Bridget McKenzie’s office proposed tripling funding for the “sports rorts” program to deliver “priorities for target and marginal” seats after consultation with MPs and senators, new documents confirm.
After a three-year freedom-of-information battle, the Greens have secured the release of colour-coded spreadsheets related to the community sport infrastructure grant program and the “talking points” document prepared for McKenzie to pitch to the then prime minister, Scott Morrison, to expand the program from $30m to $100m.
That document reveals McKenzie’s office spoke “to other members and duty-senators and some cross-bench on key priorities – with a priority on marginal and target seats” before discussing the proposed expansion with Morrison.
“With $29.7m, we cannot fulfil key priorities; with $100m, we can achieve at least two priorities for all our targets and marginals,” the talking points said.
In January 2020 the audit office delivered a scathing report that the program was targeted at marginal or Coalition target electorates, after McKenzie departed from Sport Australia’s recommendations by effectively conducting a parallel assessment process.
McKenzie denied wrongdoing in her administration of the scheme but resigned over an inadvertent undisclosed membership of one of the recipient clubs.
In 2020 the Australian National Audit Office told a Senate inquiry that McKenzie’s office had drawn up talking points to pitch a $70m expansion of the sports grants program on the basis it would help fund 109 more projects in marginal and target seats.
McKenzie has consistently denied that she saw the talking points before her meeting with Morrison on 28 November 2018.
The talking points document notes that expanding the program from $30m to $100m would increase the number of projects in target seats from 32 to 67; and the number in marginal seats from 82 to 156.
Total projects in target and marginal seats would rise from 114 projects worth $21m to 223 projects worth $46.5m.
The talking points suggested the program could be expanded further to $130m, with “$30m for new and emerging priorities for target and marginals”.
Even with $100m there would be “205 total projects” in marginal and target seats unfunded despite receiving a score above 60% from Sport Australia, it said.
The talking points document is written in the first-person, for example, suggesting McKenzie tell the prime minister: “A number of members and senators have made representations to my office and I have taken these into consideration.”
The talking points contain a “communications plan” including to “aim to sign off during final sitting fortnight for year” to “provide time for MPs/duty-senators to fight for projects”.
Successful projects could be announced in the lead-up to Christmas and into the new year, in time for “cutting ribbons from February 2019 onwards”.
“Small projects will be completed very quickly providing opportunities for continual announcements during the early part of 2019.”
McKenzie said she stood by her evidence to the Senate inquiry, which was that applications in marginal and target seats hadn’t been given “any precedence or special treatment”.
“This former adviser’s memo was not used as a basis for my decisions at any stage in the process,” her April 2020 submission said. “The memo was never provided to me or seen by me.”
McKenzie rejected claims project selection had been “negatively politicised” and argued that, although not her intention, Labor seats had done better from the program as a result of ministerial decisions.
She told Guardian Australia: “I resigned for a perceived conflict interest; I did not see these documents and my ministerial decisions were made to broaden the spread of sports and communities who benefited.”
“Some Labor MPs were among MPs advocating their preferred local projects.
“I stand by my decisions as over 680 clubs benefited across the country.”
The freedom-of-information documents include a spreadsheet breaking down the proposed $100m of funding by state and territory; and by the party that held the seat in which the projects were located.
A further colour-coded spreadsheet notes the party that holds every federal seat, with a column for “electorate status” including whether they are “target” or “marginal”.
This document notes the number of applications and number of projects funded, with a column for the “% successful” by both number of projects and value of funding.
The talking points suggest that this spreadsheet “reflects an ask for $100m+ in line with the letter I [Bridget McKenzie] wrote to PM in October”.
The document reflects indicative benefits of expanding the program, rather than the final result of grant rounds.
In her submission McKenzie claimed that the audit office appeared to have based its assertion “there was a marginal seat strategy conducted within my office that influenced the success of grant applications” on this “singular email”.
The Greens senator Janet Rice said the documents confirmed that “the ANAO found there was more funding for projects that didn’t score as well on the assessment in targeted and marginal seats”.
“Any assessment saying this much went to Labor or Liberal seats wasn’t the appropriate metric – the metric was whether they were the seats [the government] were targeting.”
Rice, who will retire from the Senate on 19 April, said it was an “absolute indictment” it had taken three years to release the documents, quipping that FoI had become “freedom from information”.
The health department resisted the release of the documents, and has appealed against the information commissioner Elizabeth Tydd’s decision ordering their release to the administrative appeals tribunal.
In her 1 March decision Tydd said that “disclosure would promote effective oversight of public expenditure by providing documents created by staff in the then minister’s office”.
