Attorney-General Christian Porter’s sports grants investigation farcical, Anthony Albanese says

Labor ramps up its calls for former Sports Minister Bridget McKenzie to stand-down over the controversial program.

Federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese and Labor Member for Perth Patrick Gorman at Mt Lawley bowls club. Picture: Colin Murty

Labor leader Anthony Albanese has lashed Attorney-General Christian Porter’s proposed investigation into the handing-out of sports grants in key seats as “farcical” after sports clubs in the Attorney-General’s own electorate received funding from the scheme.

It comes as Labor ramps up its calls for former Sports Minister Bridget McKenzie to stand-down over the controversial program that saw $100 million in grants doled out to projects in electorates where the coalition had a slim majority.

“I think it’s farcical – completely farcical that Christian Porter has been asked to come up with a determination against someone, when his electorate benefited from this process,” Mr Albanese said on Tuesday.

Government sources told The Australian on Monday it was likely Mr Porter would ­request legal advice from the government’s Solicitor-General, Stephen Donaghue, after a damning Australian National Audit Office report questioned whether Senator McKenzie had the legal authority as the then sports minister to approve the grants.

“This is an extraordinary circumstance that the Government has put itself in,” Mr Albanese said. “What is characterising this Government is that every decision it makes is all about politics, it’s never about the substance, it’s never about the national interest.”

However, Nationals frontbencher David Littleproud said he was confident the program was rolled out according to the guidelines, and Senator McKenzie had his full support.

“Of course she does – she’s doing a damn good job,” Mr Littleproud said on Tuesday.

Scott Morrison on Monday stood by Senator McKenzie, who has labelled calls for her resignation as “absolutely ridiculous” and argued “no rules were broken” because each of the 684 projects that received funding was eligible under the program’s guidelines.

Sport Australia, the government agency that administered the program and assessed applications, cited privacy reasons for refusing to release the details of nearly 1400 projects that lost out under the controversial $100m scheme.

The Auditor-General’s report into Senator McKenzie’s handling of grants found she had “no legal authority” to approve grants that were paid with Sport Australia money.

Labor’s former sports minister Ros Kelly stepped down from the ministry and then parliament in 1995 following a similar scandal.

Mr Morrison defended Senator McKenzie and said the fact that sports grants had gone out to safe Labor seats showed the process was not biased.

“I continue to support her and the reason I do is because she was delivering a program which has changed the future of local communities,” Mr Morrison told Radio 3AW.

“It’s hard to draw that absolute conclusion (that she was pork-barrelling) when more Labor seats got funding … one of those seats was Anthony Albanese’s seat. I think he was pretty confident of holding onto his seat.”