"Australian Institute of Sport pays more than $3m to abused athletes"

Boy, lucky they weren't the Catholic Church or an AFL player because then the usual suspects would have been calling for gallows to be built.

But this is a government organisation so it gets a pass on abuse of the kiddies.

Still, it's good that they were compensating the abuse victims from their own funds. Oh wait, their funds are our funds. The AIS is almost fully funded by the federal government. So it's no skin off their noses if they throw our money around to buy silence. $3 million here and $3million there and pretty soon you're talking about real money.

Of course the AIS is funded by the Australian Sports Commission to the tune of over $600 million per year. Add to that the odd quarter of billion dollars thrown in to fund a vanity project called AIS Podium Project, Oh and the "$513 million two-year investment package for high-performance sport leading into Brisbane 2032". (Notice how they call it an investment. Governments used to just spend our money...now they invest it!!. Investing in what is never stated).

So the next time you hear the government tell you that they can't afford this or that and the budget is already overstretched, remember that there are dozens of these frivolous spends that are the cause of the budget deficit. In the 1980's Finance Minister Peter Walsh talked about 200 bloody programmes that couldn't be justified on equity grounds. 40 years later and I'd guess that would be more like 2000 bloody programmes.

It's a “restorative” plan, according to the ABC, ‘restoring’ what(?) to “over 225” athletic victims over the period 1981 to 2013 at a cost to taxpayers of 5 grand a pop to 50 grand per person. And that's only part of the ‘restoration’, according to the Australian Sports Commissioner, another cost ($660,000 p.a) to the Australian taxpayer. The Commissioner doesn't explain what the 225 plus payees get ‘restored’ with taxpayers’ money, nor why the people responsible for any abuse are not doing the paying instead of taxpayers; or why it's not coming out of his organisation's budget, which will be $513 million in 2026-27.

3 million isn't much compared to what the police pay out to victims of their wrongdoing.
But still, It would be nice to know who or what they are victims of.
Maybe the swimming coach is getting too friendly with the teenage girls in togs again.

"3 million isn't much compared to what the police pay out to victims"

And its even less when someone else is paying it. The perpetrators or their superiors get the warm inner-glow of compensating the supposed victims. The taxpayer gets the bill

Hi Trumpster,

I think we should boycott the Australian Institute of Sport, until Jelly Wrestling becomes an official Olympic sport. Do you agree comrade?

"Do you agree comrade?"

No.

I think we should close it down completely as a monumental misuse of taxpayer funds.