John Coates shocked at spending on sport consultants

As the Australian Institute of Sport languishes, John Coates slams the millions spent on consultants.

Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates has likened the state of the AIS to an episode in the satirical TV show Yes Minister. Picture: Peter Wallis

Australian Olympic Committee boss John Coates has dubbed the recent multi-million-dollar spending by the Australian Sports Commission on consultants as “incom­prehensible”.

He said he was shocked by the money splashed on consultants by Sport Australia.

“I am very surprised by where the money is being spent, particularly at a time when our senior athletes have been making representations for greater direct support,” Mr Coates said.

“Payments to advertising agencies, companies like the Australian Forensic Services and such large payments to the Melbourne Business School are ­incomprehensible.”

The Australian revealed on Friday the ASC paid huge sums to consultancy firms, ­including $17.02m on advertising, marketing and events, and $7.7m on leadership training, in recent years. Olympic sports are facing tough funding cuts — some more than 60 per cent — and athletes are suffering mediocre preparations for this year’s Tokyo Olympics.

The Australian’s investigation also revealed the continuing ­demise of the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra, which is no longer a world-leading hub of sports ­science and coaching. There are no longer hundreds of athletes living on site, a departure from what it was originally set up for in 1981. Some have ­described it as a “zoo with no ­animals”.

Mr Coates likened the state of the AIS to an episode in the satirical TV show Yes Minister, in which a bureaucrat shows off a hospital that has been open for more than a year but is yet to take any patients. The bureaucrat highlights how efficiently the hospital is being run and remarks that it is up for an award for the most hygienic hospital in the area.

“What also must be remembered is at the end of day, the AIS is a wholly run subsidiary of Sport Australia; it’s not a separate legal entity,” he said.

The Australian Sports Commission said investing in “our Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games sports and athletes is by far the largest allocation of our annual budget”.

“Over the past four years, we have proudly invested more than $500m in preparing our athletes and teams for the upcoming 2020 Games in Tokyo,” an ASC statement said. “We are conscious that our funding is public money and ­endeavour to be prudent with it.”

It said the average staffing level over the past seven years had been ­reduced from 790 to 444, a 44 per cent reduction.

“At the same time, high-performance grants to sports had ­increased from $106m to $147m.

“The ASC believes the AIS campus in Canberra needs a ­redevelopment after 40 years of ­service to Australian sport, and is currently pursuing a project to that effect with the Australian government.”

Sport Minister Richard Colbeck said the campus would be ­redeveloped “within the next two or so years’’ and he hoped “the good people at the top’’ of the sports executive in Australia “were being responsible with the ­resources available to sport’’.

Senator Colbeck acknowledged the salary of AIS chief Peter Conde, on $426,000 a year, and at least six other executives earning above $220,000, saying: “We need good people at the top.”

But he added: “All elements of the way sports are resourced are important. Sport Australia allocates resources and are responsible in that context.’’

Senator Colbeck said he was seeking views from sport about the future of the AIS.