The decision about whether Scott Morrison will leave parliament will come down to the former prime minister himself, Nine's political editor Chris Uhlmann says.
Calls for Morrison's resignation have been growing after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed he was appointed to five additional portfolios in secret between March 2020 and May 2021.
During this period, Morrison - now the sitting member for Cook - was operating as minister of health, finance, home affairs, treasury and industry, science, energy and resources.
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But Uhlmann says "it's up to Scott Morrison whether he stays or whether he goes".
"(But) there's no reel reason reason for him to leave Parliament."
"At this stage, although we will get more legal advice from the Prime Minister, no laws were broken.
"Certainly convention was trashed. That's a bad thing."
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The Liberal Party is divided this morning, as senior ministers grapple with the news their positions were essential "shadowed" by the former Prime Minister, Uhlmann added.
Former Home Affairs minister Karen Andrews is one of the figures calling for Morrison to resign, while former Prime Minister John Howard has backed Morrison - advocating for him to keep his seat.
"Certainly the anger inside his party is a problem," Uhlmann said.
"The problem he has got is with his colleagues. Both the present ones in Parliament, and former ones in cabinet, and ones like Josh Frydenberg, who didn't know his portfolio of Treasury was being shadowed by the Prime Minister and he was terribly loyal.
"They would like answers from to these questions...They have to find some way back to be a party that can at least contest for government.
Morrison has defended the secret ministry move in a nearly 1300-word Facebook post shared yesterday.
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He described it as a "break glass in case of emergency" safeguard.
"The risk of ministers becoming incapacitated, sick, hospitalised, incapable of doing their work at a critical hour or even fatality was very real," he wrote.
"As Prime Minister I considered it necessary to put in place safeguards, redundancies and contingencies to ensure the continuity and effective operation of Government during this crisis period, which extended for the full period of my term."
He apologised to his colleagues "for any offence".
