Sports rorts inquiry: Victorian roller derby club wants retrospective funding

A Victorian roller derby club which didn’t receive a sports grant despite being ‘highly eligible’ wants retrospective funding.

Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie in the Senate chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Wednesday, February 5, 2020. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas) NO ARCHIVING

A Victorian roller derby club, which was unsuccessful in securing a grant under the Morrison government’s controversial Community Sport Infrastructure program, has lashed the “discriminatory and politically motivated” scheme and called for retrospective funding.

In a submission to a Senate inquiry into the scandal, Gippsland Ranges Roller Derby club, which was denied funding despite being earmarked by Sport Australia as a highly eligible candidate, said it was “incredibly disappointed” with the politicisation of the program.

The club, located in a safe Nationals seat, missed out on funding despite scoring 98 out of 100 on its application for a $45,000 to upgrade the club’s toilet facilities.

“We are left with no doubt that the action of denying our club the funds we were assessed as deserving was indeed discriminatory and politically motivated,” the club’s president Bodye Darvill wrote to the Senate committee.

Ms Darvill said all applications that reached Sport Australia’s cut-off mark of 74 out of 100 should be retrospectively funded.

“Our club, and I am sure many others, are very wary of spending valuable time and emotional energy preparing submissions that may be discarded not based on merit criteria, but based on political manoeuvring. We believe there is a significant trust deficit that needs to be remedied.”

In follows an explosive report from ­Auditor-General Grant Hehir, released in January, that found Senator McKenzie ignored recommendations by government agency Sport Australia on which applications to approve before the election without apparent legal authority, favouring marginal and targeted seats.

While Sport Australia’s initial check weeded-out non-­compliant applications, ensuring no ineligible groups were awarded funds, the report revealed Senator McKenzie’s office conducted a parallel assessment process to approve projects.

Labor heaped pressure on Scott Morrison in question time on Wednesday over his involvement in the program, citing new evidence the Prime Minister’s office and Senator McKenzie’s exchanged over one hundred emails regarding the program.

In a written answer to a question asked at a Senate inquiry two weeks ago, the Australian National Audit Office clarified on Wednesday that 136 emails were exchanged between the office of Senator McKenzie and the Prime Minister’s office.

The ANAO’s responses to a series of questions from Labor senators also reveal that Senator McKenzie emailed Mr Morrison the day before the election was called and attached printouts of two worksheets with a “list of projects she intended to approve for Round 3 funding.”

It has been previously revealed there were at least 28 versions of a ­controversial internal spreadsheet with a colour-coded breakdown of what party held the seats where potential projects were based.

But Mr Morrison declared the PMO had merely “passed on information” about other funding options and “provided proposals based on representations made to us.”

“The Auditor-General has been quizzed on these very matters and he has found no correlation with the representations that were made from my office with these outcomes,” he said.

Giving evidence on the first day of the Senate inquiry a fortnight ago, Auditor-General Grant Hehir said that while the PMO made “direct and indirect” representations on behalf of grassroots clubs, it was clear Senator McKenzie was the “decision-maker” behind the scenes, as not all suggestions materialised.
Mr Hehir said the awarding of grant funding under the program was not informed by an “appropriate assessment process and sound advice”.

The same hearing heard “comfortably dozens” of emails were sent between Mr Morrison and Senator McKenzie’s offices.

Data from the ANAO submitted to an inquiry into the saga shows tennis, lawn bowls and golf were the big winners with 65 tennis clubs, 31 bowls clubs and 13 golf clubs received funding under the scheme.

They received, respectively, 3.88, 2.03 and 0.82 per cent of the allocated $100 million in funding under the controversial program.

Constitutional law expert Anne Twomey has also made a submission to the Senate inquiry in which she questions the legality of the program, declaring Senator McKenzie had no power to approve the grants and “her action in this regard was unlawful.”

Professor Twomey said the program guidelines were invalid because they gave the former Sport Minister the role of being “the final approver of grants”. She said that “most of the funding given to projects under the scheme was unlawful because there was no constitutional head of power to support it”.

Another unsuccessful applicant, the North Shore Country Club threatened to join possible legal action. Australian Sport Commission chair John Wylie will be grilled by the senate inquiry on Thursday.