Senate sports rorts probe ‘obstructed’

A Senate committee scrutinising the $100m sports rorts saga has lashed the commonwealth over its lack of transparency

Senator Bridget McKenzie quit as agriculture minister deputy party leader last year over the sports grants scandal. Picture: Getty Images

A Senate committee scrutinising the $100m sports rorts saga — a scheme that claimed the scalp of former deputy Nationals leader Bridget McKenzie — has lashed the commonwealth for a lack of transparency, declaring it faced “significant obstruction” in its attempts to gather evidence.

The Labor-controlled committee, chaired by Anthony Chisholm, concluded there was “overwhelming evidence” the government used the program to gain political advantage. It called for projects that were recommended by Sport Australia — but which were overlooked — to receive retrospective funding.

“The evidence available to the committee indicates clearly the Prime Minister’s office, and likely the Prime Minister, were aware of the use of electorate information to identify projects in marginal and targeted electorates well before the first grant recipient was announced,” the majority report said.

But Coalition senators have used their dissenting report to argue the scheme was an “overwhelming success”, with the committee run as a “highly politicised and weaponised exercise” and a “charade” to peddle myths about how the scheme worked.

“The Coalition accepts that there are many disappointed organisations having missed out on the grants scheme because it was so popular and therefore oversubscribed,” the dissenting report reads.

The senators, including the Nationals’ Matt Canavan and the Liberal’s Eric Abetz, said sporting organisations that missed out on funding were misled that they had not received funding because they were not in marginal or targeted seats.

“One cannot help feel organisations were misled by the spin and misrepresentations and were surprised when confronted with indisputable evidence,” they said.

“The fact that Labor’s safe seats in the ACT were allocated 1.5 per cent of the funding while representing 1.6 per cent of the population highlights the equity in the minister’s decision making, which was regrettably not seen as relevant for the majority report because it debunked their unsustainable narrative.”

The saga was sparked after Auditor-General Grant Hehir released a damning report in February last year that found the Community Sport Infrastructure grant program skewed funding ­decisions in favour of sporting clubs in marginal seats.

The inquiry found Senator McKenzie ignored recommendations by Sport Australia about which funding applications to ­approve and suggested she may have acted without legal authority.

But a separate probe conducted by Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Philip Gaetjens found the scheme was above board. However, this report has not been made public.

The Labor-led majority said it had faced significant obstruction in its attempts to gather evidence that would explain who was responsible for grant decisions, including the extent of Scott Morrison’s involvement and the reasons for decisions.

It said documents were sought on multiple occasions, including a summary of the legal advice given to Sport Australia regarding funding decisions, the terms of reference of the Gaetjens report and a copy of talking points for a discussion between Senator McKenzie and the Prime Minister.

The Labor MPs said the committee believed public interest immunity claims were used to withhold more information that necessary and that they received several heavily redacted documents “of little value”.

Senator McKenzie quit as agriculture minister and deputy Nationals leader last year after Mr Gaetjens found she broke ministerial rules in awarding $36,000 to a clay shooting club of which she didn’t disclose her membership.