Governor-General David Hurley has made his first public appearance since the federal government scrapped a controversial $18 million grant.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers confirmed the funding commitment for the mystery foundation would not go ahead after he and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher re-examined the coalition’s most recent budget.

The Australian Future Leaders Program, backed by Mr Hurley, was allocated the funding by the former Morrison government.

But the plan was scrapped after an audit of “rorts and waste”, Dr Chalmers said.

“This grant obviously doesn’t pass muster and we took the time to look into the $18 million, which was proposed here and we can’t see that it delivers value for money,” Dr Chalmers told reporters in Canberra on Thursday.

“Our responsibility is to go through the budget line-by-line, to make sure that there’s genuine value for money and we couldn’t see value for money here.”

The government had faced pressure to scrap the grant after media reports emerged the foundation had not run any leadership programs, had no website or staff and did not go through a competitive process to receive the grant.

It has previously emerged the governor-general had privately lobbied Mr Morrison on a number of occasions before the grant was announced.

Mr Hurley welcomed East Timor President José Ramos-Horta to Government House in Canberra on Thursday where they inspected the Guard of Honour.

– AAP