By Mitchell Clarke
The surprisingly comfortable win by sitting La Trobe MP Jason Wood in last year’s Federal Election may now be tainted by the sports rorts scandal that has rocked Canberra in the past week.
The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) found well over half of 684 successful grants to sporting clubs during the election campaign weren’t assessed as the most ‘meritorious’ applications.
Former Sports Minister Bridget McKenzie is accused of ignoring the recommendations of Sport Australia to instead favour key seats in the lead up to the Federal Election last May, including La Trobe, taking in part of Cardinia Shire and the City of Casey.
Mr Wood’s opponent, Labor candidate Simon Curtis, believes the election result “may have been altered” by the unprecedented $100 million cash splash now under scrutiny.
In what was described at the time as an “unprecedented” cash splash by the Liberal Party, Mr Wood pledged funding to at least 17 sporting projects in the region, including $4 million to sporting clubs at Toomuc Reserve in Pakenham.
Mr Wood trailled in all polls leading up to the election, yet comfortably retained the seat.
Following the release of the audit, Mr Wood told the Gazette all of his funding promises were completely warranted.
“I look at my role as MP and it’s quite simple, I fight like hell to get funding for La Trobe,” he said.
“We’ve got one of the fastest growing electorates in the country and sporting facilities, in particular for women and children, weren’t up to scratch, so I couldn’t be prouder to secure that funding.”
But when asked if this meant he had an unfair advantage against Mr Curtis, the Liberal MP rejected those claims.
“Every single election, you make election commitments and then it’s up to the voters but you always find that marginal seats, by their nature, often get more items on the wish list,” he said.
“I wanted to make sure no groups missed out and all the love was spread to all groups.
“The Labor party never matched the sporting projects that I offered.”
Mr Curtis, who received almost 35 percent of the vote, acknowledged the flood of money was “absolutely unprecedented”, but said he wasn’t surprised about the amount of cash being splashed through La Trobe.
“I’ve been involved in sporting communities in the area for a long time, certainly in the time that Jason has been MP and we’ve hardly seen him at all around the sporting community,” he said.
“All of a sudden after a tight 2016 election, that he nearly lost, we see him popping up in a lot of sporting communities waiving a novelty cheque.”
He’s now questioning whether it’s ethical for government grants to be used during election campaigns.
“Of course being in government has its advantages,” he said. “I know that when our party was last in government, we put in place a process for infrastructure that would mean things were assessed on merit by Infrastructure Victoria.”
The audit has drawn criticism from the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance who have called out the Morrison Government for alleged “corruption”.
“Money doesn’t buy everything, but it does buy power and the Morrison Government has strategically used taxpayer funds to secure seats in key electorates,” ATA policy director Emilie Dye said.
“Politicians in Canberra should not be given so much power to arbitrarily pick who gets taxpayer money because they invariably pick themselves.
“No one knows what would most benefit a community better than the people living there.”
Despite the revelations, Mr Curtis was “proud” to make La Trobe a marginal seat.
“I’m pleased that this election was close enough for the government to worry and spend some money here,” he added.
Where the money went locally
According to the Sports Australia list of successful recipients under the Community Sports Infrastructure grants, the seat of La Trobe, and Cardinia in particular, did very well from the program.
Almost $1.3 million went to seven applications within Cardinia – including $613,000 to the Cardinia Shire Council in two grants, and $500,000 to the Pakenham Football Club.
Other grants in Cardinia went to the Lakeside Sailing Club ($15,000), Officer Tennis Club ($39,000), Pakenham Golf Club ($50,000) and the Pakenham Upper Tennis Club ($75,000).
Neighbouring Casey didn’t fair quite so well, earning just $780,000 from the program, with the City of Casey receiving $200,000, and major amounts going to the Berwick Bowls Club ($179,000) and Narre Warren Bowls Club ($390,000).
By comparison, the seat of McMillan was successful in two applications, totalling $12,000; Greater Dandenong received $140,000 in five grants; and the Yarra Ranges Council (part of which is in the seat of La Trobe) got $590,000 in three grants.
