NEWS

NEWSFLASHES

International Women’s Day

The 8th of March marked International Women’s Day. Some observed the day with community breakfasts, others with a political march. Since the first International Women’s Day march in 1909, event organisers have been increasingly haunted by an uncomfortable question: is International Women’s Day cause for celebration or commiseration? Some suggest the former. Women occupy twenty-five percent of the seats in national parliaments. One hundred-thirty one countries have passed acts in favour of gender equality over the last decade. Abortion has been made easier to access in about fifty countries over the last twenty-five years. Others suggest the latter. Approximately one woman is murdered by a current or former partner every week in Australia. Women do up to three times more uncompensated domestic labour than their partners, and one in every three Australian women has experienced inappropriate sexual encounters. This year, you may have seen the hashtag, #eachforequal, floating around on social media as this year’s theme. Unfortunately, this theme is just a promotional branding for a company that sells unofficial International Women’s Day merch. The actual theme, as set by the United Nations, is “I am Generation Equality”. This theme is nestled within the United Nation’s focus on multigenerational activism and progress this year. “I am Generation Equality” poses one answer to the aforementioned question. We can use International Women’s Day to be empowered by the work women have done before us. We should also use the day to aspire for the next generation, and set up an action plan for the future.

By Elizabeth Laughton

A Green New Leader

As the year 2020 quickly rolled in, so have some changes to the leadership in the Australian Greens Party. Richard Di Natale has stepped down as the Greens leader after serving in the role for ten years. Adam Bandt, a former industrial lawyer has risen to his place uncontested on the 4 th of February. The party’s co-deputy leaders are Larissa Water and Nick McKim. Before entering parliament, Bandt worked as a public interest and industrial relations lawyer. Bandt says he represented firefighters and coal workers when they faced the threat of privatisation. During Parliament, he served as co-deputy leader of the Greens from 2012 to 2015 and 2017 to 2020. Prior to this, Bandt won his seat in the 2010 federal election, becoming the first member of the Greens elected to the House of Representatives.

Bandt has come in hot and strong with a ‘Green New Deal’. This campaign aims to address Australia’s climate injustice and alleviate poverty. Adam Bandt also wants to ensure that everyone’s voices feel heard. In this respect, Bandt is engaging with rural and mining communities to ensure they get a just transition into a greener economy. “We are a smart and wealthy country and if we have the guts to take on big corporations and the weak politicians they have in their pockets, we can solve these crises. That is why we need a Green New Deal,” he posted on Twitter, shortly after winning the leadership. Bandt also said the Deal would see dental care being included in Medicare and “genuinely free” education. The Greens hold a climate, environment and social focused vision. It will be very interesting to see how this spans out over 2020.

by Rayna Bland

EndoMarch 2020

Endometriosis Awareness Month is upon us this March, raising awareness for the still largely misunderstood disease which affects an estimated 200 million women worldwide. With over 830,000 women diagnosed with the disease in Australia alone, Endometriosis is a disorder in which endometrial cells grow outside the uterus. While statistics show almost one in ten women have endometriosis, the disease is still largely misunderstood with a seven to twelve year delay between symptoms and diagnosis. Starting in 2014, Endometriosis Awareness Month has grown to be the largest internationally-coordinated endometriosis coalition in the world, representing over 100 organizations, groups and medical societies. Addressing the urgent, unmet needs of those suffering with endometriosis, EndoMarch Australia has focused the 2020 campaign on raising funds for education programs and endometriosis research. Through raising awareness and education of the disease, as well as raising funds for research, EndoMarch is attempting to provide women with the knowledge to to ask the right questions in the future and ultimately ensure future young women will not face the significant delays of diagnosis and treatment. This month, Endometriosis Australia will host a number of high teas across the country, in addition to offering individuals the opportunity to host their own. With no cure for the disease, Australia still has a long way to go. Whilst some action has been taken, noticeably the Australian government’s allocation of 9 million dollars’ worth of funding towards diagnostic testing, EndoMarch is encouraging more people to take notice of a disease which affects so many.

By Madi Scott

PAL Cuts: Putting Education Last

While Macquarie University’s budget has yet to be released in full, early reports of large cuts to student programs have been revealed. In particular, cuts to the budget for Peer Assisted Learning Program (PAL) as run by the Macquarie Business School, formerly known as the Faculty of Business and Economics. If you have ever attended or listened to a commerce unit lecture you have most likely been well acquainted with this program. Though, in case you haven’t been made aware, the PAL program is one of the two support initiatives from the university to assist learning. They involve weekly workshops or study sessions led by high achieving students in a variety of commerce subjects, particularly first and second-year units. The sessions encourage revision of content and collaboration between participants as opposed to simply teaching and are aimed to support new and inexperienced students. The program has run for 15 years, with sessions currently running for 19 units. According to the Macquarie University website, students who have taken part in PAL sessions “consistently produce higher results than those who do not attend”. With the sessions all being well-attended and popular amongst students, some even saying they are more helpful than lectures or tutorials. One cut has included reducing the amount of PAL units that a leader can take on, resulting in fewer sessions overall with fewer leaders running sessions per unit. Furthermore, the ‘Super-PAL’ sessions which consisted of an overarching revision of all of the unit’s content throughout the semester has been reduced. These sessions were particularly popular and highly attended as many students found them extremely helpful when preparing for final assessment tasks and exams. While there used to be two of these revision sessions each semester, a lack of funding means there can now only be one. However, this is also being evaluated on a case-by-case basis, meaning there’s a chance there could be no revision sessions this semester if funds don’t allow. For PAL leaders, the budget for peer observation reviews has also been slashed. In the past, leaders were able to be paid for an hour to observe the work of their peers during a session. This was an incredibly helpful tool that allowed leaders to expand their knowledge and skills through learning from others, though this is now no longer possible. The English Speakers Club, a program created for international students to practice their conversational English skills and connect with other students in a social setting has also received cuts. While sessions previously ran three times a week, they have now been cut down to two times. This means less opportunities for these students to make social connections and improve their English. Furthermore, a supposed 20-30% from every Macquarie Business School program has been cut in this year’s budget. These are presumably programs meant to support students with their current studies and help them enter the job market and further their future careers.

These decisions could directly affect students who now have fewer opportunities to get assistance with their studies for free. Particularly for new students starting at the university, this takes away opportunities to become more confident in their coursework as they adjust to university life. This could detrimentally affect students’ grades and hence, future career prospects. For the students who run these sessions, this reduces the opportunities they have to gain experience in leadership or mentoring roles. Many PAL leaders are passionate about their positions and will now have fewer chances to lead units and improve their work. When asked for comment on the cuts, Ammy Kwong, the current PAL supervisor, clarified that the changes would not be compromising the quality of sessions and the feedback leaders receive would remain the same, stating that the program would be run to the same high standards as previously. PAL sessions for all business units covered in 2019 would continue being covered in 2020. Additionally, the Macquarie Business School has been a continual supporter of the PAL program for the PAL supervisors, leaders and interns. Beyond just providing employment opportunities, there have been additional opportunities to attend annual PASS and Peer Learning Conferences, providing valuable experiences. In 2020, the number of PAL leaders has increased from 24 to 33 which appears to be another factor behind the changes. This includes the restrictions for how many units a PAL leader can take up due to a redistribution of leaders confirming that some units will have fewer PAL sessions than previously. Hiring a high number of leaders ensures a variety of high achieving students are given employment opportunities at the university. Funding to other Macquarie Business School programs has remained, including Lucy Mentoring, First STEP mentoring, the Young Leaders Program, Dean’s Scholars Program, MQBSucccessful and CourseCompass. The release of the university’s full budget should clarify where these funds have been redirected to and for what benefit. PAL session offerings will be rereviewed at the end of each semester by the National PASS Centre, and with the quality of PAL sessions and feedback leaders receive apparently remaining the same, time can only tell how these changes will affect the program and students studying business. n redirected gs will be re

by Gabrielle Edwards

“NO CUTS TO ARTS”:

Student activist, Berna Erkan, explains student concerns about the university’s budgeting skills

In an institution built for teaching and learning, Macquarie is transitioning into a place where faceto-face education might no longer exist. Taking away in person lectures, and encouraging students to enrol in online classes, it can make you wonder what our tuition fees are going towards. Berna Erkan, a member of the Macquarie Students Against the Cuts campaign, spoke to Grapeshot to help us understand how students and staff are being impacted by the budget cuts, and what is actually happening. She dives into the difficulties students have been facing, and how the Macquarie community can play a role to reverse these changes.

What are the budget cuts taking place in Macquarie and how are they impacting the students and staff of Macquarie? “Following the dissolution of the Faculty of Human Sciences last year, which saw dozens of staff face down the barrel of redundancies, students in their first year of their Bachelor of Arts degree were welcomed into the new year with two essential units in the course introduced with unprecedented cuts to face-to-face learning.” “PHIL1037, a course about critical thinking has zero on-campus tutorials. The unit has forced students to do online tutorials, slashing the option of face-to-face learning. This is a huge attack on the right of students to the precious learning that is facilitated by tutors and fellow students in the real-world. It undermines the learning of students that should be priority for universities everywhere but are simply forsaken in the degree factory that is the university. These cuts similarly undermine staff dealing with increased workloads. In the case of PHIL1037, it means tutors are taking on a hundred students that they’ve never met in person. With a cohort of 2,000 students, activists in our campaign were shocked to find students sitting on the ground in the back of the lecture theatre and in aisles in PHIL1037 because there weren’t enough seats for students who were there to attend. Cramming students into lecture theatres and slashing face-to-face learning exposes the real priorities of Macquarie University, which is to run a very profitable business, at the expense of education.” “ARTS1000, a new core unit similarly offers no on-campus tutorials, but instead gives students the option of “lectorials”. The lectorial replaces small class tutorials for huge class sizes, cramming potentially hundreds of students into a single “lectorial”. Students were similarly found to be sitting in aisles and on the floor in these big lectorials, some walking out all together because there just wasn’t enough room for everyone who was crammed in. These cuts clearly undermine student learning and place huge pressures on staff taking on larger class sizes. Even while cramming as many students as possible into these lectorials, some were told to either drop out of the unit or register into online mode because there wasn’t enough space in their lecture theatres. However, students have argued that had this been the case a couple of years ago, more classes would have been made available for students with more staff hired to take on these classes. These restructures are an immense attack on student learning and staff working conditions.” “In addition to these key restructures, there is a more general normalisation of cuts to units offered in Arts. Macquarie University already has one of the lowest staff to student ratios. Huge seminars, staff precarity, and the cutting of units have left many students and staff agonising over the ways education is being undermined at Macquarie University.”

Why are students and staff protesting against the budget cuts and what do they hope to achieve? “We called a protest to defend our education and to demand quality education for students in the Arts Faculty. We also want to stand with our staff who are facing down the barrel of precarious working conditions and casualisation, dealing with huge pressures placed on them because of

increasing class sizes.” “We demand an immediate reversal of the cuts to face-to-face learning in PHIL1037 and ARTS1000. We demand small on-campus tutorials in these units because they are crucial for the kind of quality learning that needs to happen at university.” “In the long run, we have a project of challenging neoliberalism in our universities. The idea that the university’s profitability and the bloated salaries of the Vice-Chancellor and the Executive come before students and staff needs to be confronted. Macquarie University is a billion-dollar corporate enterprise. Our Vice-Chancellor, Bruce Dowton is a millionaire, and yet students are sitting on the floor at the back of lecture theatres, doing their units online and having their right to face-to-face learning slashed. One might wonder where education fits into all of this.”

What is the Snap Rally? “Students came out in their dozens to march to the Chancellery on Wednesday the 4th of March. The rally was called to save our classes and to reverse the cuts to the Arts Faculty. Before having speeches from staff and students affected by the cuts in front of the MUSE building, we occupied the foyer of the Chancellery. Chanting and raising our voices, we took an important stand against management in the building who expects that students will just be passive consumers and accept cuts to their learning.”

What do the Macquarie Students Against the Cuts intend to do in the future until the university administration listens to their demands? “We intend to oppose all cuts put forward by the University. Our campaign is intent on creating a culture on campus that argues that when students and staff get a raw deal, you come out and challenge the corporate university. There’s a lot of anger and concern boiling under the surface on campus from staff and students, but that needs to be channelled into something concrete like rallies that have the power to mobilise people and rattle university management. We have a responsibility as students to disrupt the business-as-usual of budget cuts and profit-margins, because these are diametrically opposed to providing students with a quality education.”

What can students or staff, who are not directly impacted by the cuts, do to help with this issue? “Get involved! Follow our page Macquarie Students Against the Cuts on Facebook. Our campaign wants to make an argument that staff and students should feel confident to stand up to management at this University. Last year activists from our campaign group organised a demonstration of 500 students and staff against the cutting of the Faculty of Human Sciences – the biggest demonstration at Macquarie for close to a decade.” “Students across the campus are facing a very unprecedented situation of huge debt, higher fees, poorer living conditions and worsening quality of education – something generations before us only had a glimpse of. Staff are facing huge casualisation, potential redundancies, restructures, and overwork geared to undermine them as the University churns in millions every year. We want to draw from Macquarie’s radical history of student activism and protest as a guide to how we can fight back for our education today and beat back the corporate interests of Macquarie University.”

In Grapeshot’s last interview, Bruce Dowton, the Vice Chancellor, mentions that ‘there is no you, without us’. The statement is a clear indication that the university’s existence depends on its students. So if we’re not content with the education we are receiving, we must speak up.

Coronavi-race:

The race for a cure or the race for toilet paper and xenophobia?

Armed with face masks, hand sanitizers, and disinfectant, millions around the world are living in fear of today’s biggest threat - COVID 19. First reported in December 2019 in Wuhan City in China, COVID-19 (also known as Coronavirus) has travelled thousands of miles to reach every corner of the world. While data and statistics are imperative to highlighting the gravity of this virus, the numbers are radically increasing making it excruciatingly diffi cult to provide an exact fi gure on individuals who have contracted the disease. On March 6th, cases of Coronavirus worldwide surpassed 100,000 and it is predicted that this number will continue to rise. Amidst the panic of being infected by the Coronavirus, the outbreak has revealed the darker side of human nature in our responses to new diseases and other catastrophic events: mistrust, fear, and outright racism. Th e surge of fear and racism in the face of this latest outbreak echoes that of other diseases, such as the Ebola and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) viruses. Scapegoating, discrimination, and victim-blaming have been prevalent in the aftermath of such infectious diseases. As news of the outbreak first surfaced, xenophobia and racism related to the coronavirus was limited to offensive memes on social media and verbal attacks in online comment sections. However, it did not take long before racial slurs turned to violent physical assault. On February 24th, Jonathan Mok, a 23-year-old Singaporean, shared the horrific details of the attack he faced while walking down Oxford Street in central London. Mok, who may need an operation on a broken bone near his right eye, was repeatedly punched and kicked by four males, aft er he confronted them. Unable to remember exactly what had been said, Mok mentioned in his Facebook post that the men told him they ‘didn’t want his Coronavirus in their country’, as they continued to assault him. Along with the description of the attack, Mok posted photos of his sustained facial injuries, which attracted attention from tens of thousands of accounts worldwide. “Racism is not stupidity — racism is hate. Racists constantly find excuses to expound their hatred — and in this current backdrop of the coronavirus, they’ve found yet another excuse,” he wrote. Several accounts of racism and xenophobia have been reported and documented on social media since Mok’s post was shared publicly. While some government officials and politicians have denounced such incidents related to the outbreak, others think much more could be done to show support for Chinese communities worldwide. In the beginning of March this year, Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations human rights chief, called on member states to combat discrimination triggered by the virus. The Coronavirus has also spread panic in Australia with the sudden increase in those infected, after a man in his 40s returned from Iran and became the fifth confirmed case in New South Wales. Fear surfaced in the Macquarie community when news of a lecturer from the Faculty of Science and Engineering, also returning from Iran, tested positive for the Coronavirus. According to a statement released by the university, “Our staff member became ill following their return from Iran and took immediate steps to seek medical attention… [He] has not been present at Macquarie University’s campus since returning and has had no contact with either staff or students.” On March 8th, the third Coronavirus-related death in Australia took place when the health department confirmed the death of an 82-year old man from the same aged care facility, Baptist Care Macquarie Park, where a 95-year old resident had died earlier. A female healthcare worker in her 30s at Ryde Hospital tested positive for the virus as well, and it had been confirmed that she had been in contact with a patient who tested positive at Baptist Care. The New South Wales Health Department told sixty-nine staff and students from the nearby Epping Boys High School to self-isolate for fourteen days aft er a student tested positive for the virus. Th e school was closed on March 6th and the New South Wales Department of Education said it would reopen on March 9th aft er being thoroughly cleaned. Apart from buying protective gear to prepare for this contagious disease, Australians around the country have taken on the mission to buy as much toilet paper as they can possibly find. As people make memes and find amusement in Australians’ plans to battle Coronavirus with toilet paper, concerns are rising for numerous communities. National food aid charity, Foodbank, says the recent spike in shoppers clearing shelves of essentials like toilet paper and basic medicine have ensured that the most vulnerable people are being left behind. Over the past few days, numerous images highlighted the empty shelves across the nation as people have been rapidly stocking up on supplies. Unfortunately, this has left pensioners, residents in retirement homes, and people with disabilities turning up to their local shops on their weekly shopping trip, only to face bare shelves and head home empty-handed. To combat the frenzy, Coles and Woolworths have implemented four pack-per-customer limits on toilet paper. Thousands of people around the world are currently unable to leave their homes. Italy has ordered the closure of all schools and universities, leaving people in fear of their lives and education. The Italian government is also reportedly considering further measures, including the closure of cinemas and theatres and the suspensions of public events. In the regions worst hit by the emergency, such as Lombardy, theatres and cinemas are already closed and will remain so. Italians have also received guidance to refrain from the traditional greeting of kissing on the cheek and hugging, to avoid crowded places, and keep a distance of one to two meters from others. It is difficult to predict which way this outbreak is heading, however all we can do is ensure we are taking the necessary measures to protect ourselves and that the information we share is not only correct, but free of harmful stereotypes and racial undertones. This outbreak ultimately leaves us with a simple question: are we entering a fear of a pandemic, or a pandemic of fear?

By Saliha Rehanaz

Donation Debacles

Crowdfunding for Bushfire Relief

Everyone reading this has Facebook. Even if you don’t use it often because it’s kinda overrun by mums, you have Facebook. Given this, you’ve probably seen that huge crowdfunding effort for the Rural Fire Service following this summer’s bushfire crisis. The appeal was created by Australian comedian, Celeste Barber (no hate, but totally one of the mums overrunning Facebook) and has since amassed over $50,000,000 in donations. This all sounds good and well, except for one thing: when Celeste first listed the appeal on Facebook, she advised donors that their funds would be distributed between wildlife organisations and community relief across Victoria and New South Wales. However, she set the Rural Fire Service (RFS) as the recipient of the donations on Facebook. This means all the money has actually gone to the RFS, who legally can’t spend donations on anything but training, resources, and equipment for their fire fighters. An RFS spokesperson stated the organisation was keen to have the funds go towards fire affected communities, as was intended. However, they were not confident it was an easy solution; instead, the RFS and Celeste have lawyers working together on the case. Meanwhile, the odd $50,000,000 is sitting in limbo. The Fire Fight Australia charity gig, which Celeste hosted, was a bit more careful about the recipients of the donations they received. They specified that donations from tickets and merchandise would go to the Red Cross, the RFS, and the RSPCA. My mum (Facebook user) is a huge concert goer, so we snagged tickets and stayed the whole bloody ten hours. The line-up was varied. We saw 5 Seconds of Summer, Alice Cooper, and Indigenous performers like Jessica Maulboy and Baker Boy. People flitted in and out for most of the day. The stadium seemed maxed out at 75,000 people when Queen performed with Adam Lambert as their vocalist. There was good music and lots of white Australians rocking out to Amy Shark. Celeste spoke intermittently. She dedicated the event to volunteers, thanking them for saving us from the bushfire crisis while politicians sat back. Every Murdoch paper in the country said she had made this huge “swipe” at ScoMo, but she was relatively tame. She did however get a bit Comrade Celeste when she bagged out corporations that were leaving the burden of crowdfunding on everyday Australians. General praise was given to Fetch TV, who had donated $100,000 worth of tickets for RFS volunteers to attend the concert. So far, it seems the donations from Fire Fight Australia have been received by the expected organisations without any hiccups. However, one of those organisations, the Red Cross, has faced their own difficulties with those donations. The Red Cross offers grants of up to $20,000 for fire affected families. Since opening their online applications, they’ve been flooded by bots generating fraudulent submissions for grants. There are only 60 staff working on distributing grants and many more Australians in need of financial aid, so these bots are delaying their access to help even further. It’s good news for all you cybersecurity majors looking for work, but it’s bad news for those who genuinely need the grants to get on their feet again. The Red Cross also faced criticism in late January over how they’re distributing the funds they’ve amassed. They’ve allocated $30,000,000 of donations to immediate relief, while planning to use the other odd $80,000,000 on fire affected communities over the next three years. A spokesperson has defended this allocation, citing the organisation’s experience with responding to the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009. They also cited the importance of saving that funding for when the media spotlight moves away from the immediate recovery of affected communities. There are a lot of similarities between public response to Celeste’s and the Red Cross’ donation debacles. Australians just want to know their money is going to help people, sooner than later. We don’t particularly care for the bureaucracy or legality of helping a mate. And Karl Stefanovic will hold a provocative interview with any charity so he can feel like he spoke for Australians. So, to recap it all: mums rule Facebook, Celeste Barber gave it a good crack, and Australians just want to help each other despite all bot-generated odds.

By Elizabeth Laughton

Sports Rort

A Level Playing Field?

Over the last couple of months, the phrase ‘Sports Rort’ has been thrown around like one of those ball things from the sports. As you can likely tell, this is the most I’ve followed anything to do with sports ever. Why? Because I love a scandal that exposes some tomfoolery. Th is all starts back in December 2018 when the government announced the Community Sports Infrastructure Grant Program, the aim of which was to increase participation in sports. Under this program local sporting clubs could apply for grants of up to $500,000 to put toward upgrading facilities. Th e applications would be sent to Sport Australia, an independent government agency, who would then mark applicants out of 100. Th e score would depend on how the project would increase sports participation, particularly from women and Indigenous people. The first round of funding was announced in December 2018, with $28 million being allocated to the program. Th is was increased twice to total $100 million for the final rounds of funding in March and April 2019. The Federal election was in May of 2019. It was considered to be a tough election for the Coalition to win. Just putting that out there. What brought this program to the attention of the Auditor General was an incident that occurred in February, 2019. Georgina Downer, who at the time was the Liberal Party’s candidate for the seat of Mayo in South Australia, was photographed giving the Yankalilla Bowling Club a novelty cheque for $127,373, the amount awarded as part of the grant. The club planned to use this money to upgrade their third bowling green. The cheque had Ms Downer’s name and picture on it as well as Liberal Party logos. The key issue here was that Ms Downer, not a member of Parliament, was seen to be awarding public funds on behalf of herself and the Liberal Party. In reality these were taxpayer dollars awarded to a sports club as part of the Sport Australia grant program. The actual member of parliament for Mayo, Rebekah Sharkie, who would normally be part of such an event, was not told about the successful application of the grant until after Ms Downer was. Ms Downer defended her actions by stating that the cheque was not legal tender (because it was a novelty check) and therefore not actually the grant money, but also that no one from the bowling club was under the impression it was her money. I know I usually put my own picture on things when I don’t want people to think it belongs to me, so I get it Georgina. Labor referred the matter to the Auditor General, whose role is to audit financial statements of government agencies, including Sport Australia and the Sports Minister. The report by the Auditor General was released in mid-January 2020 and was pretty damning of the entire grant program. The report found that although applications were marked by Sport Australia on the set criteria, the Sport Minister Brigette McKenzie ran a separate approval process. Not much is known about McKenzie’s alternative criteria or process other than it diverged from the criteria set by Sport Australia. The Auditor General found that there was a bias in how funding was allocated towards seats the Coalition either wanted to hold onto or win in the election. In other words, grants were not always awarded on merit but to improve the Coalition’s chances in targeted seats. As mentioned before, the approval process involved Sport Australia reviewing the applications from local clubs and scoring them out of 100. Sport Australia then recommended which projects should be funded based on their scores to the Minister, who would then make the final decision. The Auditor General’s report found that in the first round of funding, 41% of projects funded were not recommended by Sport Australia. In the second round, 70% of projects funded were not recommended by Sport Australia. In the third and final round, 73% of projects funded were not those recommended by Sport Australia. Ultimately, $100 million was given to 684 projects, and over 400 of them were not recommended by Sport Australia. We don’t know exactly which specific projects were not recommended, just that there were over 400 of them. Base the number of applicants, local clubs would have had to score 74 out of 100 to qualify for funding. I’ll give some examples of projects that were funded. The Pakenham Football Club received the lowest score out of all applicants, 50 out of 100, yet was still awarded the full $500,000 grant to build female change rooms despite not fielding a women’s team in over two years following a sexism controversy. The club is in the marginal Liberal-held seat of La Trobe. Another project that received the full $500k was the upmarket Applecross Tennis Club in Perth, despite its score of 54. The club boasts members that belong to state and federal branches of the Liberal Party. Th e Mosman Rowing Club was also awarded the maximum amount of $500,000. This project and five others in Tony Abbott’s former electorate were awarded funding prior to the 2019 Federal election. $190,000 was awarded to the Tea Tree Valley Golf Club that sits at the foot of the picturesque Adelaide Hills. The club applied for funding (under a sporting grant) to upgrade their foyer in order to attract more wedding bookings. You see the problem. In response to the report, many demanded the resignation of now Agriculture Minister Bridget McKenzie who oversaw the allocation of funding. The Prime Minister opened an internal investigation headed by Philip Gaetjens, the head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. The report was handed down to the PM in early February and shown to Cabinet. Then Scott Morrison held a press conference in which he stated that the report found overall, no political bias was evident in how the grants were handed out and Bridget McKenzie did nothing wrong. Except for when she failed to declare a conflict of interest by awarding her own shooting club $30,000 as part of the grant. Basically, everything is all good, but Bridget made a little mistake and she will step down from her position as Minister. Sweet Scomo, that’s great to hear. When can we see the report that says all this, seeing as the Auditor General’s report looked at the same facts and found a very different conclusion? Sorry, what’s that? We can’t see the report because it’s Cabinet material and therefore confidential to the public? The PM is right and it is technically legal for him to withhold it on this basis, but it’s not common practice. The Auditor General investigates an issue and finds wrongdoing on the government’s part and makes the report public. The government investigates the same issue and finds no wrongdoing but won’t share the report. So that is the end of it. Bridget McKenzie lost her ministerial position and is now a backbencher, right there next to Barnaby. The whole ‘Sports Rort’ saga highlights the need for transparency when it comes to government grants, a problem that is starting to get more attention. But what triggers me most is that some people literally applied for money to level their playing fields and they didn’t get the chance to. Instead, the playing field got more disparate.

By Harry Fraser