Yahoo Finance Scott Morrison dodges questions about sports grants expansion revelations
Scott Morrison has dodged questions about the sports grants controversy after new evidence emerged that Bridget McKenzie appealed to him to expand the program on the basis of the marginal and target status of seats.
Last Wednesday Australian National Audit Office officials revealed that the former sports minister’s senior adviser had drawn up talking points for a meeting between McKenzie and Morrison asking to expand the sports grant program to $100m on the basis it could fund 109 more projects in target and marginal seats, and noting that these were a “priority” in consultations with MPs.
McKenzie has denied seeing the talking points before her meeting with Morrison on 28 November 2018, and claims the community sports infrastructure grant program was expanded due to its “popularity”.
The prime minister’s office received 15 emails with spreadsheets showing indicative lists of projects to be funded. ANAO officials said on Wednesday that the first of these on 18 October 2018 – one day after McKenzie first requested Morrison to expand the program – had been titled “copy of electorate division of applications”.
Asked about the ANAO testimony at a press conference on Monday, Morrison told Guardian Australia: “I think we’re going to stay with the health of Victorians today.”
The prime minister had called the press conference to spruik two supply agreements for potential Covid-19 vaccines and address Victoria’s roadmap out of a stage 4 lockdown, but also answered a question about Google and Facebook’s backlash against a proposed new industry code to pay for news.
Related: Labor accuses Scott Morrison of being 'up to his neck' in sports grants scandal
McKenzie told reporters on Thursday that her “comprehensive submission” to the Senate inquiry had addressed the talking points, citing passages claiming that applications in marginal and target seats hadn’t been given “any precedence or special treatment”.
“This former adviser’s memo was not used as a basis for my decisions at any stage in the process,” it said. “The memo was never provided to me or seen by me.”
McKenzie did not directly respond to questions about whether she had told the prime minister how many projects in marginal seats could be funded.
Brian Boyd, the performance audit services group executive director at the ANAO, said that on 16 November 2018 McKenzie’s office had sent the prime minister’s office a spreadsheet of what a “$100m project might look like” with an indicative list of projects to be funded.
On 4 March 2019 the prime minister’s office asked McKenzie for a list of unfunded sports grant projects and an indication of what a third round of the program would look like if approved.
The shadow sports minister, Don Farrell, and the Senate inquiry chair, Labor’s Anthony Chisholm, have said the ANAO evidence proved Morrison “wasn’t just listening to Bridget McKenzie’s pork-barrelling plans” but his office “was an active participant in the plotting”.
“The Senate committee inquiry is revealing what Scott Morrison has always been trying to hide – that he was in the sports rorts scandal up to his neck from the start,” they said.
Morrison has always claimed the former sports minister was solely responsible for the $100m community sports infrastructure grant program, despite 136 emails between his and McKenzie’s offices about the program, 15 of which included attached lists of intended recipients.
His office also had input into a flurry of late changes made after McKenzie signed the final brief on 4 April 2019, including some after the government entered caretaker mode on 11 April.
McKenzie has so far refused to appear before the Senate inquiry. The current sports minister, Richard Colbeck, has claimed public interest immunity over a range of documents, including legal advice Sport Australia offered to provide.
Colbeck has said that producing the advice would prejudice a federal court case brought by Beechworth lawn tennis club challenging McKenzie’s authority to overrule Sport Australia.
