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Independent MP Helen Haines has referred $1.35 billion in election grants to the audit office, saying they overwhelmingly skew to Labor electorates. By Karen Barlow.

Labor election grants referred to audit office

Independent member for Indi Helen Haines.

Credit: AAP Image / Lukas Coch

The Albanese government has been accused of pork-barrelling after an analysis of $1.35 billion in grants found almost 90 per cent of projects were in Labor electorates.

Independent MP Helen Haines has referred the grants to the Australian National Audit Office. She notes that the grants – which were announced as part of Labor’s election commitments in 2022 – were dispensed through two non-competitive funds.

Labor insists the grants were campaign commitments that had to be met and that in government it has strengthened grant program guidelines, but Haines says she and the ALP have a “fundamental disagreement” about what is reasonable and what is corruption.

“I don’t think election commitments that are spending taxpayers’ money without a fair, open and competitive process is okay. The major parties do. They think it is okay. We disagree on that,” she tells The Saturday Paper.

“I went and sat down with the minister and said, ‘I’m really concerned about this.’

“I don’t do it lightly. I’ve done a lot of investigation, saying, ‘It didn’t look right, it didn’t smell right, it didn’t feel right. What actually happened with this?’ And I followed it through.”

Haines’s focus has been on grant programs administered through the Infrastructure Department’s Investing in Our Communities and Priority Community Infrastructure programs.

These are grants that have delivered or will deliver Labor commitments such as car park improvements, toilet blocks, student housing, SES facilities, future flood protection, pools and other sporting infrastructure.

Haines’s analysis, from research by the Parliamentary Library using data from the GrantConnect portal, shows that 86.8 per cent of seats that Labor held or gained at the election received a grant. There was a merit assessment of all projects after Labor won office, and an unknown number were not approved.

Tight contests in 2022, in seats such as Boothby in South Australia, Corangamite in Victoria and Tangney in Western Australia, feature prominently in the analysis of awarded grants.

“What we have with these particular programs that I’ve been looking carefully at are grant programs that have been designed after the election in order to fulfil 435 election commitments,” Haines says.

“They are closed, non-competitive, invitation-only grants. Now, on my reckoning, that is not a fair and equitable use of taxpayer dollars. So, yes, there was a merits review post-election, but it wasn’t a merits review that enabled projects from all over the country to be measured against each other. This was a closed shop.”

Haines has documents released under freedom of information that show how the projects are assessed after they have been awarded. The department seeks details such as “nature, cost, timing and other funding” for the project, as well as details on the organisation receiving the money.

In an example, a council chief executive in charge of a project to install a dedicated women’s change room and toilets is recommended “strongly” not to enter financial commitments or begin construction work “until you have executed a funding agreement with the department”.

Such is the timing on infrastructure projects, Haines says, the money for these two projects is “only just starting to trickle out” now.

The Australian National Audit Office has acknowledged the request, but the independent body has not made a decision on whether to proceed with an audit.

The Saturday Paper sought an interview with Infrastructure Minister Catherine King, but she was not available.

In a statement, she stressed that the two programs cover usual practice for a party in opposition, but after the election win there were rules and rigour applied.

“These programs deliver on commitments made during the 2022 Federal Election campaign when the Labor party was in opposition,” King said in a statement.

“Following the election of the Albanese government in 2022, the department established robust guidelines and assessment criteria to support the funding and final delivery of these projects in line with best practice grants administration.

“This design aligns with the Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines and the recent Joint Committee Public Accounts and Audit Inquiry into Commonwealth grants administration.

“All projects underwent a rigorous merit assessment to confirm eligibility under the program guidelines and to determine value for taxpayers’ money.

“Any projects that did not satisfy these requirements were not approved for funding.”

The applications for the two programs closed on November 30, 2023.

It is understood the Coalition did not have a merits review process and did not close its election commitments grants process.

“While these programs fulfil election commitments, the government has since opened a number of competitive grant programs worth a total of $1.5 billion open to applicants in every community across the country,” King said.

“These include: Growing Regions; Regional Precincts and Partnerships; Thriving Suburbs; Urban Precincts and Partnerships.”

Haines was integral to the creation of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC). She had argued with the major parties for pork-barrelling to be part of the NACC’s remit but was unsuccessful.

Haines notes that the 2022 election was in significant part an integrity election and expectations for reform have been high.

Haines had worked with the Albanese government on a parliamentary panel early in the term assessing expressions of interest for a regional grants program. “I was very happy to participate, to be part of that. I think it was a good thing,” she says.

“I think what we’ve also seen is there has been a tightening of grants guidelines and eligibility criteria. But the problem with these two programs is that it was done retrospectively. It needs to be done prospectively. We need to know as taxpayers that any money spent by the government is done fairly, and that it’s an open contest.”

There are other political matters at play. The major parties have the added pressure of meeting election commitments or, more specifically, not being seen to break them.

Haines is not buying it.

“What’s an election commitment? Surely, an election commitment is around the policy platforms you’re going to bring to the nation,” she says. “It’s about the opportunities you’re going to create for the nation.”

Looking at the electoral fight ahead, she offers this warning: “While primarily in people’s mind is their own difficult personal circumstances, with the cost of living, absolutely there is. But when you think about the cost of living, and you think about something like pork-barrelling and a waste of taxpayer money, or a misuse or a skewed priority, whichever way you might want to look at that, then I think that feeds into people feeling disillusioned with the major parties. We can fix this. We actually can. And I think we must.”

Haines is trying again with a private member’s bill to overhaul the grants system, having failed to get major party support earlier this year.

Drafted with the help of the Centre for Public Integrity, the proposed legislation would subject grants to more stringent meritorious selection and create a new parliamentary committee to review decisions and, at times, get ministers to explain why they went against departmental advice.

The regional independent was last week included in the opposition’s “teals revealed” campaign, grouping her with inner city independents seen by the Liberal Party as the “opposition to the opposition” and not “backing in the people who elected them”.

Asked if she is focused on the grants to advance her own interests as an independent, Haines points to consistency.

“I’ve been doing this from the day I got here. This is not new from me. No one would be surprised that Helen Haines is taking this particular issue through to the auditor-general,” she says.

“I followed it through. I’ve been to the minister. I didn’t just go to the press. I think there’s a lot of work to do that has not been taken up by this government, and I really encourage them to get on with it.”

This article was amended on November 13, 2024, to correct a mistatement of Helen Haines’s research regarding the proportion of Labor seats that received a grant.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on November 9, 2024 as "Over a pork barrel".

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