A Senate committee heard Prime Minister Scott Morrison's office sent "comfortably dozens" of representations about the grant round to the then sports minister's office, which also received letters of support from MPs, candidates, local government and others advocating for funding.

Senator McKenzie quit cabinet and the Nationals' deputy leadership in the wake of the revelations but Mr Morrison has refused to release a separate report into her compliance with ministerial rules by the head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Phil Gaetjens.

Auditor-General Grant Hehir said auditors spent more than 3800 hours over 10 months reviewing the grants, revealing a "parallel assessment" process of almost 2000 applications to fund projects in marginal seats and those targeted by the Coalition.

He said not all of the government's representations about applications were taken up, and Senator McKenzie was the sole decision maker.

"We concluded that the award of grant funding under the community sports infrastructure program was not informed by an appropriate assessment process and sound advice," Mr Hehir told the hearing.

"Funding decisions for each of the three rounds were not informed by clear advice and were not consistent with the program guidelines."

Mr Boyd told said Senator McKenzie's office did not keep records assessing eligibility of individual projects.


"There isn't a single spreadsheet," he said.

"There's dozens of versions of a spreadsheet and for each round there were various iterations indicating on different days, and sometimes different hours of the day, which of the projects the minister's office were indicating were going to be approved for funding."

She is not inclined to engage in discussions on a bill that is ironically called 'Ensuring Integrity' when the Coalition appears to be totally unwilling to behave with any integrity themselves. — Spokeswoman for Jacqui Lambie

Mr Morrison's refusal to release the Gaetjens report has dogged the government. It found Senator McKenzie failed to disclose memberships of sporting clubs, as required by the ministerial rules.

Separately on Thursday, key crossbench senator Jacqui Lambie told the Coalition she would stop negotiating on its unions bill until the Gaetjens report was made public.

A spokeswoman told The Australian Financial Review Senator Lambie was "deeply unimpressed" by the government’s behaviour.

"She is not inclined to engage in discussions on a bill that is ironically called 'Ensuring Integrity' when the Coalition appears to be totally unwilling to behave with any integrity themselves.

"Having said that, the senator always tries to work constructively with the government and if the government were to release the Gaetjens report it, would certainly help discussions along."


Asked about his claim there were no ineligible projects funded, Mr Morrison said on Thursday evening he had been "quoting the Auditor-General".

Mr Morrison said he would review evidence from the hearing.

A government spokesman said in a statement: "As the ANAO’s own report highlights, “no applications assessed as ineligible were awarded grant funding” and that point was reiterated by the ANAO during the committee hearing."