2.  NSW Govt grants to Local Governments - 2019    Gladys Berejiklian -  "More than 95% of $252m NSW grant scheme went to councils in Coalition seats, Greens say"

An Australian state government premier intervened to change grant guidelines, resulting in one local government council receiving almost one-third of the entire program.

A scathing report on the scandal-plagued Stronger Communities Fund, released by NSW auditor general, Margaret Crawford, on Tuesday revealed former premier Gladys Berejiklian and deputy premier John Barilaro personally chose projects for the fund with “little or no information about the basis” for their selections.

On the same day that Crawford’s report was released, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that more than 75% of a separate $100m gambling revenue grant program was given to Coalition-held and battleground seats over a decade.

Outcome

›       Premier conceded grant scheme was used for pork barrelling, but that “It’s not unique to our government.”

›       In a parliamentary report about the grant scheme, the parliamentary committee chairperson commented in the Chair's forward:

“The Stronger Communities Fund tied grants round was an alarming example of the lack of transparency and accountability in NSW Government grant programs. The fund was originally established to assist councils created from the NSW Government’s failed council amalgamations, but morphed into a brazen pork-barrel scheme.  Ultimately the Coalition designed a scheme with so few checks and balances that $252 million of public money was handed out on a purely political basis to sort out the Coalition’s political problems, to gain an advantage in the 2019 state election and to punish any council that had objected to being forcibly merged. Astoundingly there was not even an attempt to assess whether or not these projects, or this scheme as a whole, provided an overall benefit to the public.”

3.  Federal Minister Sports Rorts - 2019  Brigit McKenzie  - $100 million cost

Auditor-general reported award of grant funding by an Australian Government minister was not informed by an appropriate assessment process and successful applications were not those that had been assessed as the most meritorious in relation to published program guidelines.

Outcome

›       The government investigated itself and found no basis for the suggestion political considerations were the primary determining factor for where the grants were awarded and did not unduly influence the decision-making process – the report has never been made public.

›       Minister resigned ministry – not for sports rorts but for failing to declare membership of a sporting club which benefited by receiving grant funding from the program.

›       Ex-minister reinstated to ministry in 2021.

4.  Morrison Federal Govt funds Car Parks to Liberal-held or marginal seats in 2019    - $80 million cost

"The Australian Government promised more car parks near existing train stations to get cars off the road by getting more people on to public transport. 77% of the proposed projects were in seats held by the government and 64% were in one State. A list of the top 20 marginal seats helped guide allocation of funding.

The Morrison government paid $42 million up front for four train station car parks in the key Liberal-held seat of Deakin in Melbourne’s east before any of the projects had been properly assessed.

The payment was made to Maroondah Council last year but construction is yet to begin on three of the four, and the estimated cost of delivering them has already blown out by almost $20 million. It is more than a year until most of the projects are likely to be completed.

The existing carpark at Ringwood station, one of several sites chosen for upgrades under the federal government’s controversial congestion fund.

The commuter car parks in Ringwood, Heathmont, Heatherdale and Croydon are in the marginal Liberal electorate held by Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar, and are part of a program slammed by federal Auditor-General Grant Hehir for failing to award funds based on merit.

In a scathing report this week, the Australian National Audit Office found that projects under the $4.8 billion federal Urban Congestion Fund program had been green-lighted by Prime Minister Scott Morrison the day before he called the 2019 election, and the money mostly went to Liberal-held or marginal seats.

Mr Sukkar was one of several Coalition MPs at risk of losing his seat at the time. His margin going into the election was more than 5 per cent, but he faced a backlash in Victoria for his role in the political coup against Mr Morrison’s predecessor, Malcolm Turnbull. Mr Sukkar won the seat on a reduced margin.

The Auditor-General revealed that on the eve of the election the government negotiated a deal with Maroondah Council to deliver the projects at a cost of $15 million each. However, the government agreed to pay the council 70 per cent, or $42 million, up front. The payment was made “prior to any of the four projects being fully scoped”, the documents reveal, and the remainder of the costs were to be paid on completion

“The approach taken by the department in establishing delivery timelines and milestone payments did not address the risks,” Mr Hehir said in his report. “Rather, 70 per cent of the total Australian government funding committed to these projects was paid around seven to 10 months in advance of the expected construction start dates.”

The payment plan is the latest example of dubious processes in administration of the Urban Congestion Fund, in which the Coalition promised to build 47 commuter car parks across Australia, including 29 in Victoria that had been announced without consulting the state government.

Some of those proposals were on sites where the state was already building projects of its own, while others, such as a proposal for a new car park at Balaclava Station in East St Kilda, were made even though the Port Phillip Council had earmarked the site for social housing a year earlier.

The decision not to undertake proper assessments has also resulted in budget blowouts. The proposed car park at Ringwood, for example, is now expected to cost taxpayers almost $30 million – double the original price, with $14.7 million of additional funding provided in the latest federal budget. The project is expected to start construction in late 2021 and be finished by mid-2022.

Construction at Heathmont is estimated to start and finish at the same time, but the project has already blown out to almost $19 million, with another $4 million provided in the last budget.

The projects announced in a number of seats in Melbourne’s east and south-eastern suburbs are politically contentious because some came at the expense of road and rail investment in the Labor-dominated north-western suburbs, which infrastructure experts said were more congested and in greater need of upgrades.

Labor MP Andrew Giles referred the fund to the Auditor-General earlier this year amid concerns of widespread pork-barrelling.

“What we’ve seen here is a desperate attempt to save a marginal seat when this money should have been spent to support hard-working commuters on the basis of evidence and need,” Mr Giles said.

Outcome

›       Auditor-general found none of the awarded projects were determined by government department recommendation.

›       Awarding of projects was not to an appropriate standard or merit-based – it was not designed to be open or transparent.

›       The government deleted program announcements from their social media pages after adverse reports in the public domain.

›       An investigation of car park projects completed showed one project cost over three times the benchmark price for a car park space – an expert said there was no logical reason for the cost to blow out to such a significant degree.