Scott Morrison orders probe into Bridget McKenzie’s sport grants
Australia’s top public servant will investigate Bridget McKenzie’s handling of the $100m sports grants program.
Scott Morrison has ordered an investigation by Australia’s top public servant into Nationals deputy leader Bridget McKenzie’s handling of the $100m sports grants program amid calls for her resignation over pork-barrelling and conflict of interest allegations.
The investigation by cabinet secretary Philip Gaetjens into whether she has breached the ministerial standards was announced as it emerged she had handed out nearly two-thirds of the $100m in sports grants without seeing recommendations from the government agency managing the money.
The Prime Minister met Nationals leader Michael McCormack at The Lodge for dinner last night. The Australian understands there was growing momentum for Senator McKenzie to go but that she was pushing back.
Senator McKenzie is also facing questions from Labor over whether she is in contempt of the Senate after it was revealed she gave $35,980 to the Wangaratta clay target club under the community sport infrastructure program when she was a member.
Labor believes Senator McKenzie, now the Agriculture Minister, may be in contempt of the Senate for failing to declare the Wangaratta club membership because of the apparent conflict of interest.
While her office said the membership was not declared because it was a gift valued at less than the $300 threshold that must be reported in the register of senators’ interests, the club has described her as a “full fee-paying member”.
Senator McKenzie approved the clay shooting club funding on February 25, 2019, and made the announcement alongside Nationals candidate Mark Byatt, who was contesting the regional Victorian seat of Indi eventually won by independent Helen Haines.
“When the club came to me when I joined up as its member a couple of weeks ago and showed me the facilities and amenities that this club had, I knew it was something that our government had to support,” Senator McKenzie said at the time.
The Prime Minister’s office confirmed that he had referred the Auditor-General’s explosive audit of the government’s scheme to Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Mr Gaetjens last Friday.
The grant to the shooting club will also be scrutinised.
Mr Morrison’s statement of ministerial standards says ministers must declare any private interests held by them or their family members that “give rise to, or are likely to give rise to, a conflict with their public duties”.
Ministers must declare those private interests during cabinet discussions.
The audit — which triggered the sports rorts scandal embroiling Senator McKenzie — reveals a list of 426 applications endorsed by Sport Australia’s board for the first round of grants was never given to the then sports minister.
That was because Sport Australia, the government agency administering the fund, received a list of “approved” projects from Senator McKenzie’s office before it had provided her with its own recommendations.
Sport Australia also played no role in deciding which applications should be recommended in the second round of funding and was told by the minister’s office which projects were being approved.
Nationals MPs are watching the saga, with some conceding it could become more challenging for Senator McKenzie to hold on to her job, especially when parliament resumes in February. Of the $100.6m in community sports grants, $28.3m was handed out in the first round, $32.3m in the second round and $40m in the final round closest to the May election.
By round three, Sport Australia provided a written briefing that identified 245 applications it recommended for approval, with an attached list of 228 projects Senator McKenzie had signed off on.
Opposition sport spokesman Don Farrell said it “doesn’t pass the test of any pub in the country” that Senator McKenzie “ignored” the expert advice of the nation’s sport agency and “never even looked at the list of recommended grants endorsed by its board”.
Senator Farrell on Wednesday received a briefing from the Australia National Audit Office about its report, published last week, into the sports grants.
“The minister ignoring the recommendations of Sport Australia as early as rounds one and two shows that the government never had any intention of this being a competitive, merit-based grants program and always planned to use it for its industrial-scale pork-barrelling campaign,” he said.
Senator McKenzie conducted a parallel assessment process to Sport Australia in her office, with 41 per cent of the round-one approved projects not on the list endorsed by the Sport Australia board. In round two, 70 per cent of approved projects were not on the list of 204 applications Sport Australia planned to recommend and in round three 73 per cent of the approved projects had not been recommended by the agency.
The ANAO report found evidence of distribution bias, as the grants often favoured marginal seats the Coalition needed to win at the 2019 election, and raised doubts over whether Senator McKenzie had the legal authority to undertake an approval role.
Three cabinet ministers — Senator McKenzie, Josh Frydenberg and Ken Wyatt — secured nearly $500,000 of funding for grassroots sports clubs in their electorates under the program.
An analysis of the registers of senators’ and members’ interests revealed the Treasurer and Mr Wyatt, the Minister for Indigenous Australians, were members of clubs that received a combined $428,911. Unlike Senator McKenzie, they had disclosed their memberships of the relevant clubs.
Senator McKenzie did not respond to questions on why she handed out the first two rounds of grants without seeing recommendations from Sport Australia.
More Coverage
Ex-union boss to lead Safe Work
One of Anthony Albanese’s closest union allies, Tony Maher, has been appointed to lead the workplace health and safety watchdog.
Federal review to give verdict on puberty blockers
A newly announced inquiry by the National Health and Medical Research Council will cut short the Queensland government’s review of puberty blocker prescriptions.