Federal Court to umpire Netball Australia board stoush

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The case brought by Ms McCormack, a former Australian player who joined the Netball Australia board in 2015 and served until July this year, exposes the fierce politics and factionalism that have plagued the hugely popular sport.

She accuses the board of “intimidatory” behaviour towards her, and the current leadership of Netball Australia of making “false and misleading” statements about Netball Australia to its state associations.

The claim centres on the mental health of Ms McCormack, who was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression, her falling-out with fellow directors over issues of governance and financial probity, and their alleged refusal to allow her request to dial in to board meetings instead of attending in person.

Netball Australia denies the claims against it. In its defence lodged with the court, Netball Australia says it only learnt of Ms McCormack’s post-traumatic and depressive disorders once she sued it and its directors were unaware of her claimed disability when they directed her to take leave.

The dispute came to a head in April 2019 when, according to Ms McCormack, Netball Australia chair Paolina Hunt and former director Glenn Russell, who are both named as respondents to the statement of claim, directed her by letter to take a leave of absence from her board duties, against her will and without medical advice.

Ms Hunt subsequently tried to replace Ms McCormack by filling her board position, the statement of claim alleges.

Ms McCormack says this was done despite her petitioning Ms Hunt and other directors to allow her to manage her mental health by attending board meetings remotely – an arrangement already in place for a US-based director and later adopted by the entire board during the pandemic.

These claims are denied by the respondents, who say Ms McCormack was allowed to attend board meetings by phone prior to April 2019 and the board directed her to take leave only after she refused to attend meetings. The Netball Australia defence states that attending board meetings is “fundamental to the proper exercise of a director’s duties”.

Throughout her dispute with Netball Australia, Ms McCormack continued to attend board meetings for Sportscover Australia, a sport industry insurer, and perform her duties as a director of that company.

The crux of Ms McCormack’s claim is that she was isolated, ostracised and victimised by the board because of concerns she had about the governance and financial state of Netball Australia, including:

• Lack of transparency and reporting about the risk to Netball Australia’s solvency posed by the loss-making Suncorp Super Netball league;
• Alleged improper conduct by Ms Hunt and chief executive Marne Fechner in failing to disclose to state associations information about the broadcast and sponsorship revenue shortfall of Super Netball;
• A looming $2.5 million hole in Netball Australia’s 2018 budget, plugged by a special federal government grant;
• Alleged improper conduct or misconduct by Mr Russell in recording a phone call with Ms McCormack without her knowledge or consent.

“Ms McCormack suspected that Netball Australia’s solvency was at risk by the conduct of the Suncorp Super Netball competition,” the Federal Court documents say. “Ms McCormack formed the view that the injection of federal funds masked an underlying insolvency problem caused by the continued operation of the Suncorp Super Netball venture.”

Netball Australia either denies these claims or objects to them as being vague and embarrassing.

In March 2018 Senator McKenzie authorised a non-repayable $2.5 million grant to Netball Australia. The payment was made without the involvement of the Australian Sports Commission (now Sport Australia), the usual government funding agency for sport.

In an October 2019 email to the board, Ms McCormack reiterated her concerns about the financial sustainability of Netball Australia, its reliance on government grants and the lack of transparency about its true financial position.

“This practice of omitting key information to twist or make things look better than they really are most stop,” she wrote in an email quoted in court documents.

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The claim against Netball Australia began in August 2019 as an anti-discrimination complaint before the Australian Human Rights Commission, which was unable to be resolved.

Ms McCormack is seeking $500,000 compensation over pain and suffering, hurt, humiliation, distress and loss of professional reputation, and an apology from Netball Australia.

The dispute is scheduled for mediation.

Super Netball was rocked this week when the West Coast Fever were fined $300,000 and stripped of 12 competition points for next season after breaching the league’s salary cap across the 2018 and 2019 seasons. The club breached the total player payment in 2018 by $127,954 – or 19.7 per cent of the cap – and in 2019 by $168,659 – 25.3 per cent of the cap.