The prime minister has brushed off claims of pork barrelling after a report found an invitation-only, $560 million grant program disproportionately favoured Labor seats.
Among the grants handed out was $6 million for the Marrickville Golf Club, which falls in Anthony Albanese’s inner-west Sydney electorate of Grayndler.
It was also revealed the prime minister is an honorary member of the club.
Mr Albanese defended the money for the golf club.
“It is on a flood area by the Cooks River, when it rains and there’s flooding, raw sewerage goes into the Cooks River,” he told ABC TV.
“That’s what it’s for, for fixing that.
“I make no apologies for my electorate being serviced by me as a good local member.”
Mr Albanese said an honorary membership, which has not been declared, was issued by the club 15 years ago without his knowledge.
“I don’t play golf. I’m a tennis player rather than a golf player and, like a lot of organisations in my seat, a lot of clubs, local community-based things, they say, ‘oh, we’ll give the local member honorary membership’,” he said.
“I haven’t been in there for years. I used to walk my dog along the path, as lots of people do, because it’s a community club.”
The golf club funds was among three grants given to projects in Mr Albanese’s electorate, including a women’s health centre and a domestic violence shelter.
In opposition, Labor heavily criticised the coalition government’s community sport infrastructure scheme, which party representatives said unfairly favoured coalition-held seats.
That controversy, which became known as “sports rorts”, led to then-sports minister Bridget McKenzie resigning from cabinet after she failed to disclose membership of a gun club that received funding.
Senator McKenzie said she was concerned she would be the last minister in the Australian parliament to take personal responsibility.
“When you see trust eroding across the public and amongst parliamentarians, and the political class it is beholden on all of us to uphold the system that we’re a part of,” she told ABC Radio.
“I can only speak for myself. I chose to resign.”
Senator McKenzie was the sport minister under Scott Morrison and resigned from cabinet over a perceived conflict of interest following the scandal in 2020.
Infrastructure Minister Catherine King said there was no conflict of interest because the prime minister did not have decision-making powers for the grant scheme.
She said the invite-only process followed similar approaches taken by previous governments for more than a century to fund the projects they commit to during election campaigns.
“The commonwealth grant rules require us to set up a closed non-competitive program, the grantee then applies for that,” she told ABC Radio on Wednesday.
“Once the grantee has applied for that, and a value-for-money assessment is done by the department and I, as decision maker, then look at the recommendation from the department and we sign off on that.
“That is what happens after every single election.”
Greens democracy spokeswoman Steph Hodgins-May said the grants system still deserved scrutiny.
“Just because something goes on forever … that does not make it proper. It does not make it in the public interest and it’s not something that the public should be forced to accept,” she said.
A report from the Centre for Public Integrity found Labor-held seats pocketed almost three-quarters of the $560 million allocated under the Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program.
It highlighted only 22.7 per cent of funding went to coalition-held seats with even less to minor parties and independents.
Labor holds 94 seats in the lower house which equates to 63 per cent against the coalition which makes up 27 per cent.
