Sports rorts: Bridget McKenzie denies changing sports grants approvals

Bridget McKenzie claims she didn’t know any changes had been made to sports grants approvals after emails with the PMO.

Senator Bridget McKenzie in the Senate chamber. Picture: Gary Ramage

Former sports minister Bridget McKenzie claims she did not know any changes had been made to sports grants approvals following her office’s correspondence with Scott Morrison’s staff.

The Prime Minister’s office was drawn deeper into the ongoing sports grants scandal this week when it was revealed at Senate estimates that several projects were added and removed from lists of grant approvals sent to Sport Australia after Senator McKenzie’s staff had been in contact with them.

Mr Morrison has repeatedly denied that he was involved in the approval of sports projects and said his office was only passing on representations from other MPs.

Senator McKenzie – who resigned after it was revealed she had failed to declare her membership of a gun club given a grant – said she was unaware of the changes had been made in any spreadsheets and put it down to “administrative errors.” 

“The brief authorised approved projects for the third round this included nine new and emerging projects which, it must be emphasised, had been identified and sent to Sport Australia in March for assessment in line with program guidelines,” she said.

“I did not make any changes or annotations to this brief or its attachments after 4 April 2019. My expectation was that the brief would be processed in a timely and appropriate manner.

“Nevertheless, changes were made and administrative errors occurred in processing the brief.

“I was the Minister for Sport and therefore ultimately and entirely responsible for funding decisions that were signed off under my name, including and regrettably, any changes that were made unbeknown to me.”

The estimates revelations on the sports grant scheme triggered a fresh attack from Anthony Albanese in parliament this week.

ANAO executive director of the performance audit services group, Brian Boyd, said Mr Morrison’s office made a request for one project to be removed and another to be added under the third and final round of the program.

The change was made in an 8.46am email sent from former sports minister Bridget McKenzie’s office to Sport Australia on April 11 last year, after federal parliament had been dissolved and entered caretaker mode ahead of the May 19 election.

The Opposition Leader said this was “direct evidence that the Prime Minister was involved in these decisions”.