Senator McKenzie issued a media release clarifying that she did not backdate a document dated 4 April last year approving millions of dollars in grants which the Auditor General found favoured marginal and Coalition held seats.
The whole tawdry process of colour-coding electorates and carving up taxpayers funds for partisan political gain has been detailed during a senate committee investigating the rorts.
In her media release McKenzie makes clear that she has no knowledge of nine changes made to grant approvals after the 4 April letter was signed. Because she was the sole decision maker with authorisation to make approvals — as the Prime Minister has detailed in parliament — the question now is how did extra grants get approved without her?
Are such approvals even legal? And perhaps most significantly, who made the potentially illegal approvals which contradicts what the PM has told parliament occurred?
In short, McKenzie’s comments are a bombshell. Perhaps she simply wants to end speculation about what she may or may not have done. Or the former minister may finally have had enough of being tossed under the bus by others, as a fall gal for a rorted grants scheme which involved many players across the government.
At his media conference today when a journalist tried to ask the Prime Minister about the latest developments in the sports rorts scandal, he dismissed the question saying he is focused on the coronavirus. Here I was thinking a leader should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Rather than hide behind a public health emergency to avoid answering a question.
We still don’t know what was in the 136 emails that were flying back and forth between the Prime Minister’s office and McKenzie’s office. The government won’t release them. We still don’t know the full extent of what information was contained in those colour coded spreadsheets, because the versions released were heavily redacted. And we still don’t know what the Gaetjens review actually said, because the PM refuses to release the report.
And don’t forget, McKenzie only ever resigned on a technicality. The government and the PM continue to refuse to admit that they did anything wrong allocating tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers money to ineligible grants favouring their own MPs against the advice of Sport Australia.
That means they can and probably will do it again.
Peter van Onselen is Political Editor for Network 10 and professor of politics and public policy at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.
Playing chicken with the wrath of Mother Nature
The Albert Park organisers served up a cocktail of chaos, a casserole of catastrophe, a milkshake of madness but the spray-soaked drama couldn’t hide F1’s existential crises.
Competition best served by stopping mergers
The ACCC is likely to block Qube’s proposed vehicle terminal merger, which is a good example of how best to boost competition before industry gets too concentrated.
The sports rorts scandal got worse for the government overnight, with the former sports minister Bridget McKenzie breaking her silence since stepping down.