Overview

 

Pork-barrelling – using public money to target certain voters for political gain – is wasteful and undermines trust in governments. But this report shows that pork-barrelling is common in Australia.

 

In many federal and state government grant programs, significantly more money is allocated to government-held seats. Under the previous federal government, more than twice as much in discretionary grant funding was allocated to government seats, on average, compared to opposition ones. For some state government grant programs it was more than three times as much.

 

Some programs stood out. The federal Community Development Grants program allocated more than four times more per seat on average to government seats compared to opposition seats. For the NSW Stronger Communities Fund it was almost six times as much.

 

Marginal seats also receive disproportionate funding under many grant programs. Seven of the 10 federal electorates receiving the most discretionary grant funding are marginal. And headline-grabbing allocation announcements for major grant funds such as the Building Better Regions Fund are conveniently made just before elections.

 

Political leaders themselves increasingly acknowledge the politicisation of grant programs. Some have publicly rationalised the misuse of funds on the basis that everyone does it.

 

Pork-barrelling prioritises political interest over the public interest. Poor-quality projects go ahead at the expense of higher-value ones. And the perceived political advantage means ever more grants are rolled out at the expense of more important spending.
 

But waste isn’t the only harm. Pork-barrelling undermines public trust, and risks entrenching power and promoting a corrupt culture. Most Australians say politicians should resign if they engage in pork-barrelling.

Pork-barrelling is not just a fact of life. Program design matters. Ministerial discretion in choosing grant recipients was a common feature across all the grant programs in our analysis with politically skewed allocations. In contrast, we found no evidence of politicised spending for grant programs with guardrails around ministerial discretion.

Australia needs stronger processes and oversight to prevent pork-barrelling.

First, all grants should be allocated through an open, competitive, merit-based process.

Second, ministers should establish grant programs, and define their purpose and selection criteria, but should not be involved in choosing grant recipients.

Third, compliance with grant rules should be overseen by a multi-party standing parliamentary committee. Funding for Auditors-General should also be increased to enable wider and more frequent auditing of grant programs.

 

Taking the pork off the table would improve the quality of public spending and strengthen our democracy. Alongside the other recommendations in this New politics series of reports, it would lay the foundations for a new way of doing politics in Australia that safeguards the public interest over political interests.

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