Michael McCormack (Australian politician)

After the Coalition won the 2013 election, McCormack was made parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Finance, Mathias Cormann. He was later appointed Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister, Warren Truss, in September 2015.[15] In February 2016, he became Assistant Minister for Defence under Marise Payne.[15]

In July 2016, after the 2016 election, McCormack was appointed Minister for Small Business. In that capacity, he was responsible for the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), which conducted the 2016 national census and the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey during his tenure.[16][17] He opposes same-sex marriage, but voted in favour of the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Act 2017 after promising to vote in line with the survey result in his constituency.[18] In a ministerial reshuffle in December 2017, McCormack was made Minister for Defence Personnel, Minister for Veterans' Affairs, and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC, positions which had previously been held by Dan Tehan.[15]

When Warren Truss retired as leader of the National Party in February 2016, McCormack publicly contemplated standing as his replacement.[19] He eventually chose not to run for the leadership, allowing Barnaby Joyce to win the position unopposed. He did stand for the deputy leadership (which Joyce had vacated), but lost to Senator Fiona Nash reportedly by only a single vote.[20] In December 2017, McCormack again contested the deputy leadership of the National Party, which had been made vacant as a result of Fiona Nash's disqualification from parliament. He was defeated by Bridget McKenzie, once again losing by only one vote.[21]

Following the resignation of Barnaby Joyce in February 2018, McCormack announced that he would contest the resulting leadership vote.[22] Several other MPs publicly endorsed him for the position, and the only other announced candidate, David Gillespie, withdrew his candidacy the day before the election. George Christensen launched a last-minute bid for the leadership, but was defeated by McCormack, who succeeded Joyce as Deputy Prime Minister of Australia.[23] He also replaced Joyce as Minister for Infrastructure and Transport.[24]

After the Coalition won the 2019 federal election, McCormack was re-elected party leader unopposed.[25] On 4 February 2020, Joyce unsuccessfully challenged McCormack as leader of the Nationals.[26]

In 1993, McCormack published a controversial editorial in which he blamed homosexuality for AIDS and criticised pride parades. He wrote that "a week never goes by anymore that homosexuals and their sordid behaviour don't become further entrenched in society [...] unfortunately gays are here and, if the disease their unnatural acts helped spread doesn't wipe out humanity, they’re here to stay". He asked "how can these people call for rights when they're responsible for the greatest medical dilemma known to man – Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome?"

The article was the subject of three complaints to the Australian Press Council, though none was upheld.[29] In further editorials from the same period he said "I’m not sorry, why should I be?" about his views, and branded himself "homophobic".[30] McCormack subsequently wrote a second editorial apologising for the first.[31] His remarks resurfaced when he embarked on a career in politics, and he issued further apologies in 2010 and 2017, stating that he had "grown and learnt not only to tolerate, but to accept all people regardless of their sexual orientation or any other trait or feature which makes each of us different and unique".[32][33] Despite his apologies, the controversy resurfaced after he became Deputy Prime Minister.[34]

In other editorials, he called for the return of caning in high schools, saying "there is nothing wrong, in my opinion, with students [...] being given a 'stinging reminder' about how to conduct themselves", compared women's soccer to an "egg and spoon race", and advocated the death penalty.

When asked for comment by The Guardian, he said that "editorial views expressed more than 25 years ago in no way reflect how my views and community views have changed since publication [...] as people get older and start families, and grow as members of their community it is completely reasonable their views change over time"[30]

In August 2019, McCormack was Acting Prime Minister while the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, was at a Pacific Islands Forum. Morrison was being criticised by Pacific Islands leaders for Australia's contribution to global warming and rising sea levels, which threatened their low-lying territories. McCormack assured an Australian audience: "They’ll continue to survive because many of their workers come here and pick our fruit".[35]

In January 2020, McCormack's deputy leader Bridget McKenzie resigned her ministerial post after she admitted to having breached the ministerial code of conduct[36][37] and widespread accusations of pork barrelling.[38]

It was subsequently revealed that regional infrastructure grants program administered by McCormack in the months leading up to the 2019 federal election awarded 94 per cent of its grants to electorates held or targeted by the Coalition.[39]

In September 2020, McCormack was forced to backtrack an opinion attributing Victoria's second COVID-19 outbreak because of a Black Lives Matter protest in Melbourne as a panellist on the Q+A program. When he was told there was lack of evidence regarding this by host Hamish Macdonald, McCormack stated that he'll "accept that but people shouldn't be protesting".[40] The Department of Health and Human Services (Victoria) had confirmed that no positive cases of COVID-19 came from the protest in June 2020.[41]

In January 2021, McCormack was criticised for comparing the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump to Black Lives Matter protesters saying, "Any form of protest, whether it’s a protest over racial riots or indeed what we’ve seen on Capitol Hill in recent days, is condemned and is abhorred.” [42] McCormack's statement was criticized by Amnesty International and the Opposition. A spokesperson for McCormack later said, "Any form of violence should be condemned."[43]