IT should not be a question of whether or not Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie can survive the current furore over federal government sports grants but whether she should survive.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Ms McKenzie (above) has come under fire from the opposition and sections of the media over the distribution of grants under a $100 million program when she was sports minister prior to the 2019 federal election.
She has been accused of operating the program as a Coalition slush fund with grant applications from government-held seats - and marginal Labor seats that the government hoped to win - given priority.
For his part, Nationals leader Michael McCormack is standing by Ms McKenzie and saying she is doing a fantastic job (as agriculture minister now) while Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton also told reporters there was no reason for her to step aside.
All this is despite the fact it has been revealed that one of the sports grant recipients was a gun club that now counts Ms McKenzie among its members and another was a football club that boasted Mr McCormack's son as treasurer.
The government, and Ms McKenzie, maintain no rules were broken in the distribution of grants but if that's their best defence then they have already lost the argument. Rules matter little in a case like this, particularly when the rules were written by those accused of breaching them.
More damning is any perception of wrongdoing and Ms McKenzie (like Labor's Ros Kelly 25 years earlier) seems incapable of changing of that perception.
Crucially, an Australian National Audit Office report has already found that Ms McKenzie ignored merit-based recommendations from Sport Australia for almost half the successful projects so it will take much more than a favourable finding from the secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet's report to convince voters this process has been squeaky clean.