Scott Morrison

Scott Morrison is a member of the Advisory Board for Hudson Institute's China Center.

As Prime Minister of Australia from 2018 to 2022,  Scott Morrison successfully led his nation through the most difficult and significant challenges Australia had faced since the Great Depression and the Second World War.

Under Mr Morrison’s national leadership Australia had the third lowest COVID fatality rate in the OECD, one of the highest vaccination rates in the world and an economic response that enabled Australia to outperform all G7 and most OECD nations in both employment and economic growth.

On the international stage, Mr Morrison was known for his leadership role to counter an increasingly assertive China in the Indo-Pacific region. Mr Morrison pursued this by:

his founding membership of the Quad leaders dialogue with India, Prime Japan, and the United States, as architect of the landmark AUKUS trilateral defense agreement between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, and restoring Australian defense spending to more than 2% of GDP. 

Domestically Mr Morrison continued to steward the Australian economy to its lowest unemployment rate in almost 50 years, while being one of only nine countries in the world to maintain a AAA credit rating from all major international credit rating agencies. 

Prior to becoming PM Mr Morrison served in senior roles in the Federal Cabinet as Federal Treasurer, Minister for Social Services and Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. In these roles he served on both the National Security Committee and the Expenditure Review Committee of Cabinet, responsible for economic policy settings. Mr Morrison was first elected to the Australian Parliament in 2007.

In 2020 Mr Morrison was made Chief Commander of the Legion of Merit by the President of the United States for leadership in addressing global challenges. He is also recipient of the Jerusalem Prize by the World Zionist Organization in 2019 for services to the Australia-Israel relationship, and the inaugural Grotius Prize by UK Policy Exchange in 2021 for his work and support of the international rules based order.