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Questions for sports minister as $500,000 lobs into QRU's account
- Wayne Smith, Rugby union editor
- From: The Australian
- April 17, 2010 12:00AM
THE Rudd government, and federal Sports Minister Kate Ellis in particular, have some explaining to do after $507,000 ended up on the Queensland Rugby Union's 2008 balance sheet after an identically-sized grant was made that same year to the ARU for the IRB Pacific Nations Cup.
The QRU has had to face some awkward questions of its own in the past 12 months over its use - or, rather, alleged misuse - of Queensland government grants. But in this instance it would appear to be entirely the aggrieved party. The sum came to light on Tuesday when Ellis's office emailed The Australian with a response to ARU boss John O'Neill's long-delayed but extraordinary attack on the Rudd government.
O'Neill claimed that the government clearly had no intention of honouring the 2008 promise senior officials had made to Australian rugby to find a way to make good the $25 million taken off the sport when the incoming Rudd administration cancelled Howard government-approved funding for a National Rugby Academy at Ballymore. In her response, Ellis defended the government's support of all sport, rugby included, and maintained that "since coming to office we have delivered about $2.04m to the ARU, including $507,000 for the IRB Pacific Nations Cup".
She went on to argue that "the government reviewed all the previous government's commitments on their merits and in the climate of fiscal restraint it is not possible for the government to support every proposal". Contacted for comment last night, the minister's office basically repeated the same statement - again mentioning the $507,000.
It was that figure of $507,000 that caused former QRU chairman Peter Lewis's jaw to drop. He could not believe Ellis would have dared construct a scenario that painted it as Rudd government largesse. Nor could he accept her claim the government had reviewed all Howard government commitments "on their merits".
According to Lewis, he, O'Neill and senior ARU administrator Peter Friend had arranged an urgent meeting with Ellis, then the newly appointed Sports Minister, after learning that the new government had cancelled the former Coalition government's $25m allocation for the Rugby Academy. After listening to Ellis explain the Ballymore project had failed the new government's merit test, Lewis pulled from his briefcase a weighty document and asked the minister if she knew what it was. No, she allegedly replied. Whereupon he informed her it was the fully costed Ballymore project submission - a submission George Brandis, her predecessor as sports minister in the Howard government, yesterday described to The Weekend Australian as "one of the best and most professional project submissions I've ever seen".
There was, according to Lewis, much squirming - all of it on the government's side of the table - following his revelation.
Only then did he inform the minister that the QRU had obtained legal advice from a prominent QC that the commonwealth was in breach of its promise. Moreover, the QRU stood to lose approximately $500,000 it had invested in getting the Ballymore project to the stage where the former prime minister John Howard himself had flown to Brisbane to announce it in June 2007.
Note the date. Not only was it four months in advance of the election that swept Kevin Rudd to power, but it also fell just inside the 2006-07 financial year. That should have safeguarded it from the Rudd government hit-list review entitled: "Reversals of measures announced in 2007-08 mid-year economic and fiscal outlook and 2007 pre-election economic and fiscal outlook". But it didn't.
Brandis is astonished the Ballymore project was scuttled at that late stage by the Labor government. "It was a flagrant breach, in fact it was worse than a breach of a promise," he said. "The money had already been allocated. The QRU had already spent a considerable amount of money getting the site prepared.
"The breach by the Rudd government of that undertaking was, I think, a contractual breach of the commonwealth's undertaking."
In fact, Lewis's $500,000 estimate was a low one. A total of $150,000 had been spent on the bid proposal - made up of $50,000 contributions from the QRU, the QRU Club and the ARU - but in the four months after the QRU received a letter from Howard informing it of the funding approval, a further $500,000 was spent on the project.
The QRU 2008 annual report lists a "government development grant" of $507,000, but in a strictly literal sense that's not entirely correct.
It actually is ARU money, passed on by the national body to the QRU after the ARU "coincidentally" received precisely that sum from the federal government to help it fund Australia A's participation in the Pacific Nations Cup.
So, federal funding went to the ARU which in turn directed money it had earmarked for its A-team program to the QRU. All proper and above board.
Still, it beggars belief that the minister specifically would trot out this "grant" as supposed evidence of the government's support for rugby.
Clearly, it was nothing more than compensation to the QRU for money legitimately spent in the understandable belief that funding approved by the commonwealth would be honoured by the commonwealth - whoever is in power. As for the cancellation of the National Rugby Academy, it is difficult to go past the conclusion it fell victim to get-square politicking of the basest kind.
It wasn't obvious in 2008, but it is now that the academy project represented the QRU's last hope of staying afloat financially.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news...-1225854740729
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