Bridget McKenzie has defended the decision to coordinate the announcement of sports grants with the Coalition campaign headquarters and backed Scott Morrison’s position that his office asked her to seek his authority on announcements not funding decisions.
At a doorstop in Canberra, the former sport minister also blamed Sport Australia and the health department for failing to warn her about potential issues with her legal authority to give $140m in grants, arguing it “should have been raised” before the spending went through cabinet.
The sports grants saga was reignited last Friday by Australian National Audit Office evidence that on 26 March 2019 Morrison’s office asked McKenzie to seek “authority on the approved projects and inform the prime minister of the rollout plan” and McKenzie wrote back on 10 April, 2019 “consistent with this expectation”.
On Friday, McKenzie clarified that she had “sought authority to announce projects” funded through the $100m community sport infrastructure grant program.
“That is very normal to occur when you’re in government, that you liaise with the prime minister’s office to make sure that your announcements of any given projects happen in a timely and responsible manner,” she told reporters.
On Wednesday Morrison similarly explained away the contrary ANAO evidence by claiming “the only authority sought from the prime minister’s office and for myself was in relation to announcements”.
Asked if she would release correspondence to show the authority related only to announcements not grant recipients, McKenzie claimed she was unable to. “As a humble backbencher and Nationals leader in the Senate … I don’t have access to ministerial correspondence.”
McKenzie said money for the community sport infrastructure grant program was appropriated through the budget and the program was “designed to give the minister final approval”.
The ANAO has said it is “not evident” what McKenzie’s legal authority was to give grants, and Sport Australia has failed to identify an independent power, instead suggesting McKenzie had piggybacked off its power to make grants. Sport Australia did not receive legal advice on McKenzie’s authority until February 2020.
When asked about the basis of her legal authority, McKenzie replied it was a “government decision … to run this program through Sport Australia”.
“If there was any issue around the legality of how this program was going to be run, then my expectation of the Australian public service would [be] that it would have raised it with me.”
McKenzie said the ANAO had found that neither Sport Australia nor the health department had raised the issue with her.
McKenzie said the decision went through the cabinet and the expenditure review committee, meaning there were “multiple steps through that process that that should have been raised”.
Both Sport Australia and the attorney general, Christian Porter, have concluded Sport Australia was able to make grants with McKenzie’s approval, but have not released their advice.
The ANAO has also revealed new details of 11 changes to the final list of projects funded under the program made as late as 12.35pm on 11 April 2019, more than four hours after the government had entered caretaker mode.
McKenzie has previously said she didn’t make any changes to the final brief she signed on 4 April, but accepted she was “ultimately responsible” as the minister at the time.
On Friday McKenzie said “I’m advised that my office made that change. But at the end of the day, I’m the responsible minister and I stand by every decision I made.”
McKenzie declined to address evidence from the ANAO that the health department recorded that decisions needed to be made before the caretaker period and any decision taken after the election was called would require consultation with Labor.
McKenzie claimed that sports grants were “more fairly distributed” as a result of her discretion, citing 30 electorates that were due to miss out if Sport Australia’s recommendations had been followed.
The ANAO found the program was skewed towards target and marginal seats as a result of McKenzie’s office running a parallel assessment process.
McKenzie rejected the suggestion the third round of sports grants were used to pork-barrel during the 2019 campaign, noting that announcements were also coordinated with the prime minister’s office for the earlier rounds. She said it was both “appropriate” and “crazy to think you wouldn’t do that”.
