It was officially known as the Community Sports Infrastructure Grant program, a $100 million Federal Government scheme to deliver funding to sporting clubs in the months before the 2019 election.
It was completed with barely a blip.
But eight months after the Coalition Government was returned to power, the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) delivered an explosive report, finding the pre-election cash splash was focused on marginal and target seats.
It found a list put together by Sport Australia, outlining which clubs were most deserving of funding, had been largely ignored by the then-sports minister Bridget McKenzie.
The auditor-general also raised the prospect that the entire scheme was illegal, noting there did not appear to be any authority for Senator McKenzie to have picked recipients.
As the scandal gathered pace, the Prime Minister repeatedly stated all of the grants that received funding were eligible.
But even that claim came undone during a Senate committee hearing which found 43 per cent of the successful projects were in fact considered “ineligible” by the audit office.
One big question remains unresolved: Was the program endorsed by the Prime Minister’s office or the Liberal Party?
So, what happened to Bridget McKenzie?
Senator McKenzie resigned from her role as Minister for Sport in February 2020, after accepting ultimate responsibility for choosing the projects that received funding.
The pressure mounted after revelations her office put together a document which was colour-coded according to the party that held the electorate.
It also emerged that Sport Australia wrote to Senator McKenzie one month before the election was called, outlining concerns its independence was being compromised by political interference.
When a story broke that Senator McKenzie was a member of a gun club that received almost $36,000 from the grants program, the writing was on the wall.
After her resignation, the head of the Prime Minister’s department Phil Gaetjens, wrote a submission to a Senate review, conceding the project had “significant shortcomings”.
But Mr Gaetjens, a former chief of staff to Scott Morrison, claimed politically motivated bias wasn’t the primary factor in the way the money was doled out.
He said his assessment of the successful applications did not show the minister was “unduly influenced” by the spreadsheet references to particular marginal seats.
What is happening today?
Now a backbencher, Senator McKenzie is appearing before a Senate inquiry for the first time, having been ordered to do so by the Senate.
She had been invited to appear several times before, but declined, preferring to make a written submission instead.
From 3:00-4:00pm, she’ll be grilled about what she knew and, more significantly, whether the Prime Minister or his office were involved in the delivery of sports grants.
The inquiry will also hear from two clubs which were denied funding under the scheme.
One of the clubs, Olympia Football Club, which is based in the safe Tasmanian Labor seat of Franklin, was given an eligibility score of 79.5/100 by Sport Australia but still missed out on a grant.
Is the inquiry just about ‘sports rorts’?
Yes, the terms of this inquiry are confined to questions about the Community Sports Infrastructure Grant program.
But there could be more hearings in the future about other Government grants programs.
Most prominent are revelations on ABC’s 730 program that Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton slashed millions of dollars in community-safety grant funding, then used the funds to support his own handpicked list.
The documents show Mr Dutton didn’t follow his department’s recommendations.
The Opposition has already written to the auditor general, requesting an investigation.
So, watch this space.
Where to from here?
The Senate select committee looking into the ‘sports rorts’ affair is due to present its final report on March 24.
Since the committee is made up of government and opposition senators, the final report is likely to contain a dissenting report.
An interim report, tabled last December, accused the Government of “obstruction” after Senator McKenzie refused to appear and her successor blocked the release of advice about the legality of the program.
Senator McKenzie is no longer on the front-bench, but she remains ambitious and hasn’t been shy recently about criticising the Prime Minister’s climate policy.
Whatever’s contained in the final report, it’s a safe bet that Labor will continue to attack the Government right up to the election over the matter.
But the Opposition hasn’t made any noises about a desire to change the way Government grants are handed out, for example by removing ministerial discretion, should they win.
The election could be upon us as soon as August this year, although Prime Minister Scott Morrison has expressed a preference to hold it in 2022.
Whenever it happens, there’ll be a lot of scrutiny on government grants and where the taxpayer funds are being spent.
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