The PM’s lack of transparency in dealing with the troubled sports
grants program deepens concerns about government accountability
Standards, Scott Morrison told us on the Sunday afternoon before the opening of federal parliament for 2020, are about accountability.
Except, self-evidently, when standards are not about accountability; when standards are actually about shifting the goalposts so you can get through the latest debacle.
Like when a prime minister, in this case – exactly the same prime minister dropping the piety about standards being about accountability – declines point blank to be accountable, declines to release new advice completely at odds with the auditor general’s assessment of the stinky debacle that is the sports grants program.
If you are catching up with this saga, just quickly – we’ve had the
ANAO assessment of the program (which was bad) and now the adjudication
by Phil Gaetjens, Morrison’s former chief of staff, now departmental
head (which was bad enough for Bridget McKenzie to take one for the team, but not bad enough for anyone else to be inconvenienced).Except, self-evidently, when standards are not about accountability; when standards are actually about shifting the goalposts so you can get through the latest debacle.
Like when a prime minister, in this case – exactly the same prime minister dropping the piety about standards being about accountability – declines point blank to be accountable, declines to release new advice completely at odds with the auditor general’s assessment of the stinky debacle that is the sports grants program.
And when I say these two assessments of what went on with the administration of this program are completely at odds, I mean there is a chasm between the Gaetjens view of the appropriateness of what went on, and the verdict by the ANAO.
It is daylight and moonlight.
At least I think the two assessments are daylight and moonlight. But, honestly, I don’t know, because Morrison declined to release the Gaetjens adjudication.
Morrison just read out bits of it. A few sentences, at a clip that suggested he had one eye on his notes and the other on the exit.
Morrison also read out bits of what the attorney general, Christian Porter, said in order to counter the ANAO’s opinion that the grants made under the program were not only skewed towards targeted seats, they may not have been made with appropriate legal authority – which I explained on Saturday was a troubling proposition for a bunch of reasons bigger than one summer sports rorts saga, and “to Bridget or not to Bridget”.
I wondered how the government might square this particular circle. Apparently Porter told Morrison that after having consulted the Australian Government Solicitor, the ANAO was quite wrong about the lack of legal authority question. “With respect.” The end.
Sorry, what, prime minister, can we see that advice? The response to that was talk to the hand. The response later from the Morrison office was no one releases that kind of advice. No one. The end.
I mean seriously? This is the response? When there are big issues at stake, bigger than the dog ate my homework, or the grants were allocated on colour-coded spreadsheets tying in with a targeted seats strategy before the election, or whether someone inside the National party room will have a tantrum if they have to lose their job and someone else gets it?
This is the response? When people are looking at the whole institution of government and wondering if the whole thing is entirely off the rails – the antidote to this corrosive distrust is sending McKenzie out the door with a tight smile and a light shove, and declining to be transparent about how a program can be a debacle according to the auditor general and a just flesh wound according to the head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet?
In what universe does that address the underlying issues? In what universe does that response satisfy voters that governance in this country is OK, and proceeding in an orderly and competent fashion, in the interests of people, whether they live in a marginal seat, or whether they don’t.
Morrison wants this whole mess to be over with McKenzie’s departure.
Quick prediction.
This isn’t over.
- Katharine Murphy is Guardian Australia’s political editor
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