Sport rorts inquiry calls for all eligible clubs to get funding

An inquiry into the $100 million ‘sports rorts’ scandal has called for clubs which missed out to immediately get funding and for an overhaul of the program.

Sports clubs that missed out on funding in the $100 million so-called ‘sports rorts’ scandal should all “immediately” have their projects funded in full, an inquiry has found.

The Labor-led Senate inquiry into the scandal – which was sparked initially by Georgina Downer’s novelty cheque to the Yankalilla Bowling Club in the 2019 election – has made nine recommendations for major changes to the administration of government sports grants.

The scandal broke in early 2020 over former Sports Minister Bridget McKenzie’s handling of the Community Sport Infrastructure Grants program.

The inquiry has now called for the Federal Government to “immediately fund in full all projects that were assessed as meritorious and recommended by Sport Australia, but dismissed in the final ministerial funding decisions”.

It also calls for an overhaul of how grants are allocated, including launching an audit process to award funding based on need.

Sport Australia was also urged to improve its communication with grant applicants, and to offer them timely decisions on whether they had been successful.

The scandal broke in early 2020 over former Sports Minister Bridget McKenzie’s handling of the Community Sport Infrastructure Grants program. Picture: Sam Mooy/Getty Images

The inquiry also called for a national integrity commission, for the minister’s authority to approve grants to be clarified, and for Scott Morrison to give “a full explanation to the Parliament” on the role he and his office played.

“Scott Morrison owes hundreds of community sports clubs an apology, an explanation, and the funding his Government redirected into its industrial-scale Sports Rorts pork-barrelling scheme,” Opposition sport spokesman Don Farrell said.

Coalition members of the Senate committee which conducted the inquiry issued a dissenting report, which found the sports grants program “was an outstanding success” and that the inquiry had been “a highly politicised and weaponised exercise” by Labor and the Greens.

Senator McKenzie stood down from her ministerial role after a separate inquiry found she breached ministerial standards by failing to disclose her membership of a gun club that received an almost $36,000 grant, but has always maintained her handling of the scheme was within the rules.