It’s showing no signs of abating, but the initial rumblings of problems with the sports grants program came before last year’s election

21 February 2019 – Georgina Downer, the Liberal candidate for Mayo, presents a giant novelty cheque emblazoned with her face to the Yankalilla Bowling Club for $127,373. The resulting Fcebook posts draws criticism and independent Mayo MP Rebekha Sharkie accuses Downer of “misleading conduct”

24 February 2019 – Labor’s shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus refers the matter to the auditor-general, Grant Hehir. Downer denies she has done anything wrong as the cheque was not commonwealth money, given it was not “legal tender”.

23 October 2019 – Sport Australia’s then chief executive, Kate Palmer, tells Senate estimates that then-sports minister Bridget McKenzie rejected 618 applications recommended by Sports Australia to receive community sports infrastructure grants.

11 November 2019 – Coledale Waves soccer club complains that it missed out on a grant, as an ABC analysis suggests marginal seats received twice as much funding as the average seat under the program.

15 January 2020 – The Australian National Audit Office hands down its report into the sports grants program. It found the Coalition awarded the grants to marginal or targeted seats, ignoring the Sport Australia assessments and questioned the legal authority used to allow McKenzie to make the decisions.

16 January 2020 – Labor calls on McKenzie to resign. She refuses, calling her delivery of the program “reverse pork barrelling”.

19 January 2020 – Two plaintiff law firms propose a class action or test case for eligible clubs that missed out on funding.

20 January 2020 – Scott Morrison backs McKenzie’s handling of the program and says the federal government would “clarify” the legal authority used to award projects. He points to the program awarding grants for women’s changing facilities “so young girls don’t have to change in their parent’s cars or out behind the sheds”.

21 January 2020 – Details of grant recipients are revealed, including Liberal-linked upmarket clubs receiving $500,000 grants. Constitutional expert Anne Twomey warns the grant program may be unconstitutional.

22 January 2020 – The Age reports McKenzie awarded a sports grant to a shooting club, of which she was a member. A further nine clubs are revealed to have Liberal MPs and minister as members or patrons.

23 January 2020 – Morrison orders his departmental head, Phil Gaetjens, to investigate whether McKenzie breached ministerial standards in her handling of the sports grants.

24 January 2020 – Guardian Australia reports the sports grant program awarded a grant to a rugby club to build women’s change facilities, despite not having a women’s team. The Nationals leader, Michael McCormack, dismisses calls for McKenzie’s resignation, saying she has done “an outstanding job”.

25 January 2020 – McKenzie’s office is shown to have approved nine sport grants in key seats that it asked Sport Australia to assess after applications closed, despite warnings from the agency it “would not be acceptable”.

28 January 2020 – The ABC publishes a leaked colour-coded spreadsheet McKenzie’s office used in determining grants, which divided the projects by electorate. It includes warnings from Sport Australia its independence was being compromised.

29 January 2020 – Morrison hints that clubs that missed out may get a second chance at funding.

31 January 2020 – A review of clubs that missed out on grants finds a dozen high-scoring applications to build female change rooms, undermining Morrison’s argument the program was focused on women’s facilities.

2 February 2020 – Morrison announces McKenzie has resigned, after Gaetjens found she breached ministerial standards by not properly declaring her membership to a shooting club that received a sports grant. He refuses to release the report, declaring it cabinet-in-confidence, but says it absolves the government of any wrongdoing and insists there was no problem with McKenzie’s legal authority to administer the program. Morrison does not explain the discrepancy with the independent auditor-general’s findings.

4 February 2020 – The man who takes McKenzie’s position as the deputy Nationals leader, David Littleproud, chastises the “partisan nature” of the grants process.

5 February 2020 – Non-government senators vote to establish a Senate inquiry into the program.

13 February 2020 – Australian National Audit Office officials give evidence at the Senate inquiry, revealing that nearly half of the funded projects – 43% – were ineligible under Sport Australia’s guidelines, by the time they were funded.

14 February 2020 – Anthony Albanese accuses Morrison of misleading parliament over his involvement in the sports grants program and his claim that all approved projects were eligible. Gaetjens makes a submission to the Senate inquiry investigating the administration of the sports grants affair, conceding the program lacked transparency, but rejects the audit office’s findings it targeted marginal seats.

26 February 2020 – The audit office reports 136 emails were exchanged between the prime minister’s office and the sport’s minister office about the program, but Morrison maintains his office was only passing on representations and had no role in the decision making process.

27 February 2020 – Sport Australia tells the Senate inquiry it received a final list of approved projects from McKenzie’s office at 8.47am on 11 April on a brief dated 4 April – 17 minutes after the government went into caretaker mode.

28 February 2020 – Morrison maintains the grants were all approved on 4 April and not backdated, despite only being sent to Sport Australia on 11 April. Former Sport Australia head Kate Palmer tells the inquiry she was “surprised” to see the government’s colour-coded spreadsheets and called a late-night teleconference with the Sport Australia board head and health department boss Glenys Beauchamp, to ensure SA was meeting its obligations. Beauchamp says she has no memory of the meeting and tells the inquiry she has destroyed all her private notes, so can’t check.

2 March 2020 – The ANAO tells the Senate inquiry that the 8.46am 11 April email contained “one project coming out and one project coming in … that was at the request of the prime minister’s office” and that another email, sent at 12.43pm that same day, while the government was in caretaker mode, contained more changes, but that “none were evident as being at the request of the prime minister’s office”, rather than the minister’s office making the changes”. The last update saw nine projects added, with one removed.

4 March 2020 – Sport Australia acknowledges it failed to tell the Senate inquiry about a second email it received from McKenzie’s office, with a list of funded projects on the day the election was called, which arrived at 12.43pm on 11 April, well into caretaker mode. It dismissed the omission as an error, and said it did not believe it had misled the Senate.

Maurice Blackburn writes to Sport Australia demanding that it agree by 17 March to remake a decision and provide a grant to its client Beechworth Lawn Tennis Club, or else face federal court action.

5 March 2020 – McKenzie releases her first statement since resigning, maintaining she made no changes to the funded projects after she signed the brief on 4 April. She says she does not know who added nine projects and remove one but takes responsibility as the minister in charge at the time.

6 March 2020 – Morrison refuses to take questions on the sports grants affair at a press conference.

8 March 2020 – It is revealed Sport Australia defied a Senate order to respond to 40 questions on notice about what it knew about the government’s spreadsheets, and contact it had with the minister’s and prime minister’s office. Beauchamp says she and Sport Australia Commission chair John Wylie have “no specific recollection” of the meeting Palmer said the trio held after seeing one of the spreadsheets. The health department says it has no notes or record of the meeting. Labor asks the attorney-general to investigate whether or not Beauchamp had the authority to destroy her notes.

16 March 2020 – the Senate inquiry is due to hear from McKenzie and Gaetjens.