Former prime minister Scott Morrison has revealed he will take up a new job working alongside ex-CIA director Mike Pompeo.
The 55-year-old, who retired as an MP on Tuesday, is set to become vice chair of American Global Strategies, which was co-founded and chaired by Robert O’Brien who was National Security Advisor to US President Donald Trump from 2019 – 2021.
On its website the firm advertises itself as ‘a boutique strategic advisory firm that looks beyond today’s headlines’.
Mr Morrison told The Australian he will also take up a role as a strategic adviser to DYNE Maritime, an Australian-founded, US-based venture capital company that invests in technologies related to the AUKUS pact.
Mike Pompeo (left) and Robert O’Brien (right) walk together in 2020 when both were serving the Trump Administration.
The pact, which will deliver US nuclear submarines to Australia with American and British support, was negotiated by Mr Morrison and eventually ratified by his successor Anthony Albanese.
Former Trump Secretary of State and CIA director Mike Pompeo currently works as strategic adviser to DYNE Maritime.
Mr Morrison has sat on the backbench since the Coalition lost the 2022 federal election to Anthony Albanese‘s Labor party.
He revealed he will leave politics in February to ‘take on new challenges in the global corporate sector and spend more time with my family’.
The ABC reported that Mr Morrison’s new role is believed to be based in the US.
He has already written a memoir aimed at the Christian market with a US publisher.
‘By giving advance notice of my intention to leave parliament… this will give my party ample time to select a great new candidate who I know will do what’s best for our community and bring fresh energy and commitment to the job,’ he said.
Scott Morrison is set to resign from politics altogether less than two years after he was voted out as prime minister
Former US vice president Mike Pence, who, like Mr Morrison, is a high-profile Christian, has written the foreword to the book, titled: Plans for Your Good – A Prime Minister’s Testimony of God’s Faithfulness.
The 288-page book is said to be ‘less political memoir and more pastoral encouragement’.
‘It has been written with a broader audience in mind,’ Mr Morrison said last September.
Mr Morrison was elected to the federal parliament in the southern Sydney seat of Cook in 2007, when the Liberal-National Coalition lost heavily to Labor under Kevin Rudd.
When the Coalition regained power in 2013 after two terms of Labor government, Mr Morrison was appointed Immigration Minister.
Under that, he was responsible for Operation Sovereign Borders. He oversaw the turning back of asylum seeker boats and reintroduced temporary protection visas which had been dropped under Labor.
After widely being seen as an effective minister, he was promoted to the Social Services portfolio in late 2014 and then Treasurer in 2015.
In August 2018, Peter Dutton failed to unseat then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in an internal Liberal Party challenge, but came close enough that Mr Turnbull stepped aside.
In the second leadership ballot that followed, Mr Morrison beat both Mr Dutton and Julie Bishop, becoming party leader and prime minister.
Nine months later, in May 2019, he led the Coalition to victory over Bill Shorten’s Labor, gaining two seats while the Opposition lost one.
Scott Morrison is pictured (centre, wearing blue t-shirt) on holiday in Hawaii while Australia was in a bushfire crisis.
Then Prime Minister Scott Morrison (second from right) is pictured in Hawaii on a controversial holiday he took during a bushfire crisis
He was subsequently hailed the ‘Messiah from the Shire’ by The Australian newspaper.
Mr Morrison ran into trouble later that year when he went on holiday to Hawaii with his family during a bushfire crisis.
The trip was unannounced and his office initially denied he had gone to Hawaii.
But the holiday could no longer be denied when pictures emerged of him in the US island state on social media.
On December 20, 2019 he released a statement saying, ‘I deeply regret any offence caused’.
When asked why he took a holiday while the country was burning, Mr Morrison infamously told Sydney radio station 2GB: ‘I don’t hold a hose mate.’
Then Australian prime minister Scott Morrison is pictured with his wife Jenny Morrison and their children Lily and Abbey in May 2022
When he did come back and visited areas that had been devastated by the fires, there were several photos and video clips of people refusing to shake his hand.
Mr Morrison then steered the country through the Covid pandemic, founding the National Cabinet of premiers and chief ministers, with his government establishing the Jobkeeper and Jobseeker economic programs.
Mr Morrison was prime minister from August 24, 2018 to May 30, 2022. Following his election defeat, Mr Morrison revealed that he was secretly sworn into a number of ministerial portfolios – without alerting the public – during the Covid pandemic.
In an unprecedented act, Mr Morrison was secretly appointed as health minister, finance minister, industry minister, home affairs minister and treasurer without voters knowing.
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