Online video emerges as the Senate sets up an inquiry into the Coalition’s $100m sports rort grants

This article is more than 7 months old

This article is more than 7 months old

Video has emerged online of a member of Scott Morrison’s electorate staff being lauded for helping Cronulla Sailing Club win an $8,400 grant, as the Senate moved on Wednesday to set up an inquiry into the controversial $100m community sport infrastructure grant program.

In the video posted to Facebook, a representative of the club thanks the staffer, identifying her as “Scott Morrison’s PA”, for helping push her to apply for a grant for a new stainless steel barbecue. GrantConnect shows the grant was approved in December 2017 as part of the stronger communities program.

The Morrison staffer thanks the club, crediting the fact “your application was extremely well written” for the grant. She urged the crowd “it’s not me who gives you the money, it’s ScoMo [Scott Morrison] – so vote Liberal come May … Because if you don’t I don’t have a job.”

The stronger communities program grants every electorate a fund of $150,000, allocated by the infrastructure department on the advice of a committee including the local MP to pay for small community projects, funding everything from BBQs to iPads and lawnmowers.

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A spokesman for Morrison said: “The only support the member for Cook [Morrison] and his office have offered applicants is technical advice to ensure their applications comply with the eligibility requirements.

“The staff member regrets her comment and apologises but all our ministers, members, senators and staff are proud of how a programme our government initiated has supported local communities across every Liberal, Labor, National, Greens and independent electorate,” he said.

“All applications are appropriately independently assessed by the department taking account of actual, apparent or potential conflicts of interest and they come forward based on the recommendations from community leaders.”

The constitutional expert Anne Twomey has warned that both the stronger communities program and sports grants program could be unconstitutional because the commonwealth lacks a head of power to make grants for those purposes.

On Wednesday Labor and the Greens successfully established a select Senate committee to inquire into the community sport infrastructure program, subject of a scathing auditor general’s report finding Bridget McKenzie had targeted projects at marginal seats.

The government had attempted to draw a line under the saga when McKenzie resigned from cabinet and as the deputy Nationals leader on Sunday. The new deputy Nationals leader, David Littleproud, has conceded the partisan allocation of projects by party representation in marginal seats is not “the best way to do it”.

On Wednesday the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, claimed Littleproud had been “misrepresented” and argued that both the projects awarded funding due to McKenzie’s intervention – and those recommended by Sport Australia with a higher score – were “all worthy projects”.

The terms of the inquiry include “the role of the offices of the minister, the prime minister and deputy prime minister, and any external parties, in determining which grants would be awarded and who would announce the successful grants”.

Morrison has claimed his office’s role was limited to relaying representations from MPs to the sport minister about potential projects, but Labor is keen to probe reports staff in the prime minister’s office asked for adjustments of which received funding.

Labor also intends to call Phil Gaetjens, the secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, who found McKenzie had breached ministerial guidelines by failing to declare a membership to the Wangaratta Clay Target Club, which she then gave a $36,000 grant.

Morrison has selectively quoted the report written by his former chief of staff to suggest McKenzie was cleared of other wrongdoing, but refused to release it, and likewise has not released advice from the attorney general Christian Porter that McKenzie had authority to give grants.

On Wednesday the Senate also passed an order to produce the Gaetjens report and emails from the prime minister’s office to McKenzie about the grant program.

The Greens senator, Larissa Waters, who moved the motion, said the “community deserves to know what really went on”.

The shadow public services minister, Katy Gallagher, told the Senate that the Gaetjens report’s conclusion that he “did not find evidence that this process was unduly influenced by reference to marginal or targeted electorates” was the “completely opposite” view to the one taken by the auditor general.

She said Morrison had either misled the public about the Gaetjens report or that Gaetjens had engaged in a “whitewash” to protect the prime minister from scrutiny.

Earlier, the shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, told the lower house that Morrison was attempting “not to clean up but to cover up” the handling of the program “with a secret report from a former Liberal party staffer”.

Before question time, Labor members delivered a series of speeches accusing the government of having “cheated” more deserving clubs.

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The shadow youth minister, Amanda Rishworth, raised the example of South Adelaide Football Club, which she said had “more women’s premierships than changerooms” but missed out on grant funding.

She noted the Old Collegian rugby club in the marginal seat of Sturt was given funding for women’s changerooms despite not having fielded a women’s team since 2018.

Asked in question time if the government had funded the projects with the most merit, Morrison replied: “I believe funding community sports infrastructure always has merit.”

Morrison claimed the auditor general had concluded that McKenzie “had the authority to make those decisions”.

In fact, the Australian National Audit Office report said it is “not evident to the Anao what the legal authority was” for McKenzie to approve grants. It noted that although the sport minister has a power to direct Sport Australia “it was not used”.

Morrison again left the door open to fund unsuccessful clubs, noting that sports clubs had proposed a total of $400m of projects and the government had funded $100m.

“As I said last week, we think this infrastructure is important to local communities,” he said. “I’ll be working with the treasurer as we prepare for this year’s budget to see how we can provide further support for this important infrastructure that brings communities together.”

At the adjournment of the Senate, McKenzie made a short statement declaring in her opinion her memberships did not cause any “real or apparent” conflict of interest, but apologising for the failure to disclose them to the Senate. She announced she is no longer a member of the Wangaratta Clay Target Club.