The latest sport grants saga showcases exactly the kind of political games which turn voters off politicians.
The federal government in the countdown to the recent election used a $100 million community sports program as a slush fund to bankroll initiatives in key marginal seats it hoped to win.
To call it a misuse of taxpayers’ money, unfairly distributed for political purposes, is an understatement.
This isn’t my assessment of what happened. It is the finding of the independent Australian National Audit Office, and it isn’t the first time this government has allocated public money so inappropriately. It also did so just three months ago with respect to a jobs scheme which ANAO said included conflicts of interest and ministerial interventions against the independent advice of departments.
New performance audit report: Award of Funding under the Community Sport Infrastructure Program (@sportaustralia) https://t.co/GsIN9NrOIB pic.twitter.com/De1cRdIbQo
— Audit Office (ANAO) (@ANAO_Australia) January 15, 2020
I have spoken directly with one sports club administrator who was contacted, rather hastily, just before polling day last year with the Coalition candidate spruiking whether or not his club would like tens of thousands of dollars “if the Coalition is returned to power”. He told me it all felt very inappropriate the way it was offered. He understandably doesn’t want his name or the details of his organisation published lest the money suddenly vanishes.
Perhaps the biggest tragedy with the latest scandal is the likelihood that nothing will happen. No minister will lose their job. The government won’t admit its errors and promise to clean up its act. Basically nothing will happen because political parties in the modern era are taught to ride out such scandals, hoping that the dogs keep barking, but the caravan moves on.
When I contacted the Prime Minister’s Office about the scandal the response … nothing. They just ignored the query.
READ MORE: Download the full ANAO report
It was Ros Kelly back in the 1990s who as sports minister in the Keating government was forced to resign for dodgy allocations of cash. She’d used a whiteboard to divvy up the money before wiping away the evidence.
Today, she probably wouldn’t have resigned. This shift towards a lack of ministerial accountability needs to be reversed. It is an all encompassing problem in modern politics. Ministers don’t resign. When blame is sheeted anywhere political staffers take the fall, only to re-emerge shortly afterwards in another political office.
And of course ministers decreasingly answer questions at media conferences (no one more so that the PM himself).
It is all part of the corrosion of the political class and with that the corrosion of public trust and confidence in politicians.
Peter van Onselen is Political Editor at Network 10 and a professor of politics and public policy at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.
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