TIMELINE OF THE SPORTS GRANTS SCANDAL
January 15
* Auditor-general report released into $100 million Community Sport Infrastructure Program. Two main conclusions: “the award of grant funding was not informed by an appropriate assessment process and sound advice; the successful applications were not those that had been assessed as the most meritorious in terms of the published program guidelines”.
January 16
* Former sports minister Bridget McKenzie says no rules were broken. “The reality was there were many hundreds of meritorious projects that we just didn’t have the funding available for.”
* Labor says McKenzie, who is now in cabinet as agriculture minister, should be sacked or resign
January 17
Prime Minister Scott Morrison refers issue to his department chief, but does not make this publicly known
* Minor parties say they will back a Senate inquiry into the matter, when parliament resumes on February 4
January 18
* Slater and Gordon says a class action is possible as tens of millions of dollars in sporting club grants were awarded to clubs whose applications for funding would otherwise have been unsuccessful.
January 20
* PM says in interviews he is taking the auditor report seriously and that he’s tasked the attorney-general with looking at legal issues raised in it.
January 21
* Labor wants the details published of all grant applications and their assessment scores
* Law academic Professor Anne Twomey questioned whether the constitution was breached as the federal government has no power to hand out money to sports clubs.
January 22
* PM publicly reveals he sought an inquiry by his department chief Phil Gaetjens
* Media reports say McKenzie was a member of a gun club which received a grant. The membership was not declared by the minister. Her office says the membership was a gift and did not need declaring.
January 23*
PM reveals he has also referred gun club matter to the departmental inquiry. He says of the inquiry: “I’ll let him do his job and then I will look at that advice and take whatever action is necessary.”
January 28
* The ABC reveals Sport Australia warned McKenzie’s office political interference was compromising the agency’s independence
* Some 94 of 223 projects deemed successful in the first round failed to meet Sport Australia’s threshold, with a project in a Victorian Nationals seat scoring 98 out of 100 missing out
January 29
* Nationals MPs offer lukewarm support for McKenzie. Leader Michael McCormack says he’ll wait for the outcome of the investigation.
February 2
* McKenzie resigns as Nationals deputy leader and minister after the Gaetjens investigation finds she had undeclared conflicts of interest. But the report rejects claims she politicised the grants scheme.
Bridget McKenzie quits frontbench over report she breached ministerial standards
Senator Mckenzie’s fate was sealed after an investigation by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet found she breached ministerial standards by failing to disclose her membership of a gun club that received almost $36,000 from a controversial sports grants program she oversaw.
The report by secretary Phil Gaetjens was handed to Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Saturday night.
On Sunday afternoon Mr Morrison announced Senator McKenzie would stand down as Agriculture Minister.
Mr Morrison said Mr Gaetjen concluded “the timing is such that the potential conflict should have been clear” in relation to Senator McKenzie’s membership of the Wangaratta Clay Target Club.
The Wangaratta Clay Target Club in north-east Victoria received $35,980 to upgrade its facilities from round two of the sports grants program, in a decision announced in February 2019.
Senator McKenzie spruiked the funding on her Facebook page, standing alongside the Nationals candidate for the electorate of Indi, which the Coalition was hoping to win.
“By failing to put appropriate arrangements in place to avoid potential conflict such as asking another minister to make any decisions relating to organisations of which she was a member … the Minister failed to do that and the secretary found this was in breach of the ministerial standards,” Mr Morrison said.
The former sports minister weathered more than two weeks of intense scrutiny after a damning auditor-general report revealed she disproportionately allocated grants to sport clubs in marginal seats and electorates the Coalition wanted to win ahead of last year’s election.
Mr Morrison said Mr Gaetjen’s review did “not find evidence” that the allocation of grants were “unduly influenced by reference to marginal or targeted electorates”.
“While there may be differing views about the fairness of the process the Minister used, the discretion she was afforded accordingly, the secretary concludes ‘I do not believe there is a basis to find the Minister had breached standard in that respect’,” Mr Morrison said.
“He notes that data indicates applications for marginal or targeted seats were approved by the Minister at a statistically similar ratio of 32 per cent compared to the number of applications from other electorates at 36 per cent.
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