Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the documents.

I take note of the Australian Sports Commission and Sport Australia legal advice documents. I've just received a copy of the minister's response through Mr Moneghetti, who is the acting chair. Despite a decision of the Senate earlier this week, when the interim report was handed to the Senate on the shocking circumstances of what is known as the sports rorts affair, the government continues to refuse to come clean or act transparently with respect to this matter, despite the fact that they've had ample opportunity to do so and despite the fact that the clear, unequivocal will of the Senate is that they do so.

I think it's important to go back in time a little bit and look at what has transpired here. It started out with the Australian National Audit Office conducting a very thorough audit into the government's handling of the so-called Community Sport Infrastructure Grant Program, which is what we know as the sports rorts program. The Auditor-General told the Senate inquiry that his office had spent more 3,800 hours of work on this inquiry. Importantly, he found:

… there was no legal authority evident to the ANAO under which the Minister was able to be the approver of CSIG program grants to be paid from the money of Sport Australia.

This inquiry's been going on for some time. The government all along has thought that, under the cover of the pandemic, they would escape scrutiny for what they did with this sports rorts program. Can I tell you this: they're not going to escape that inquiry. The Australian people want some answers about what went on here and, more particularly, the sports community wants to know what's gone on here.

More particularly still, all of those sporting organisations and all of those volunteers who originally looked at the criteria for the grants of applications—heaps and heaps and heaps of money that was supposed to go to sporting clubs—and toiled away, night after night, thought they were entering a legitimate process the government had set up to distribute the sporting grants. Of course, we have no problem with sporting organisations getting money, but the government misled the Australian people and misled all of these volunteers in these sporting clubs into thinking that there would be a legitimate process for the distribution of these funds, that if they had a good project and scored well with Sport Australia they were going to be awarded one of these grants. That's what they thought. But what did we find out? Nothing of the sort occurred. In fact, as each tranche of money was handed out by then Minister McKenzie, the situation got worse and worse—fewer clubs with high scores were awarded and the government handed this money over to their own marginal seats or seats that they were trying to win. The whole process was a fraud right from the start. At no stage was there any legitimacy to this process. All of those hardworking volunteers now know that's what happened here.

Why are we discussing this here today? Earlier in the year, when Sport Australia came along and gave some evidence, they said us to: 'You tell us what documents you want and we'll hand them over. We've got nothing to hide. The government has nothing to hide about this. We want to explain what we've done.' They said that at one of the first hearings into this matter. But what's happened? We haven't got the documents, despite the inquiry now going for nine months or so and despite a decision earlier this week of the Senate making it very clear that the Senate wants to see these documents. We still haven't got the documents. This response by Sport Australia today makes it clear we're still not going to get them.

As I said before, the government think that they can hide from scrutiny during the pandemic and that somehow the issue of what they did throughout this process to disrespect sporting clubs in this country and the way that they handed out the funds is going to go away. Let me tell you: the issue is not going to go away. Somebody is going to have to take responsibility for this. I know Senator McKenzie has gone, but it's very clear from what we found out about her role in this process that she was just doing the bidding of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister was giving the instructions as to exactly where these funds had to go so as to maximise the chances of the government being re-elected. That is what it was all about. It was nothing to do with the fair distribution of sporting funds to Australian sporting clubs. It had everything to do with the re-election of this government.

We're not going to leave it here. The government might think that they can hide from scrutiny by sending in letters like the one that they've given to the Senate late on a Thursday afternoon, but we are not going to leave it there. We have two very fine senators on the job—Senator Chisholm and Senator Green—and they've got their teeth into this. I can see Senator Cash smiling because she knows that what I'm saying is true. Even Senator Brockman is smiling, I can see. He's got his head down for a change. They know that the Australian people are going to find out what went on here.

I think I know what went on here. I think poor old Senator McKenzie simply did what she was instructed to do by the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's Office to win the last election. There was no accountability and no transparency. The government, like most other people, thought they were going to lose the election and so it didn't really matter and they were never going to be held responsible for the irresponsible way in which they distributed these funds. But those two senators I mentioned, two very fine senators from Queensland, are on the job. They've got their teeth into this issue. If the government thinks that, somehow, by delaying this process they will escape scrutiny, then they have another think coming, because, day by day, week by week and month by month, we will continue to pursue this government to get the truth out of what has gone on here.

At the end of the day, the government will have to explain why they so abused this grants process—