Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If Senator McGrath wants to talk about a scandal, he wants to be listening to me. What's the biggest scandal to happen in this parliament in the past—at least—decade? That's the sports rorts affair. The minister for sports, Senator McKenzie, has resigned. But her resignation has come several weeks too late, and it was for the wrong reason anyway. Even after her resignation she still refuses to accept responsibility for the widespread rorting of $100 million in taxpayers' funds, despite the finding of the Auditor-General's report.

I know the Prime Minister, Mr Morrison, would like to think this matter is closed with Senator McKenzie's resignation, but, sadly, the rort goes much further than the former minister and her office.

The Community Sports Infrastructure Grants program was supposed to be awarded on merit. Instead, it was hijacked by those opposite to become a brazen exercise in pork-barrelling to marginal electorates, a slush fund paid for by the Australian taxpayers to finance the re-election of the Morrison government. Many, many Australians are outraged, as am I. I wish I could say I was shocked, but, after seven years of those opposite in power, seeing politics put ahead of public interest is exactly what I've come to expect. The ANAO report revealed that Senator McKenzie, as then sports minister, took a merit based program and overrode it with a brazenly political allocation of funds. CSIG projects that were assessed by Sport Australia as being highly meritorious, some with scores of 90 per cent or more, were overlooked in favour of project with scores as low as 40.

Furthermore, the minister's office demanded projects in marginal electorates be included, despite their applications being submitted after the closing date. They assessed the projects using a spreadsheet that colour-coded them according to the party that held their electorate and whether it was a targeted seat or not. Elected non-government members in marginal seats were denied information on successful grants, or it was sent to them by snail mail, while Liberal candidates made announcements about them, having been of course emailed the information, often armed with giant prop cheques.

Senator McKenzie reportedly ignored advice from Sport Australia that the agency was being compromised by her political interference. A whistleblower from the minister's office told Sky News that they had raised concerns about the way the program was being administered. The whistleblower revealed that they were not the only staff member in the minister's office to raise concerns about the process, only to be told by her chief of staff that this was how it would be done. The minister received multiple warnings about the propriety of her pork-barrelling, yet she went ahead anyway.

The ANAO said there was no legal authority evident under which the minister was able to approve the grants. I think it is worth dwelling on the words 'no legal authority'. Given the government's flawed robodebt system was found to be illegal, despite them insisting for three years that it wasn't, we have good reason to question whether the government's conduct was legal in relation to these grants. Every time the former minister was questioned about this scandal, she batted away the questions by asserting that every project that was funded was eligible for funding under the guidelines. This may be true, but it completely misses the point.

In defence of the government's handling of the program, Mr Morrison said at the National Press Club:

… let's remember why we were doing it, because we didn't want to see girls changing in cars or out the back of the sheds rather than having their own changing facilities. That's why we did it.

Well, Mr Morrison's explanation does not stack up. It was reported in TheGuardian that 12 applications for grants to build or upgrade female change rooms were rejected. One of those applications was from a club where women and girls have been changing in tents. All of those applications received excellent scores through the process, run by Sport Australia, including one which scored 94 out of 100, one of the highest scores in the country. Despite presenting a strong case, women and girls in these clubs are still changing in cars and toilet blocks or having to wait for male players to vacate their change rooms.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Shame!

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But it does get worse, Senator Farrell, as I know you're so aware. While these 12 worthy applications were rejected, $500,000 was given to an Adelaide Rugby Union club in the electorate of Sturt for female change rooms—and guess what?

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How many women players have they got?

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The club didn't have any female members—no joke, Senator Farrell.

The outcome in Tasmania, the state I represent, also illustrates how skewed these grants were. Seventy-five per cent of the $3.1 million in grants went to the marginal electorate of Bass, Braddon and Lyons. The safe Labor electorate of Franklin received a poultry $240,000. Sports clubs and councils across Australia deserve an apology, at a minimum, from this government, especially those which put time and resources into applications that should have, on merit, been funded but were overlooked for political reasons.

Even the Liberals' former opposition leader John Hewson believed that Senator McKenzie should've resigned from the ministry immediately following the release of the Auditor-General's report. In an opinion piece for The Age, Mr Hewson told the story of how in 1984 he hounded Labor sports minister Ros Kelly, resulting in her resignation. Here's what Mr Hewson had to say about the current scandal:

The sports rorts scandal involving the current Sport Minister, Bridget McKenzie, is worse.

… … …

In Ros Kelly's case, at least, there was no doubt that she had the power to make the allocations of the sporting grants that she made.

There is serious doubt that McKenzie had such power. Sport Australia had been empowered by the Parliament to run the program, independent of government. It is now clear, from documents obtained by the ABC, that McKenzie ignored the pre-election warnings of Sport Australia that her interference was compromising its independence.

Mr Hewson also said in his column that he was staggered that it took Mr Morrison so long to deal with Senator McKenzie and that the scandal was 'an open-and-shut case of the abuse of her position for political gain'. Former New South Wales Auditor-General Tony Harris seems to agree. He said that if this issue had come across his desk, he would've passed it immediately to the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption.

Mr Morrison has absolved himself and anyone other than the former minister of responsibility, and it's the height of arrogance that Mr Morrison clears himself and his government and expects everyone else to drop the matter on the basis of a secret report—a secret report, mind you, that was prepared by the secretary of his department, who is also his former chief of staff. Even if we accept Mr Morrison's word about what Mr Gaetjens found, why should we accept his findings over those of the Auditor-General?

The finding in Mr Gaetjens's report that there was no evidence the allocation of grants was 'unduly influenced by reference to marginal targeted electorates' absolutely defies credibility. Does Mr Morrison really think that the Australian people accept that Senator McKenzie's only breach of ministerial standards was not declaring a conflict of interest in the Wangaratta Clay Target Club? Does he really think that you guys up in the gallery are that gullible?

Mr Morrison cannot brush aside the findings of the Auditor-General so easily, especially if he refuses to release the full report from his departmental secretary. The bottom line is that the program was used not to fund the sports but—as the member for Nichols, Mr Drum, candidly admitted—to improve the electoral performance of Liberal and Nationals members.

Now, there's a reason why Mr Morrison, of course, will not accept that there was any wrongdoing by Senator McKenzie in relation to the overall administration of these grants, and that's because his political survival depends on it—because, adhering to the same standards, he should also be shown the door. His office was also involved in these rorts. His grubby fingerprints are all over the crime scene, figuratively speaking, alongside Senator McKenzie's.

There are so many questions about this scandal that remain unanswered, which is why Labor will be moving to establish a select committee inquiry. Among other things, we need to find out more about the details of grant applications that were rated highly by Sport Australia but were rejected by the government in favour of political picks. We need to know the details of late applications that were considered by the government and how long after the due date for applications had passed that these late applications were entertained. We also need to find out who else was involved in the process of rorting these grants and how, including the— (Time expired)