A $560 million invitation-only grants program heavily favoured Labor-held seats, according to the Centre for Public Integrity. The controversy raises a broader question – should the Commonwealth control community grants at all?

The entry for “pork barrelling” in the Oxford Dictionary says “N. Amer. Colloq. Government funds as a source of political benefit”.

Some believe the term derives from the habit of American slave owners who, in the days before refrigeration, very occasionally provided barrels of salted pork for their captives.

The obscurity of the derivation doesn’t matter though, as the stench of pork barrelling in Australia is nauseatingly plain enough.

And the barrel keeps getting bigger and the pork is more recklessly dished out.

Recently the Centre for Public Integrity ran its nostrils over the Albanese government’s Major Local Community Infrastructure Program in which, over the past year, $560 million was up for grabs for things like team sports facilities, public parks, local clubs, walkways and swimming pools.

The centre concluded that:

• “grants were heavily focused in notionally ALP-held seats”
• “marginal seats in which the ALP was competitive received disproportionately high funding” while some “safe ALP seats missed out”
• “funding was geographically concentrated”, and
• “the funding pattern does not appear to be explained by community need …”.

The grants program had politics at its heart. Application was by invitation only, with 229 being issued after some 200 projects were promised by the ALP prior to the 2025 election.

To be particular:

• 73 per cent of grants were allocated to seats held by the ALP before the last election.
• Of the $560 million on offer, $493 million went to safe ALP seats or those in which the ALP was competitive.
• Tasmania got $51 million, the same amount as Queensland and 10 times more than the ACT.

A $6 million grant to a golf club in Anthony Albanese’s own electorate, of which he is an honorary member, caused controversy, a matter possibly intensified by the Prime Minister’s sharp criticism of the Morrison government for a spot of similarly inspired pork barrelling.

Albanese has angrily brushed off the Centre for Public Integrity’s report on his infrastructure program, saying all of its grants provided benefit “for people who are most in need”.

It’s not clear, however, how “those most in need” were identified and why most of them just happened to be in ALP electorates.

Minister for Finance Katy Gallagher said all the rules were followed. If they were, there’s a good deal wrong with the rules.

The Centre for Public Integrity says the rules weren’t followed because “no public explanation has been given for why the closed process was used or how eligibility to be invited was determined, contrary to the Commonwealth Grants Rules and Principles”.

The grants have got on independent Senator Jacquie Lambie’s goat. She says “corruption” in the program is bad for “social cohesion”.

Helen Haines and some of her associated independent MPs are asking for mandatory standards, greater transparency and the supervision of community grants by a parliamentary committee.

Yet there are a couple of threshold questions.

First, could it be that building swimming pools, clubs and other sports facilities might be better arranged by state and local governments that are closer to their communities’ needs than the Commonwealth?

Second, are, as law expert Professor Anne Twomey points out, community grants programs run by the Commonwealth most likely unconstitutional?

If so, there’s a reason in principle for the Commonwealth to butt out although, as Twomey says, no one has an interest in stopping the gravy train.

So the appetite of Commonwealth governments for pork with all the trimmings is sure to remain strong, even if the spending of hundreds of millions of dollars is unlikely to have any significant effects on the way people vote.

Is it remotely possible that $6 million on a golf club in Albanese’s electorate will make many of his electors feel warmer about him?

If the pong of these community grants programs is to be dispersed, more than mandatory standards, transparency and parliamentary supervision will likely be needed.

Of course politicians want to retain discretion on these grants because they’re caught in the futile obsession that they can be exploited for partisan political gain and are thus far too important to be left to the will of “faceless bureaucrats”.

However, in many government activities where there are risks of political favouritism and unfairness – public broadcasting, appointments to the public service and individual taxation and social security decisions, for example – ministers are excluded by law with responsibilities vested in statutorily independent officials.

It would be as well if the same principles and arrangements applied to community grants, as has been the case for example, with the statutorily independent Sports Commission.

Of course governments and ministers should decide what kinds of community infrastructure they want to support and how much money they wish to spend, just as they do for social security.

But as with social security, decisions about what community facilities are supported would be better left to statutorily independent officials based on legislated criteria and within a transparent and accountable framework.

This is the most reliable and fair way in which community grants can be administered and the risks of unfairness, inefficiency, hypocrisy and community tensions can be minimised.

Is that too much to expect? Yes, it probably is, and so ministers will continue to contribute to the low esteem in which they and their ilk are regarded.

Paddy Gourley is a former senior Canberra public servant

This article first appeared in Pearls and Irritations. Read the original here