Andrew Clennell: McKenzie is a problem PM doesn’t need

Bridget McKenzie’s grants row is hurting Scott Morrison just when he’s struggling to regain ground lost over the bushfires. It’s a problem he doesn’t need, writes Andrew Clennell

Under siege former sports minister Bridget McKenzie and Prime Minister Scott Morrison speak to the media during a press conference at Parliament House (AAP Image/Marc Tewksbury)

TRADITIONAL political wisdom these days says you should wait until scandals are very bad indeed before flicking the trapdoor lever and removing a minister from cabinet.

There is a sound strategic reason for that. John Howard got in massive political trouble in his first term of government between 1996 and 1998 when he shot John Sharp and four other ministers over travel expenses scandals.

The scandal reached the point where Howard was forced to get rid of his trusted lieutenant, Grahame Morris. That hurt him so badly, he scarcely axed anyone again.

Whether a minister resigns or is sacked often simply comes down to pressure and how much oxygen the scandal is sucking from the Prime Minister. In the case of deputy Nationals leader Bridget McKenzie’s sports rorts, when the PM is trying to get back on top after a rocky period over the bushfires, the oxygen is being sucked quite a bit.

Thanks to the Australian National Audit Office’s damaging report on Agriculture and former Sports Minister McKenzie and her administration of $100 million worth of pre-election sports grants — which the Auditor-General found were partly administered on the basis of whether seats were “marginal” or “targeted” — Scott Morrison is under pressure to scalp a member of his cabinet.

And the PM’s patience is said to have been tested by McKenzie’s actions, particularly after it was revealed she was made a member of a Wangaratta gun club and the next month they got $35,000 from her grants program.

Some commentators have been saying standards have changed around ministerial resignations and in Ros Kelly’s day, ministers did the honourable thing and resigned. But the bottom line is that it has always taken a lot of media and parliamentary pressure to get anyone removed. Everything is subjective.

The PM of the day is always worried about setting a precedent. Axe one and, if another misdemeanour is found, the pressure is on to axe another.

McKenzie, though, appears to have a scalp ready to be cut. The audit office report makes it clear the minister swept aside departmental advice which opposed 61 per cent of the grants.

As I said on Sky News last week, the sports rorts affair would not only not pass the pub test; you wouldn’t even be allowed into the pub with the story.

But there are plenty in government who believe the PM cannot afford to call on Deputy PM Michael McCormack to work with him in axing his own deputy.

One government MP said: “It’s McCormack’s problem … but Morrison can’t let her go … quite obviously his office and the party directors like Hirsty (Andrew Hirst) would have been across trying to work out who gets what (with the grants).”

The MP speculated that if McKenzie was forced out she would “sing like a bird” about how others were involved in the grants.

Sky News revealed this week that at a key seats meeting in late 2018, Liberal marginal seat MPs queried Federal Liberal director Hirst about winning the grants and he said he would “get on to it”.

One former senior government figure said of McKenzie: “She will dig her heels in. She loves being a minister, she loves power. She used her power as deputy leader to get Agriculture off (David) Littleproud. She won’t go easy.”

Another government source said: “We’re going to continue to back her because we can’t afford to let her go. The Nationals will implode.”

The Audit Office has been critical of the politics of pre-election grants schemes many times before. But few Audit Office reports condemn a minister like this. And that is the problem for the PM.

The report details that sworn testimony was taken from two members of McKenzie’s staff and that, rather than take Sport Australia’s recommendations in the first round of applications that more than 400 grants be made, the minister’s office asked for all 2054 “eligible” grants’ details and made their own decision.

It says the minister’s office ran a “parallel process” to the Sport Australia process and that it “applied considerations that were inconsistent with the published guidelines”.

The audit report said there was “evidence of distribution bias” and added “ … the award of funding reflected the approach documented by the Minister’s Office of focusing on ‘marginal’ electorates held by the Coalition as well as those electorates held by other parties or independent members that were to be ‘targeted’ by the Coalition at the 2019 Election.”

Legal advice from the Solicitor-General on the scheme is expected by with the PM by the end of the week. That’s another trigger point, although there is a feeling the advice might clear the minister.

Morrison allies had hoped for a “boring year” with political news off the front page. After the past couple of months, the chances of that seem slim indeed.

Andrew Clennell is the Sky News Political Editor.

Originally published as Andrew Clennell: McKenzie is a problem PM doesn’t need