Senior Sport Australia officers told a Senate inquiry last week there was one email at 8.46am from the office of then-sports minister Bridget McKenzie on the day the 2019 federal election was announced, containing the list of projects to be funded in the third round of the program. Loading But the Australian National Audit Office gave evidence on Monday there was a second email from Senator McKenzie's office at 12.43pm with a different list of projects. Confronted with this information, Mr McCann admitted to the hearing on Wednesday morning that his earlier evidence was wrong. Mr McCann said his team had given him incorrect information last week and had realised their mistake by Monday, but that he had not read the email informing him of this until Tuesday. He acknowledged he did not correct the record until Wednesday morning.

Labor senator Katy Gallagher said the Senate took the "misleading" evidence very seriously. Mr McCann said the second email on April 11 last year, the day the election was announced, changed funding for 10 projects worth about $2.7 million. One was removed and nine were added. "We were advised at 12.43pm that there were some errors in that [8.46am] brief and that this was the correct brief," Mr McCann said. "That was how it was characterised by the minister's office." Mr McCann said he could not say what the errors were and could not say the name of the project that had been removed from the funding brief. Sports Minister Richard Colbeck rejected Labor claims this amounted to misleading the Senate, arguing instead there was a "difference in evidence" and revealed he also met with advisers from Mr Morrison's office on Tuesday night to discuss the inquiry.

Illustration: Matt Golding Credit: The 8.46am and 12.43pm emails were sent after Parliament went into caretaker mode at 8.29am that day, launching the 2019 election campaign. Caretaker conventions dictate that the government avoids making major policy decisions and significant appointments, and entering into major contracts, but they do not forbid ministerial decisions. The government insists the emails conveyed information but did not amount to decisions by Mr Morrison or his office, given that Senator McKenzie was the official decision-maker. Labor frontbencher Pat Conroy asked Mr Morrison in question time about the meeting between Senator Colbeck and two staff from the Prime Minister's office to discuss the program on Tuesday night, ahead of the estimates hearing. "Did the Prime Minister know before or after that meeting that the Parliament had been misled about sports rorts?" Mr Conroy asked.

Loading "Can the Prime Minister confirm that his office is coordinating the cover-up?" Mr Morrison rejected that claim of a cover-up and said the resignation of Senator McKenzie as minister showed the government took the issue seriously. "One side of the house is taking this matter very seriously and has taken the actions that are necessary," Mr Morrison said. "The other side of the house just engages in a desperate political smear campaign to prop up what is a very feeble leader of the Labor party."