It’s been a messy week for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese after the Centre for Public Integrity called his government out for spending public money for political advantage. Rex Patrick looks at the latest iteration of systematic election corruption.
Pork barrelling 2025
Pork-barrelling is corruption. It’s (major) parties using public money to buy votes for a ‘stay in power’ or ‘get in power’ advantage, and/or for individuals to ‘stay on a high MP salary’ or ‘get on a high MP’s salary’.
A newly released Centre for Public Integrity report on the $560.9 million, invitation only, non-competitive ‘Major and Local Community Infrastructure’ (MLCI) Program designed to deliver the Albanese Government’s community infrastructure commitments from the 2025 election found the program wanting from an integrity perspective.
A Centre for Public Integrity press released summarises the spending.
Our analysis finds that around 73.2 per cent of funding — $409.1 million — went to notionally ALP-held divisions, compared with 22.6 per cent to Coalition-held divisions and 4.3 per cent to others. For every dollar allocated to a Coalition seat, more than three dollars and twenty cents went to a Labor seat.
The skew becomes even more pronounced when electoral competitiveness is taken into account. Marginal seats in which Labor was electorally competitive received $66.5 million more than a proportional distribution would predict, while marginal seats outside Labor’s contest and safe or fairly safe non-Labor seats received a combined $116.6 million less than such a distribution would predict.
The press release went on the say of the program:
The invitation-only design meant community organisations across Australia did not have an equal opportunity to seek funding based on their needs and the merits of their projects. Instead, organisations could apply only if invited by the Commonwealth, with no published explanation of how eligibility to be invited was determined.
They declared the program “ripe” for pork-barrelling and went on to point out that “there was no published explanation for why a closed process was necessary
or how invitees had been selected.”
Endemic corruption
Pork-barrelling is not new. Is an endemic part of our political system.
In the 2022 election MWM was one of the few media outlets that shone a light on the Community Batteries for Household Solar pork-barrelling program.
Solar Rorts – Federal Labor caught in $200 million pork barrelling scheme
The member for Mayo, Rebekha Sharkie, referred the program to the Auditor-General. We’ll come back to the outcome of that audit in a moment.
Both sides are in on the rort.
Who can forget the 2019 ‘Sports Rorts’ pork-barrelling affair.
Of course, the fact that both major parties do it has become part of the defence. In the Senate this week, under questioning from the opposition, Senator Penny Wong promoted it as normal.
“As I said before, governments are entitled, and all political parties are entitled, to make election commitments. You made many.”
The rules were followed
The first person to raise the issue in Parliament this week was independent Senator David Pocock.
In the Senate on Tuesday he asked Finance Minister Katy Gallagher about the MLCI.
“Minister, is this pork-barrelling?”
Minister Gallagher responded,
“No. it’s delivering election commitments … The election commitment is clear. It is made before the election. The value of that election commitment is made clear. It is contained in our costings. And, on winning the support of the electorate, when we come into government, there are grant rules around how to administer those election commitments and deliver them. Those grant rules were followed.”
And therein lies the Governments defence. It’s carried out in accordance with the rules.
Indeed, that’s what the Auditor-General found of the 2022 Community Batteries for Household Solar pork barrelling program. He politely identified the pork barrelling in his audit conclusion.
Program costs and benefits were determined by modelling commissioned by the Australian Labor Party when in opposition. DCCEEW tested this modelling through stakeholder feedback. It did not provide advice to the government on program costs and benefits, the suitability of pre-determined battery locations, or suggest alternative locations.
A higher percentage of marginal electorates and Labor-held electorates received community batteries in pre-determined locations.
But he found overall:
Delivery of the program by DCCEEW and ARENA is largely effective, consistent with the government’s policy intent and stakeholder feedback.
The Auditor-General is not an anti-corruption commissioner, rather he audits programs according to processes that govern them. If the rules are followed, that’s what matters.
The 2019 ‘Sports Rorts’ affair crossed a line for the Auditor-General because it was apparent the ministers overruled Sport Australia when the law did not permit that. Colour coded spreadsheets did not help the Morrison Government’s cause.
No rules broken, just broken rules
But here’s the sting. It’s the government that writes the grant rules.
Senator David Pocock was onto this when, in a speech immediately following question time, he responded to Minister Gallagher’s answer,
If this is according to the rules, let’s change the rules, because these rules do not cut it.
It’s not about breaking rules, it’s about broken rules.
Collateral tees off on Albo’s golf gimme
The Coalition did not go hard on the pork barrelling, per se. They want to be able to influence voters at election time in the same way.
Rather, they went after Prime Minister Albanese’s undeclared honorary membership of the Marrickville Golf Club in his electorate, which received a $6 million grant under the MLCI.
In 2020 Albanese had called on then Prime Minister Scott Morrison to sack Senator Bridget McKenzie for her undeclared membership of a gun club that had been a recipient of a $36K ‘Sports Rorts’ grant. Albanese declared the need for the sacking to be a matter of integrity.
It was messy of Albanese not to have declared the Marrickville golf club membership and left him looking like a hypocrite.
The Coalition’s line of attack was deliberate. And there was irony in it. The resignation of Senator McKenzie in 2020 (at least for a short period) was designed to defuse the unlawfulness that had occurred in 2019, and the fact it was pork-barrelling. In 2019 the Coalition chose to stay away from the pork-barrelling issues, as they are now doing in 2026.
Pork barrelling 2028
The Government will ride out the pork-barrelling storm. They will do so because the Coalition is not interested in shutting down this election tool.
Pork-barrelling is wrong. It involves spending public money, not on a project that fulfils the most needs, not on the project that has the most merit and not on the basis of best value-for-money.
While the project may involve needs, and have some merit and have some semblance of value-for-money, these are secondary thoughts to the political strategists that are approving the election promises.
In a couple of years MWM will be writing about Pork Barrelling 2028, despite the best efforts of organisations like the Centre for Public Integrity. That’s because both the major parties are in on the rort, putting political self-interest ahead of public interest and integrity.
Rex Patrick is a former Senator for South Australia and, earlier, a submariner in the armed forces. Best known as an anti-corruption and transparency crusader, Rex is also known as the "Transparency Warrior."