Dave Smith has established the Parliamentary Friends of League to improve the NRLs relationship with governments
Richard Hinds
The Sunday Telegraph
November 30, 2014 12:00AM
FAMED director Frank Capra made a move called Mr Smith Goes To Washington. The NRL is working on its own version titled Mr Smith Goes to Canberra.
At Parliament House in June about 130 federal politicians watched Origin 2 on a big screen. They ate pies, wore scarves and, for once, traded insults on state rather than party lines.
This was the latest gathering of the Parliamentary Friends of League, a group established last year to improve the NRLs relationship with governments.
The PFLs have played touched football, held social gatherings and, most importantly, become acquainted with the key officials of a sport that was, for a time, political poison.
In April, NRL chief executive David Smith appointed former Premier Barry OFarrells deputy chief of staff James Boland-Rudder to lead a group improving the games government relations.
Boland-Rudder is one of the anonymous suits the games sniggering old guard tell you wouldnt know Wally Lewis from his left testicle. The blokes from the big end of town who are ruinin the bloody game.
The jockstraps either dont know or conveniently forget Boland-Rudders job is to identify the treasury official with the greatest pull in the Premiers office and detect which way the wind is blowing on funding issues. Not appoint the refs for Sundays big game.
Recently, Smith negotiated successfully with the Federal Sports Minister Peter Dutton to have changes in Medicare benefits that affected elite athletes backdated by three years. It was a relatively minor outcome. But the NRL had provided a solution for a sports-wide problem, not wailed in the media about the unfairness of it all. This went down well with Dutton.
The NRLs timing is good. The AFL has extracted billions of taxpayer dollars for stadia and other projects from federal, state and local governments. But former boss Andrew Demetriou was cast as an ALP man and the AFLs mishandling of the ASADA scandal has it on the nose in Canberra.
Recently Smith had lunch with the Prime Minister. He didnt turn up with a begging bowl. He was invited. The difference is significant.
To those who bemoan Smiths costly faceless men, this is what the NRL is getting for its money. The executive has worked diligently over the past 20 months to improve its government relations.
Why? Last week the NSW state government confirmed it would spend $600 million on improving Sydney stadiums. The NRL has had a significant say in the amount allocated and will help determine how it is spent.
Thus the NRL will have a chance to redress a great scandal the manner in which the AFL to plucked hundreds of millions of dollars from under the noses of the entrenched codes to ensure the SCG, ANZ Stadium, GWSs Spotless Stadium and the now virtually abandoned Blacktown Olympic Park were improved/configured for its relatively limited needs.
An announcement about substantial ground improvements in Townsville is also imminent also heavily government funded.
It has been reported that anonymous NRL heavyweights are disenchanted with the Smith administration. Their concerns should be heard.
The NRLs tardy response to the Kirisome Auvaa domestic assault case was cause for concern. This was the kind of behavioural issue that once prompted politicians to run away from the NRL faster than a speeding winger.
But among those second-guessing Smiths acumen are the same feudal war lords who, before the imposition of a commission, ran what should have been multi-million dollar ventures like corner shops.
Having worked to maximise the NRLs revenue, Smith is replacing this chook raffle mentality with standard business practices. This includes executives who spend more time working with governments and corporate entities than complaining about the video refs.
This is not to trivialise the games everyday operations. Events on the field are its lifeblood and to ignore the wishes of the fans is to risk diminishing the passion that keeps that blood pumping.
But while Smith has made mistakes he has rightly challenged the entitled mentality of those who place their own position in the game above the interests of their clubs and the competition.
The malcontents use the games weekly media boom or bust cycle as a potent weapon. It is far easier to start a mumbling campaign about botched judiciary decisions than explain the intricacies of government lobbying or media rights deals and sponsorships worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
But Smiths administration will be best judged by time. If he can provide improved stadia, ensure the financial viability of clubs and keep a sport in a cutthroat market ahead of its rivals, he will leave a lasting legacy.
But, of course, nothing will stop some disenfranchised backroom mumblers sharpening their blades.
