Former Cabinet minister Bridget McKenzie has broken her silence about the sports grants scandal that ended her frontbench profession, safeguarding her actions while conceding more might have been done to ensure public rely on a scandal-plagued pre-election program.
Bottom line:
- Senator McKenzie says she will not apologise for using her ministerial discretion
- As sports minister she is accused of granting grants in marginal seats for political advantage
- The information come from a 6,000- word submission to a Senate questions analyzing the scandal
In a 20- page submission to a Senate query, the previous sports minister insisted she had actually taken obligation for her actions, having give up the frontbench earlier this year.
However the now-backbencher protected her ministerial intervention in the program.
” To do so was my authority, however more notably, it was my responsibility.”
Scandals surrounding the program dogged the Government for weeks, amidst discoveries of colour-coded spread sheets and allegations that deserving clubs lost out in favour of those in electorates the Union wished to win.
Senator McKenzie ended up being the farming minister after May 2019’s shock Union victory, ending up being the very first woman to hold the portfolio.
But she stopped as Nationals deputy leader and resigned her ministry in February in the wake of discoveries about the $100 million Neighborhood Sport Facilities Grants program.
She did so after an examination by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet found she breached ministerial standards by stopping working to disclose her subscription of a gun club that got almost $36,000 from the grants program.
