Lotterywest ‘risks future’ over Court stance

A whistleblower from WA government-owned Lotterywest says the group could lose community support after its controversial rejection of a grant to a church.

A generic Lotterywest Powerball ticket.

A whistleblower from Western Australian government-owned Lotterywest says the group could lose community support and be vulnerable to sale under a future government after its controversial rejection of a grant to Margaret Court’s Victory Life church.

Crispin Rovere quit as a senior lotteries policy officer at Lotterywest last week in protest at what he said was an increasingly “unethical and unlawful” approach to allocating community grants.

A grant application to allow Mrs Court’s Victory Life church to purchase a refrigerated truck to distribute food to Perth’s homeless and disadvantaged was rejected by Lotterywest this year. Chief executive Susan Hunt said the decision was made due to Mrs Court’s opposition to same-sex marriage not aligning with Lotterywest’s “strong commitment to inclusion and diversity”.

Mr Rovere, who supports same-sex marriage, told The Australian he was concerned the controversy could alienate customers, given Lotterywest’s customer base was weighted towards older, conservative demographics. The shift could also dent the group’s community standing and potentially boost the case for a future government to sell off the last remaining government-owned lottery in Australia.

“My main fear is once we prove ourselves to be a partisan weapon, then we will get the backlash from the large segments of the community that don’t agree with that world view,” he said. “We will cease to have that aura of sanctity that both sides of politics have respected for many, many years.”

Mr Rovere said he believed there was a growing trend within the organisation to allocate funding on ideological grounds, rather than across all segments of the community. The perceived shift had been driven from the organisation’s board, which he said had been “heavily stacked in a partisan way” in recent years.

“There are people within the agency who clearly agree with the board’s directive and who have gone out of their way to enable the use of this public money as a social weapon. There are people who don’t see any confusion between activism and public service.”

Mr Rovere said the Victory Life rejection was just one of several incidents he had witnessed within Lotterywest that were making it increasingly difficult for certain groups to access grants.

His resignation followed an appearance by Ms Hunt at a WA parliamentary estimates hearing last week at which she said there were concerns on the Lotterywest board about Mrs Court’s public statements on gay and lesbian issues and same-sex marriage.

She said Lotterywest recently approved millions of dollars of funding to faith-based community groups such as St Vincent De Paul, St Bart’s and St Patrick’s.

A spokeswoman for Lotterywest said it should be noted that Mr Rovere’s opinion was based on access to limited information.