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Sports rorts claim as Queensland sports minister Mick de Brenni accused of ‘pork barrelling’ following audit report

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk insists she’s standing by under-fire minister Mick de Brenni.

Queensland Minister for Sport Michael de Brenni. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Dan Peled
Queensland Minister for Sport Michael de Brenni. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Dan Peled

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk insists she’s standing by under-fire minister Mick de Brenni, despite a damning Auditor-General report funding he had intervened in sports grants to favour Labor electorates.

Despite calls from the Liberal National Party that Housing and Public Works Minister Mr de Brenni be sacked, Ms Palaszczuk said he would stay.

“What was very clear here is, my understanding is, the report found it was mostly consistent across the major parties, there was a differentiation of around one per cent,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“When the Auditor-General makes recommendations, my government will implement them...more record-keeping will happen.”

Asked whether Mr de Brenni would stay on, Ms Palaszczuk said “yes”.

Mr de Brenni personally intervened to award sports grants to Labor electorates in a $15m scheme, prompting calls for him to be sacked on the eve of the election.

An auditor-general’s report found that Mr de Brenni overruled his department’s recommendations on 32 occasions, resulting in grants for female facilities in sports clubs being awarded to Labor electorates increasing to 68 per cent, while Liberal National Party electorates’ share decreased to 28 per cent.

Mr de Brenni did not provide written reasons for his changes and the department did not document them, which went against government policy.

Speaking on 4BC on Wednesday, Mr de Brenni said his intervention in the awarding of grants was to “fix departmental mistakes”.

While the Auditor-General found the distribution of sports grant funding overall was equitable between Labor and LNP electorates from 2017 to February 2020, he also found the distribution of grants for the $15m Female Facilities Program heavily favoured Labor electorates after Mr de Brenni rejected his department’s recommendations.

Mr de Brenni said it was not right to hone in on one program when analysing the grant distribution.

He said he intervened with only 1 per cent of sports grants, but nearly all of that intervention came within the Female Facilities Program, in which he had a say in a majority of cases.

“The department’s failure to keep proper records is pretty insignificant in the scheme of things and quite frankly they’ve improved their processes. The report indicates the auditor identified that they’ve improved all of those processes within the department.

“If you take your leave from tabloid newspapers, that’s one thing, but if you read the report, you’ll see that the auditor found there is an equitable distribution of funding where there was some lackluster performance of record keeping where that was improved and I commend them for that.’’

The LNP opposition had called for Ms Palas­zczuk to sack Mr de Brenni, who is also the Minister for Housing and Public Works and Technology.

The report was prompted by the Australian National Audit Office’s report on the commonwealth sports grants program that found then sports minister Bridget McKenzie had disregarded formal assessment processes and awarded grants to electorates for political advantage. It led to Senator McKenzie’s eventual resignation from the ministry.

The Queensland report found that, overall, grants were awarded at “mostly consistent” rates across electorates for the political parties since 2017, but the $15m Female Facilities Program, launched in March 2018, was skewed by the minister towards Labor electorates.

Of 2900 competitive sport grants handed out across five programs since 2017, Mr de Brenni interfered in just over 1 per cent — a figure he highlighted in his correspondence with the Audit Office and at a press conference on Tuesday. However, of 45 grants awarded in the Female Facilities Program, he made changes to 32 cases, awarding 18 grants and rejecting 14 eligible applications against the advice of his department.

“The change in recommended grants resulted in grants awarded to Australian Labor Party electorates increasing from 44 to 68 per cent, while LNP electorates’ share of awarded grants decreased from 43 to 28 per cent,” the report found.

Winning clubs were given instructions on how to publicly acknowledge the grants and MPs appeared in the media spruiking the funding. Among them was Ms Palas­zczuk, who welcomed a top grant of $500,000 for a rugby league club in her electorate of Inala.

Mr de Brenni, the member for Springwood, intervened on another occasion for a different sports grant program, which also resulted in funding for a club in a Labor electorate.

He selected all 46 applications for a third grants program in 2019, but did not provide any written reasons.

Auditor-General Brendan Worrall found the design of the government’s processes “lacked clarity” in defining the roles of the department and the minister.

The federal sports rorts scandal led the Queensland government in February to make changes to processes it uses to administer grants, effectively removing the ability of the minister to directly choose where funding goes.

At a snap press conference on Tuesday, to which only select news organisations were invited, Mr de Brenni characterised his involvement as fixing departmental “errors” and blamed the department for not keeping records of his verbal feedback.

He denied playing politics with the grants. “The changes that I made were to correct some errors my department had made,” he said. “I wanted to make sure that small clubs that rely on mum and dad volunteers … got as much a look in to support from our government as those big clubs that rely heavily on funds from pokies.”

LNP sport spokesman John-Paul Langbroek called on Mr de Brenni to explain his rationale for depriving the recommended ­organisations of their grants or be sacked.

“This is nothing more than blatant political pork barrelling,” he said. “Annastacia Palaszczuk needs to explain to 14 Queensland community sports clubs why her Sport Minister scrapped a recommended department grant with the stroke of a pen.

“In the interests of transparency, the full list of these 33 grant recipients should be released, including a full list of the 14 organisations that missed out on grant funding thanks to the minister’s personal intervention,” he said.

Read related topics:Queensland Election
Charlie Peel
Charlie PeelRural reporter

Charlie Peel is The Australian’s rural reporter, covering agriculture, politics and issues affecting life outside of Australia’s capital cities. He began his career in rural Queensland before joining The Australian in 2017. Since then, Charlie has covered court, crime, state and federal politics and general news. He has reported on cyclones, floods, bushfires, droughts, corporate trials, election campaigns and major sporting events.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/sports-rorts-claim-as-queensland-sports-minister-mick-de-brenni-accused-of-pork-barrelling-following-audit-report/news-story/a4e0d07e8ce405c1f273178d594204dc