Anthony Albanese gunning for bureaucrat over sports rorts review

Anthony Albanese has taken aim at the federal government’s top bureaucrat as Labor seeks to have his sports rorts review released.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese. Picture: Richard Dobson

Anthony Albanese has taken aim at the federal government’s top bureaucrat, Philip Gaetjens, as Labor seeks to have his secret ­review into ousted minister ­Bridget McKenzie and the sports rorts scandal released.

Scott Morrison is refusing to ­release Mr Gaetjens’s report, which cleared Senator McKenzie from showing political bias in allocating sports grants but found she breached ministerial standards by failing to declare her membership of a Victorian gun club awarded $36,000.

Labor intends to pursue the Prime Minister in parliament this week over the role of his office in handing out sports grants and the release of his department’s report, which contradicted the independent Auditor-General’s finding that grants were directed towards Coalition target seats.

The Opposition Leader ­accused the secretary of the ­Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet of letting Mr Morrison and his office “off the hook”.

“Bridget McKenzie, of course, has been thrown under the bus for what, relative to this $100m scandal, is just one small element of it,” Mr Albanese said. “And for the Prime Minister to just dismiss the independent report of the Auditor-General because he has something from his former chief of staff, which conveniently lets everyone else off the hook, means that there needs to be a full and proper inquiry into this sorry saga.

“They have to go through various procedures of transparency that are there now that have been ignored.

“Phil Gaetjens, if he doesn’t know that, then I don’t know how he has got the job as the head of Prime Minister and Cabinet. It’s quite farcical, this whole exercise.”

Before he was made secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Mr Gaetjens worked as department secretary and chief of staff to Mr Morrison as treasurer. When he was appointed to the federal bureaucracy’s top job late last year, Labor raised concerns about Mr Gaetjens’ independence.

But Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton on Monday fiercely defended the secretary’s independence and public service record.

“He is independent and he’s a longstanding public servant of several decades and so I think he’s a very honourable person himself and I have known him for a long period of time. He’s looked at all the facts and he’s delivered that judgment,” Mr Dutton told the Nine Network.

Labor’s pursuit of Mr Gaetjens will be coupled with a larger campaign over what the Prime Minister’s office knew about Senator McKenzie’s handling of sports grants and how deeply involved it was.

Mr Morrison said last week that his office only passed on recommendations of worthy projects from local MPs.

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus will also push for a more powerful national ­integrity commission than ­Attorney-General Christian Porter is designing.

“The Morrison government’s desperate attempts to cover up its blatant misuse of taxpayer funds for its 2019 election campaign has graphically demonstrated why Australia urgently needs a powerful and independent national ­integrity commission,” Mr Dreyfus said.

Senator McKenzie on Monday said she took full responsibility for her failure to declare the gun club membership, but defended the sports grants scheme. “I am very proud of a program by this government to fund 684 local sports clubs around the country to get Australians more active, and it was a good thing,” she said.

“The secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet’s report confirms that ministerial discretion was ­exercised in an appropriate manner. That there was no political bias in my decision-making.”