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Ok, I sent my letter to Greg:
31 August 2017
By email: Greg.Hunt.MP@aph.gov.au,
Dear Minister Hunt
As the Minister representing sport in this country, I call on you to step in to ask the Directors of the Board of the ARU to account for their actions following the crisis that is surrounding the great game of rugby union since their decision to cut the Western Force Super Rugby Licence and wind down the Western Australian National Rugby Championship team.
According to the ARUs own constitution, it is charged with upholding the following:
“Clause 2a: to act as “keeper of the code” of the game of Rugby in Australia from grassroots to the elite level,
Clause 2 b: to foster, promote and arrange Rugby through Australia
Clause 2 c: to promote goodwill both within Australia and outside Australia by sport and in particular through rugby.”
The ARU receives substantial Federal and State government money and to this end, there have been calls for a senate inquiry to investigate the process that the Board of the ARU followed in determining that a Super Rugby team should be cut. The people of Western Australia, the rugby community young and old, amateur and professional players alike, volunteers, fans and a growing number of the wider rugby community have been unfairly treated by this unjust decision which brings the entire game into disrepute. This has been a process of discrimination and exclusion against the people of Western Australia.
I ask you to suspend Government funding to the ARU with immediate effect until the Force is reinstated into Super Rugby.
Here are the facts:
1. The ARU systematically underfunded the Force when compared to the Melbourne Rebels to the tune of $12million over the life of the club – this is more when you aggregate the amounts out over the life span of the Rebels.
2. The ARU agreed to buy the Force’s IP rights, in good faith and an Alliance agreement was formed between both parties.
3. It is now clear that this agreement was in anything but ‘good faith’. The ARU knew at that time (Feb 18 2016) that it wanted to go back to four super rugby teams (the evidence is that they knew before they introduced the Rebels to Super Rugby that five was not the optimal number). Further, in a meeting convened in Sydney in late 2016, Rob Clarke (then COO of ARU) told the heads of each Super Rugby Franchise and each Head Coach that one team would be cut.
4. The purchase of the Force’s IP rights meant that the ARU had a team that legally they can terminate or ‘discontinue the licence’ of – albeit that this agreement was ‘in good faith’
5. The ARU offered to cut an Australian Super Rugby team from the tournament without first determining which team it would cut and without determining if it had the legal ability to cut a team during the current arrangement.
6. Rob Clarke and Todd Day from the ARU went to Perth to let the Western Force know that their licence was going to be cut. At this point the Western Force rejected the proposal to cut their team.
7. The ARU then announced a 48-72 hour time frame before they would announce which team would be cut, stating that possibly the ACT Brumbies or the Melbourne Rebels were in the firing line.
8. Rob Clarke, Todd Day and Bill Pulver have now all resigned their positions from the ARU as a direct result of this fiasco.
9. The ARU certainly received legal advice from Tim North QC stating that they had no legal grounds to cut the Melbourne Rebels and at the same time, that as owners of the Western Force Licence, they could discontinue the Licence at any time. This advice was freely given as part of the communications between the VRU and the ARU over the course of this saga.
The events of the past five months are an indictment on the ARU and their ability to run the game of rugby. As sports minister you have the ability to influence what it happening. You can and you must act.
Minister, the ARU has proved itself to be gutless during this process, please prove to the people of WA that you aren’t by acting to protect our sporting interests.
Yours faithfully