Club ‘angry’ at funding snub
LOCAL golfers felt “angry and let down” when their club failed to receive funds despite being deemed deserving under a controversial sport grants program, an inquiry has been told.
A Senate inquiry is probing the scheme, widely dubbed “sports rorts”, which the Federal Government is accused of using to sandbag marginal seats in the 2019 election.
Sport Australia set a rating threshold of 74 out of 100 to receive funds, but some clubs that had grants approved scored as low as 50.
Anglesea Golf Club requested $380,000 for works including clubhouse, path and locker room upgrades.
Its application scored 84, but the club was not successful in receiving funds.
In a submission to the inquiry, general manager David Sanders said the club spent a lot of time and money working on the application, including paying $5500 for a consultant to improve their chances of being awarded the grant.
“The members formed a subcommittee to apply for the grant and this committee felt as though they had let the club down when they were unsuccessful, especially as they had recommended to the board that the money be spent in engaging a consultant,” he wrote.
“The subcommittee prepared a separate 21-page business case, a seven-page demography report with 14 references, and a 13-page riskmanagement plan in support of the application.
“The amount of time they spent on the application was over 50-plus hours.”
Mr Sanders wrote the club and members felt angry and let down because they trusted there would be a demonstrable fairness and equity in the approvals but found that appeared not to have been the case.
“The members now believe that the only way to restore faith in the sports grant system is to fund all those projects that met the selection criteria and the grant approval of ‘ 74’ or better ranking threshold,” the submission said.
“The Anglesea Golf Club is now suffering an additional downturn in trade due to the coronavirus and its impact on tourism. If the works that had been applied for in the sports grant scheme had been completed this down turn would have had a reduced impact on the club’s finances.”
The Australian National Audit Office found the 2018-19
Community Sport Infrastructure program was biased towards marginal Coalition seats.
Anglesea Golf Club is located in Corangamite, which Labor’s Libby Coker, a former Surf Coast councillor, won at last year’s election.
She claimed the seat from Liberal Sarah Henderson.
Six sport grants, worth more than $1.3 million, were awarded in Corangamite, Victoria’s most marginal federal seat. Three, worth $569,000, went to safe Labor seat Corio.