We’re living through a golden age of government rorting. The latest, a $660 million slush fund where money to build commuter car parks was funnelled into Liberal-held and marginal electorates ahead of the last election, barely made a ripple in a day dominated by lockdowns and the botched vaccine rollout.
The car park fund dwarfs sports rorts, revealed by the auditor-general last year. And it’s the latest in a very long list of slush funds, misdirected grants and pork-barrels, many of which are now forgotten. Here’s a quick run-through.
Sports rorts
This was the one that cut through. As sports minister, former Nationals Deputy Leader Bridget McKenzie presided over the $100 million community sport infrastructure program which funnelled money away from recommended projects to ones in marginal and Coalition-held seats ahead of the election.
McKenzie was ultimately forced to resign over an undeclared conflict of interest, taking the heat off Prime Minister Scott Morrison despite serious questions about his office’s involvement. McKenzie is the only Coalition minister to face a consequence, but she’s now back where she started.
Safer communities program
Presiding over grants for community safety, then home affairs minister Peter Dutton took funds from projects recommended by his department and gave them to ones on his own list. He also intervened to fund two local councils in Tasmania before they’d been assessed — ahead of the crucial 2018 Braddon byelection. The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) is investigating further.
As a bonus, his assistant minister Jason Wood was recently under fire for diverting $31 million to preferred projects in a later round of the program.
Building Better Regions Fund
A regional infrastructure program run by former deputy prime minister Michael McCormack handed out $201.8 million in grants ahead of the 2019 election. But analysis in the Nine newspapers found 156 of 166 projects went to Coalition-held or -targeted seats. The ANAO’s investigation is ongoing.
Female Facilities and Water Safety Stream Program
A massive $150 million fund to build female swimming pool change rooms was overwhelmingly spent on Coalition seats or marginals, despite assurances from McCormack that the program wouldn’t be used in the campaign. All up, 40% of the funding went to two seats:- Pearce, held by Christian Porter, and Corangamite, where Liberal Sarah Henderson narrowly lost. Embattled Liberal MP Andrew Laming also managed to get a $550,000 grant to a rugby club linked to one of his staffers. The ANAO declined to conduct a full audit, pointing to “other competing priorities for audit coverage”.
The Leppington Triangle
The government pays $27.6 million for land to build a runway for Sydney’s second airport. The land is worth a tenth of that and will not be used until after 2050. The land is owned by a pair of very rich dairy farmers who are Liberal Party donors. Paul Fletcher, the relevant minister, blamed his department for not making the call. But at the time he’d described the decision to buy the land at that price as “perfectly sensible”.
NSW councils
Of course it’s not just the federal government. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian greenlit more than $100 million in council grants in Coalition electorates ahead of the last election. A recent NSW upper house inquiry found the program was designed to pork-barrel and win seats.
Are you outraged by politicians rorting the system? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name if you’d like to be considered for publication.
No, Crikey, I am beyond outrage, I am cast into the depths of despair. How can the country that used to be held up as an example of justice and fairness be so debased, so quickly, by such despicable practices as executed by the current political leaders of our nation.
What can we do, Crikey, to awaken the woolly headed proletariat. For god’s sake people…WAKE UP.
Thank you, Crikey, for your valiant efforts.
with you all the way Judy. Thank you Crikey
Unfortunately with the Murdoch-Costello protection racket operating so efficiently in Australia’s media, not many Australians have the opportunity to feel enraged. They simply don’t know the facts.
You get what you vote for. Perhaps these egregious acts just reflect the morality of at least half of voting age Australians. After all, a sizeable proportion of the electorate has shown itself to be greedy, would they not appreciate a greedy pollie, perhaps as a reflection of themselves?
Not just greedy, but really lazy and ill-informed, careless, not at all bothered by massive risks to the future of humanity, and morally deficient in accepting rotten behaviours from our leaders.
Just so depressing – why isn’t politics, awareness and ethics taught in schools?
It is or perhaps was, at least indirectly, in the public high schools. Discussion of ethics, morality, and what constitutes the human condition is a feature of a liberal arts curriculum. No doubt that’s one reason this government has defunded liberal arts courses in tertiary institutions and boosts funding to private schools where the likes of Chrstian P can have entitled views on life, the universe and everything reinforced.
Really appreciate you keeping a running tally of misuse of public money in the public realm. Question in my mind is how much of this does it take before people’s voting intentions change?
Most people probably don’t know about it or, they are cynical and say all politicians do it. A very sad state of affairs.
Actually JMNO, the line they use is ‘but Labor would be worse’. Said, as always, with zero evidence. Such is the game of miserable delusion, and the signs of an electorate beaten down by ongoing incompetence.
That’s a fine question.
Australia’s rort clock is running at $33,000 per hour.
No mention of the alleged $675,000 paid to drought envoy Barnaby Joyce for a couple of weeks work that resulted in some texts to Morrison but no written progress or final reports?