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The peak body for Australia's film and TV industry has raised concerns about a $30 million taxpayer grant for the News Corporation-owned Fox Sports network, which the responsible department has not been able to find any documents to support.
This year's federal budget includes a measure worth $30 million over four years to "support the broadcast of underrepresented sports on subscription television, including women's sports, niche sports, and sports with a high level of community involvement and participation".
Communications Minister Mitch Fifield confirmed the money would go to Fox Sports during a Senate estimates hearing in May, but the Government has refused to release further details.
Screen Producers Australia chief executive Matt Deaner said he was supportive of all networks, and the broadcasting of women's and niche sports. But he said a grant "provided without conditions or transparent processes is never a good optic".
"The concern we have is the absence of the overall strategy for our sector, and how this decision fits into the Government's approach amidst other decisions that have largely overlooked or taken away from the broader content industry and smaller entrepreneurial content businesses," Mr Deaner, who represents Australian makers of film and television, said.
"On the one hand, the Government cuts $400 million out of the ABC, SBS and Screen Australia, while on the other hand adds dollars to commercial broadcasters by removing licence fees with no conditions attached."
He said the $30 million represented "double what the commercial broadcasters spend on children's drama" each year.
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request filed by ABC Radio Melbourne's Mornings program, seeking correspondence between Foxtel and the department, was declined on the basis of no such documents existing.
The Legal Director for the Department of Communications and the Arts "refuse[d] access to the requested documents under subsection 24A(1) of the FOI Act, as I am satisfied that documents falling within the scope of your request do not exist".
Women Sport Australia, which advocates for females in sport, has also said it was "in the dark" about the deal and wanted more information about the conditions of the funding.
Asked why no paper trail existed for the grant, Treasurer Scott Morrison said: "You can make all the assertions that you like but that doesn't make them true".
"I'd have to go back over the specifics," he said.
"As you know, the budget is a $440 billion initiative and those measures were there to support some important programming and other initiatives that were deemed worthy of support in a $440 billion budget."
Topics: television-broadcasting, broadcasting, information-and-communication, government-and-politics, federal-parliament, parliament, budget, sport, other-sports, melbourne-3000, vic, canberra-2600, act
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