Long Suffering Taxpayers are the New Sponsor of Netball Australia

If Netball Australia had any decency, they would reject Dan Andrews $15m sponsorship offer.

The Victoria Premier promised yesterday to fill the void left by Gina Rinehart’s decision to end an agreement between Hancock Prospecting and Netball Australia.

Rinehart tore up her agreement with the sport after players demanded she apologise for racist comments made by her now deceased father Lang Hancock 40 years ago.

Ever the opportunist, Dan Andrews saw a chance to stick it to a fossil fuel company, appear a saviour of women’s sport and display his anti-racist credentials.

He bought all of that virtue for only $15m. 

Of course, it’s not quite that simple. Officially, the national team will be sponsored by Tourism Victoria. And the money will come from taxpayers.

Nevertheless, Dan’s smirking face embroidered on the girls’ uniforms would be a nice touch.

Our elite netball players, having thumbed their nose at a commercial deal costing taxpayers nothing, are now happy to suck from the long-suffering Victorian taxpayer’s teat.

No doubt they will all say what a fantastic bloke Dan is while never wondering why it is that the only sponsor they can find is the government.

As an aside, I’m sure the Australian netballers are busy pouring over the records of parliamentary proceedings to ensure their new sponsor is ideologically pure.

And no doubt the players will have checked to ensure that no Victorian - or deceased parent of any Victorian - has ever made a racist comment. 

You know, to be consistent.

Daniel Andrews announced the deal just minutes before State Treasurer, Tim Pallas, confirmed a $1.8bn budget blowout. What’s another $15m, right?

Victoria ­remains on track to have more debt than NSW, Queensland and Tasmania combined. The state’s debt will hit $165.4bn in 2026. Why not borrow another $15m to help girls throw a ball around? As Hillary Clinton would say, “what difference, at this point, does it make”?

Of course, there are other things begging for funding right now.

Victoria’s health system is a shambles, Melbourne CBD’s is a hole, the state’s roads are full of literal holes, and half the state is flooded.

“Give them bread and netball and they will never revolt”.

It was true for Rome in 100AD, and it seems increasingly true for Victorians who, according to the polls, are set to reward Andrews with a third term when they vote later this month.

But you never know. Our Woke netballers - with their finely tuned social consciences - may well push back on this deal. 

After all, if the netballers accept this funding, they are endorsing slow ambulance response times, long waiting times for surgery, poor mental health services, police brutality, a lack of accountability for the hotel quarantine fiasco that cost 800 lives and on and on it goes.

Surely the Diamonds’ much hyped moral compass wouldn’t allow them to be a party to all of that.

They were prepared to lose Rinehart’s money for words spoken 40 years ago by a man who isn’t even here anymore.

Saying no to Dan Andrews’ money – with the evidence of his mismanagement in plain sight for all to see and continuing day after day – should be a simple matter.

Let’s see how principled our netballers are.