The Senate committee examining the sports “rorts” controversy will ask the former sports minister Bridget McKenzie to commit to fronting the inquiry during the final parliamentary sitting week in March.
There was some speculation that McKenzie might attend a hearing of the inquiry in Canberra next Monday, when Scott Morrison’s departmental head Phil Gaetjens will appear. However, Guardian Australia understands McKenzie is not scheduled to appear on Monday and is yet to commit to a time.
Guardian Australia understands the committee secretariat will ask McKenzie to nominate a time she is available to give evidence in the final sitting week before the May budget.
Gaetjens, Australia’s top public servant and Morrison’s former chief of staff, will be asked questions on Monday regarding advice he gave to the prime minister about whether there had been any breach of ministerial standards by McKenzie.
His report to Morrison triggered McKenzie’s resignation on 2 February over a conflict of interest in one grant. But the government has refused to release the full advice on the basis it is a confidential cabinet document.
Gaetjens has outlined his broad rationale in a submission to the Senate inquiry, but the submission did not address concerns raised by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) about whether McKenzie had legal authority to approve the grants in the first place.
Although the government continues to insist the program was lawful, it has refused to release legal advice and Morrison has sidestepped questions about a series of late changes to the third round of grants, which McKenzie has said in a statement were made without her knowledge.
Since ANAO’s scathing report about the program, which found the grants were skewed to marginal and target seats – focus has turned to its suggestion McKenzie may have lacked legal authority to make grants, because Sport Australia is a corporate commonwealth entity, not a government department.
A number of eminent legal experts have also argued the program is unconstitutional – because the commonwealth lacks the power to give sports grants. There are also concerns that grants were added to a spreadsheet on the day the 2019 election was called, including one at the request of the prime minister’s office, without Mckenzie’s knowledge.
Constitutional law expert Anne Twomey on Thursday warned McKenzie that “ignorance of the law is no excuse”, chastising the former sports minister for failing to get advice on the source of her purported legal authority to give $100m in grants.
Twomey told the hearing that unless there is a further statutory authority the commonwealth had not publicly identified, she believes McKenzie and Scott Morrison lacked authority to make decisions about sports grants.
Twomey said it was “not acceptable for the minister to say she didn’t know or was not advised” about the basis of her authority.
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse – that’s what Centrelink clients are told … ministers are well supported by staff, public servants and legal advisers. Of all people, they have no excuse.”
Twomey appeared before the Senate inquiry along with aggrieved clubs including the Beechworth Lawn Tennis Club, which has threatened to bring legal action if further grants are not made.
