Sports rorts affair escalates as Audit Office takes stand

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Brian Boyd from the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has given evidence on the first day of a parliamentary inquiry into the so-called sports rort affair. Boyd said that around 43% of clubs that received grants under the Community Sport Infrastructure program were ineligible to do so by the time the funding agreements were signed. Auditor-General Grant Hehir told the inquiry that “comfortably dozens” of emails were exchanged between the Prime Minister’s office and the office of senator Bridget McKenzie during the grants process:

Mr Hehir said the awarding of grant funding under the program was not ­informed by an “appropriate assessme­nt process and sound advice­”.

He said the parallel process run by Senator McKenzie’s office alongside that of government agency Sport Australia “was not informed by clear advice and … not consistent with the program guidelines”…

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About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.