Australian rugby "buried its own Cricket Australia-style tell-all cultural review three years ago," according to Georgina Robinson of the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD. Michael Hawker, the then-chair of the then-Australian Rugby Union, commissioned Simon Longstaff of the Ethics Centre to "undertake a cultural review" of the organization in May '15, six months after Wallabies coach Ewen McKenzie quit amid "the biggest crisis in the sport's recent history." The investigation was reportedly finished and sent to the ARU (now Rugby Australia), "but was never made public." Over the next three years, Hawker and then-CEO Bill Pulver, half the board and the "entire senior management" of the organization, besides High Performance Manager Ben Whitaker, "resigned or moved on." Hawker "could not remember the review when contacted." A spokesperson confirmed the report "had been received but was always intended to be confidential." Its findings were fed into the ARU's larger five-year strategic review, which had been announced at the same time and was unveiled 10 months later in April '16. Other stakeholders said that they were "lined up to interview with Longstaff" but had their appointments canceled. The feedback from the ARU legal department at the time "was that the review had been shelved" (SMH, 11/6).
