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PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE INQUIRY INTO USE OF STATE FUNDING BY THE WEST AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL COMMISSION TRANSCRIPT OF EVIDENCE TAKEN AT PERTH WEDNESDAY, 23 SEPTEMBER 2020 SESSION TWO Members Dr Tony Buti (Chair) Mr Dean Nalder (Deputy Chair) Mr Vincent Catania Mr Simon Millman Mrs Lisa O’Malley __________ Public Accounts Wednesday, 23 September 2020 — Session Two Page 1 Hearing commenced at 10.20 am Mr GRANT DONALDSON Barrister, Former Director of Fremantle Football Club, examined: The CHAIR: Welcome. Thank you for appearing today to provide evidence relating to the committee’s inquiry into the use of state funding by the West Australian Football Commission. My name is Tony Buti; I am the committee Chair and member for Armadale. With me today, to my left, is Mrs Lisa O’Malley, member for Bicton, and to my right is Mr Simon Millman, member for Mount Lawley. We have apologies from the Deputy Chair, Mr Dean Nalder, and also from the member for North West Central, Mr Vince Catania. It is important that you understand that any deliberate misleading of this committee may be regarded as a contempt of Parliament. While your evidence is protected by parliamentary privilege, this privilege does not apply to anything that you might say outside of today’s proceedings. I would also like to advise that today’s hearing will be broadcast on the Parliament House website. Do you have any questions about your attendance here today? Mr DONALDSON: No. The CHAIR: Before we ask some questions do you have a brief opening statement that you would like to make? Mr DONALDSON: No. I was invited to come, so I am fine. The CHAIR: Mr Donaldson, can you give us your views on how the current composition of the West Australian Football Commission board is actually made up, or the nomination process and the appointment process? We have had a lot of commentary in our inquiry so far about the way that is composed whereby the Eagles have 20 per cent, the Dockers 20 per cent and the existing commissioners have 20 per cent, and then 30 per cent for the WAFL clubs and 10 per cent for the affiliates. Do you have a view on that and if you think it should change? Mr DONALDSON: It may assist if I give you a bit of a background to my experience with the Football Commission. The CHAIR: Thank you. Mr DONALDSON: I was one of the initial directors of the Fremantle Football Club; in fact, I did all the legal work leading up to the creation of the football club. I was a director in 1994, 1995 and 1996. I then ceased to be a director and went back onto the board in, I think it was 2009, for another seven years, so there is 10‐year term on the Dockers’ board. I should say that other than my service on the Fremantle Football Club board I have had very little to do with the football commission and I am not going to trade gossip as to what I hear goes on or does not go on. But I had an intense experience with the Football Commission during those two periods, and the experience during those two periods was fundamentally different, largely I think as a result of the nature of where the football club was initially and where it was in 2009. Initially the WA Football Commission was expressed this way: the football commission viewed itself as the proprietor, whereas I personally viewed them as a shareholder. Initially the relationship between the football club and the football commission was actually quite hostile. In fact, the WA Football Commission was not wholly supportive of a second team in Western Australia at that time, so things were actually quite tense and quite difficult initially—certainly from my perspective Public Accounts Wednesday, 23 September 2020 — Session Two Page 2 anyway—and there were very frequent disagreements between the board of the football club and the football commission at that stage. Then when, as I said, I left the board, it was in part because of my frustration with having to deal with the football commission. I went back in 2009 and things had fundamentally changed by that stage, and the relationship was very much one of the football commission really being, essentially, a shareholder and there was, in fact, very little interaction between the board of directors and the football commission. I think the first year I was on the board there was a meeting of the whole of the board with the football commission and I stopped going after that. Shortly after that first meeting—that I attended anyway—I think that annual meeting ceased. So we had very little involvement directly with the Football Commission. During my time on the board on the second occasion I was there, I think the voting arrangement was as you have suggested and I assume that that is the current position now. As to the composition of the Football Commission, oddly enough, it is a matter I thought quite a bit about over the years because I experienced a great deal of frustration with the WA Football Commission, even during the second period. It was not as intense a frustration as in the first period, but certainly in the second period it was there. That frustration was largely a result of my inability to understand where the money that was paid into the Football commission was actually spent. I used to look at the football commission’s annual reports in those days and I could not understand from the accounts that were published where the very significant sums were spent. In those days the football commission was the stadium operator as well, and that was a wholly untenable arrangement and it is a very positive thing that that arrangement has now ceased, in my opinion. Nonetheless, there was an awful lot of money going into the WA Football Commission and what, as an AFL club, we desired out of the Football Commission was often not delivered; and when it was delivered, it was difficult to deliver—if I could explain what I mean by that. I should say I speak wholly on my own behalf here; I am not representing the football club or anybody else. Essentially, what a Western Australian AFL club wants out of the football commission is a number of things. One of them is a strong second‐tier competition—that is the WAFL competition. An AFL club wants a strong second‐tier competition so that players who are not playing in the first 22 in every game have a competitive competition where they can improve. If you have an uncompetitive second‐tier competition or a grossly lopsided second‐tier competition, then that is a failure, because the Victorian clubs have that. As I think you know, during the period I was on the board, the second time, the alignment model was introduced with the two WAFL clubs. That was a positive thing, certainly insofar as our club was concerned. Before that it was unsatisfactory because the players were spread over different clubs; there was no great interaction between a club with which they may have been associated or not. So the alignment model, certainly when I was on the board, I thought worked extremely well with Peel; and, of course, it had the consequence of bringing a club that had been wholly uncompetitive since it started up to a level of equality with some of the other clubs. I suspect Peel would say they are not necessarily related, but it always seemed to me that they were. I think that was a positive thing, because if you look at it, if we had a player in those days playing with, say, East Fremantle and they were playing against Subiaco or they were playing against Peel, well, it was a 25‐goal massacre every time they played, so that was not really an appropriate hit‐out for our players. It is essential to both of the clubs, and I would expect West Coast would say exactly the same thing, that there is a strong second‐tier competition. Certainly, when I was on the board, I thought there were concerns about the strength of that second‐tier competition. That was largely because of the inequality in the WAFL competition at that time, with Subiaco having a particular Public Accounts Wednesday, 23 September 2020 — Session Two Page 3 funding stream specifically available to it, which meant that it was far away stronger than the clubs that did not have anything like that funding source—so Peel, East Fremantle, Perth, essentially. There is no surprise that they are the three most unsuccessful clubs over the last period. The Football Commission has to deliver that and it has to be, in my view, focused on that. Secondly, the Football Commission should be responsible for producing elite, draft‐able 18‐year‐ olds into the system. The Western Australian clubs have an advantage in relation to Western Australian–bred elite 17 and 18‐year‐old footballers because the recruiters see them more, just as they have a disadvantage with Victorian 17 and 18‐year‐olds. [10.30 am] The football commission must be able to deliver, not only to the WA clubs but to the AFL system, elite 17 and 18‐year‐olds. My perception was, and this was not a unique perception, that in the period 2009 to 2016 they were failing at that. I vividly recall our head of recruiting at one stage at a board meeting telling us that the best midfielder kid coming out of the Western Australian system was not in the top 30 on running times.