More Liberal Party pork barreling to marginal seats

Originally posted by Oldminer: ↑

Semantics aside, I reiterate, taxpayer monies are not an election slush fund. Quoting similar antics of previous governments does not validate the practice. On the contrary it demands the cessation of wastage of public monies without exemption. There is also a marked difference between "bringing money to a representative's district" and buying the district for the representative at election time. The latter should, at the very least, breach community ethics and standards and if not the letter of the law, the intention of the law..

As for the determination of the legality of the behaviour, therein lies the problem. We do not have a body charged with federal oversight notwithstanding the prudent need, consequently, obfuscation is the mechanics employed.

You may have missed the following from an earlier post,

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Questions of legality and constitutionality
All in all, you'd have to say we don't actually know the full extent to which the Morrison Government used various funding programs to target particular electorates in the lead-up to last year's election.
What we do know is that a growing number of some of our most eminent constitutional lawyers are saying that, at least in the scheme at the centre of the storm, there are serious questions of legality and constitutionality involved.

Professors Cheryl Saunders and Michael Crommelin from the University of Melbourne have written to the Senate committee investigating the sports grants, noting there have been two different arguments put up to support the legal basis for the grants.
Saunders and Crommelin argue there are constitutional problems with both. They further argue the grants also are vulnerable on a range of administrative law grounds.
It should be noted that Sport Australia told the Senate committee this week that it had obtained advice from an eminent QC which confirmed that nothing that Sport Australia had done was a problem.
There seemed to be an ominous silence about the actions of the minister.

An existential threat of a different kind

But back to Professors Saunders and Crommelin and their pesky interest in the constitution and the law.
"Compliance with constitutional and legal requirements is necessary for reasons of the rule of law," they said in what you would hope was an obvious observation.

"The worrying example of the sports grants and other similar Commonwealth grant programs that have come to light in recent weeks illustrates how and why compliance with these requirements also is important for accountable, fair and transparent government and for minimising waste of public money."We cannot emphasise strongly enough the significance of the constitutional and legal issues we have raised."The Australian constitutional system relies heavily on the integrity and effectiveness of governing institutions. "These are jeopardised by the sports grants and similar programs, exacerbating the erosion of trust in public institutions which already is a matter for concern."The committee's inquiry offers a watershed moment in which to take stock of Commonwealth spending practice before it gets further out of control."

The University of Sydney's Professor Anne Twomey goes even harder, telling the committee it is "inquiring into a very serious matter involving unlawful government spending of public money on a significant scale".

"Governments, like citizens, are obliged to obey the constitution and the law, and this is not happening.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-29/sports-grants-saga-questions-over-legality-constitutionality/12012038

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Bridget McKenzie reignites sports rorts affair by denying late changes to grants

Former sports minister denies making changes during caretaker period as Scott Morrison continues to claim she was the sole decision maker

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/06/bridget-mckenzie-reignites-sports-rorts-affair-by-denying-late-changes-to-grants

The former sports minister Bridget McKenzie has reignited the sports rorts controversy by insisting she made no changes to the brief and attachments outlining successful projects funded under the sports grants scheme after 4 April 2019.
In a statement on her website, the first public intervention since stepping down from the ministry, McKenzie says: “I did not make any changes or annotations to this brief or its attachments after 4 April 2019.
“My expectation was that the brief would be processed in a timely and appropriate manner. Nevertheless, changes were made and administrative errors occurred in processing the brief.”
McKenzie does not identify who made the changes. According to constitutional expert, Anne Twomey, the revelation raises the prospect that somebody else made late changes to grants without legal authority.
The Australian National Audit Office told Senate estimates this week the prime minister’s office had requested a last-minute change before the documents were sent to Sports Australia at 8.46am on 11 April, which was the day parliament was prorogued for the 2019 election. But another set of changes were made later that day.
“For example, when I referred to one project coming out and one project coming in, in terms of the 8.46am version, that was at the request of the prime minister’s office,” Brian Boyd, the ANAO’s performance audit services group executive director, told estimates on Monday night.
“But of the changes made later that day, for the 12.43pm version, none were evident as being at the request of the prime minister’s office rather than the minister’s office making the changes.”

In her statement McKenzie suggests that any changes made after 4 April were done without her knowledge, but she accepts ultimate responsibility for the decisions. “I was the minister for sport and therefore ultimately and entirely responsible for funding decisions that were signed off under my name, including and regrettably, any changes that were made unbeknown to me.”

The former minister suggests she only became aware of the changes through the Senate estimates process this week. “The brief authorised approved projects for the third round this included nine new and emerging projects which, it must be emphasised, had been identified and sent to Sport Australia in March for assessment in line with program guidelines.”
Twomey, who believes the sports grants are unconstitutional and that McKenzie lacked legal authority to make them, said the latest revelation was “bizarre” because it was not clear who made the changes, if not McKenzie.
Twomey told Guardian Australia that even if McKenzie had legal authority, “[if] the minister wasn’t actually making the decision about which of those grants were approved because she made her decision on 4 April and somebody else – whether it be people in her office or whatever – made changes, that would be problematic from a legal point of view”.
“If you accept the Commonwealth’s view that the minister is the decision-maker: either the minister’s staff as her agents made decisions to approve things after [4 April], which means she made that decision … [or] if they are asserting someone else made the decision, and that it wasn’t legally her decision because they were not her agents, then these actions have been taken unlawfully.”

Twomey said McKenzie’s claims she did not make the changes showed the “enormous dysfunction” of the way the government had handled sports and other grants. She renewed her calls for the government to explain the basis of its claim McKenzie had authority to approve the grants.

Scott Morrison has sought to distance both himself and his office from the controversy, insisting that McKenzie was the sole decision maker and characterising the role of his office as passing on representations from MPs.
But the ANAO’s evidence disrupted that line of defence by identifying specific changes that were made at the request of the prime minister’s office.

Sport Australia, the agency administering the grants, was also forced to admit this week it had provided incomplete evidence to a Senate inquiry examining the imbroglio. The agency failed to tell the inquiry it had received a second set of instructions from McKenzie’s office on 11 April.
Sport Australia told estimates this week McKenzie’s office had told them two versions of the funding decision were sent to the agency by email on 11 April because of errors. “We were advised at 12.43pm that there were some errors in that brief and that this was the correct brief,” Luke McCann, the chief operating officer at Sport Australia, told Wednesday’s hearing. “That was how it was characterised by the minister’s office.” .......