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ANGE:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ange McCormack. This is 7am.

It’s not illegal, but it is one of the dark arts of politics: governments spending money in seats they want to win.

So, when does the practice cross the line from politicians faithfully serving the public into pork-barrelling, and using taxpayer dollars to essentially bribe voters?

Today, chief political correspondent for The Saturday Paper Karen Middleton, on the two Labor grants that are beginning to raise questions in Canberra, and the MP who is trying to make public spending more transparent.

It’s Wednesday, February 28.

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ANGE:

Karen, I want to talk about pork-barrelling and what it actually is, because I guess making promises to a specific electorate is, you know, what politicians do all the time. It's part of the job. But when does a promise or a commitment cross the line into so-called pork-barrelling?

KAREN:

Well Ange, it's when taxpayers money is either allocated or promised in a manner that puts partisan political interests, or individual political interests ahead of the national interest, or the public interest. So it's when there is political consideration that's sort of put at the top of the list of considerations for allocating money to a program or a project. And, probably the most well remembered example of pork barrelling in recent times would be the sports rorts affair, that really became public in early 2020 and became a huge headache for the Morrison government.

ANGE:

Yeah, and can you remind us about what that scandal was exactly, and why it was significant politically?

KAREN:

Yeah, it was about community sports grants, and it actually went back to 2018. There was an allocation in the federal budget under the Turnbull government of about $28 million for a program to fund renovations or upgrades to sporting clubs and sports fields and the like. And that was then rolled out in the lead up to the federal election in 2019.

Audio excerpt – Melissa McIntosh:

“I'm Melissa McIntosh, the Liberal candidate for Lindsay. I'm here with our sports minister, Bridget McKenzie, and Nathan, from Kingswood Sports Club. And we have a very exciting announcement which will get more people…”

KAREN:

And where it came under particular scrutiny was when one candidate in South Australia, Georgina Downer, was pictured handing over a giant cheque.

Audio excerpt – Reporter:

“On Friday, Miss Downer, the Liberal candidate for Mayo, posted a photo to her Facebook handing out a cheque for more than $125,000 to a local bowling club.”

KAREN:

Now it was a PR stunt, obviously, and it was a promise to be fulfilled if and when she won the seat, and the government was returned to office. But it piqued the interest of the Labor Party, which complained vociferously about this, and went to the Auditor General's office and asked the Auditor General to investigate.

The Audit Office did that inquiry, and the report came out in early 2020. And what then emerged, through media reporting and investigation, was that the then sports minister, Bridget McKenzie, had had a spreadsheet, and they were targeting seats the coalition held or wanted to win. So it was deemed to have been a highly politicised program.

Now the audit report found that 73% of the projects that Senator McKenzie had approved were not actually recommended by Sport Australia.

Audio excerpt – Anthony Albanese:

"This is a farce. You have the Prime Minister's own electorate having a football club, tell everyone that they'd receive money, months before it was allocated."

KAREN:

Labor grabbed hold of this, they attacked savagely, the story went on and on in the media for weeks, as we might remember, and it ended up being a political nightmare for the Morrison government. But, you know, it's important to note Ange, that it's not just the coalition and coalition governments that have been doing this. It goes back to time immemorial, and there have been similar accusations about Labor governments in the past, and 1 or 2 emerging about the current government as well.

ANGE:

Yeah what is the current Albanese government's record on this? Are there any questions over how they've allocated public spending?

KAREN:

Yes, there is a criticism, particularly at the moment, being made about a couple of programs that Labor is delivering as a result of promises it made in the 2022 election. One of them is on black spots in mobile phone coverage in various places around Australia. The other one is to install community batteries for household solar power. The mobile blackspot program involves seven rounds of funding totalling $40 million. The Audit Office, again, is examining the sixth round in particular, because this time the coalition complained about it and alleged that three quarters of the approved projects, and there were 54 of them, were in Labor held electorates. The opposition, via its communications spokesman David Coleman, has said that this is Labor's version of sports rorts.

Audio excerpt – David Coleman:

"Labor was very holier than thou, in relation to these sorts of electorates. And the Prime Minister used very strong language to describe grants programs. And, you know, Jim Chalmers said words to the effect of, we won't consider whether electorates are marginal or not. It will be about community concerns and nothing else."

KAREN:

In terms of the community battery program, there were documents that emerged through the freedom of information system last year that former independent Senator Rex Patrick had applied for, that confirmed again, that the department that's now delivering them was not involved in the decision making beforehand. Rex Patrick said, based on his analysis, that 74% of the approved locations for these projects are in seats that Labor hoped to either hold or to gain.

ANGE:

And so, Karen, how exactly are these arrangements allowed, like, isn't there some kind of process to decide how a government allocates these grants?

KAREN:

Yes, there are guidelines, but they're a bit fuzzy. And governments routinely say, look, it just, it takes too long, we need to get money rolling quickly, there's an economic imperative or this community needs something fast. So they'll often allocate grants based on a non-competitive tender, where members of parliament or ministers are able to select those recipient, either areas or projects directly, without going through a more laborious step-by-step assessment process in a federal department. Now, in terms of the Community Batteries program, the first round was officially competitive, but only the projects that were listed in certain specified local government areas were able to apply. So it was competitive in a, sort of ,limited way. And then in the second round of funding, the grant guidelines listed two specific organisations that were the only ones eligible to receive funding, so that was absolutely a closed round. They were the Hepburn Community Wind Park Cooperative, and the Genie Energy Company in Narrabri in central New South Wales. Now, they each received what was the maximum grant of half $1 million. Now, that second one is in the seat of Parks, which is held by the Nationals, and the first one is actually in the seat of Ballarat, which is held by the federal Infrastructure Minister, Catherine King. When I spoke to people in government about this they said, we actually did put these two particular programs through a feasibility study, and in the case of the first program, I was told that the areas were chosen in places where, for example, solar energy take up was high, but there wasn't a battery arrangement available. Or there were a lot of renters in apartment dwellers or owners who were likely to use a shared battery if it was there. It was also suggested that there were some lower socioeconomic areas that were targeted because people just couldn't afford the battery option. When I asked both the Department of Climate Change Energy, the Environment and Water, and the office of its minister Chris Bowen, how those selections were made specifically, they didn't want to answer that point directly. They said, and I quote, the suburbs of the first 58 community batteries were announced as election commitments before the 2022 election. Labor could not seek advice from departments at that time because departments work for the government of the day, unquote.
So in this case, you know, one grant has gone to the seat of a federal minister. And, you know, sometimes that is the case. It doesn't necessarily mean it's not a worthy grant. I spoke to Geoffrey Watson SC, from the Centre for Public Integrity, which has been working on this issue for quite a while, and he says he can't say whether things are getting better under Labor or not because the information just isn't there. And he said that's a transparency problem as well as an accountability problem. He's been working alongside independent Victorian regional MP Helen Haines, to design a piece of legislation that they say will help add some extra layers of accountability into the system and greater transparency, so that people can see the workings of these decisions a little bit better.

ANGE:

After the break, will Labor support a bill to make grants more transparent?

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ANGE:

Karen, we've been talking about the general lack of transparency around some big grants given out by the Commonwealth government, and you mentioned that Independent MP Helen Haines is now attempting to take on this issue. What’s she proposing?

KAREN:

So, she's drafted a private member's bill, which is a bill that's drafted by an individual MP, not by the government of the day, with the Centre for Public Integrity’s help to put in a series of measures that would force governments to be more open and transparent about their grant allocations. They would have to apply merit based criteria, they would have to publish clear and less oblique Commonwealth guidelines for the grants, and those that were worth a lot of money, so more than $100 million, would be subjected to an extra layer of scrutiny via a special parliamentary committee. Helen Haines acknowledges that the current Labor government has improved accountability, and she points to things like the National Anti-Corruption Commission that is now established. But she says that she doesn't think that's enough.

Audio excerpt – Helen Haines:

“We need to have enforceable rules about this. We need to have clear, publicly available selection criteria. That's not asking too much. We need to have statutory force on the application of guidelines.”

KAREN:

She also spoke about the kind of election pork-barrelling that goes on ahead of, for example, a by-election like the one this weekend in the seat of Dunkley, in the southern suburbs of Melbourne.

Audio excerpt – Helen Haines:

“We're entering election season pretty soon, and that's prime pork season. So, you know, I'm here really to put the fork in the pork before the next election. I want it gone.”

KAREN:

It's in the coalition's interest and they are making all manner of promises, particularly large promises in the billions of dollars now, in that one electorate, in the hope of giving the government an electoral haircut in that byelection.

ANGE:

And so, Karen, earlier we were talking about how much of an issue, you know, Labor made out of how the last government allocated certain grants. Given that, can they really ignore these calls for greater transparency? Or will Helen Haines's bill get their backing?

KAREN:

Well, governments traditionally do not like supporting private member's bills. They rarely do it. It's a bit tricky for the Labor government, though, because it has made such a big thing of transparency and accountability. So, I think what Helen Haines is really trying to do here is raise the issue, put it on the public agenda. And in fact, if you talk to Jeffrey Watson from the Centre for Public Integrity, he says, you know, she's got form in this regard. She was the one that brought forward a private member's bill to set up an anti-corruption commission. She really drove that issue. It was ultimately taken up first by the public and then because of that, by the major political parties. And her bill ended up being a fairly solid template for the model that we now have. So, even though her bill may not progress in itself, it does put issues on the agenda. And I think that's what she's trying to do.

ANGE:

And finally, Karen, this Labor government came to power promising to be much more transparent than the last government. As someone who's had a close up view of this government and how it's working, how far have they gone on delivering that?

KAREN:

Well, it's funny Ange, you know, political parties are never quite as keen when they actually have their hands on the purses and the levers of power to drive transparency and accountability agendas, as they are in opposition. It happens all the time. We're now seeing the coalition in opposition get outraged about a lack of transparency and accountability, which wasn’t outrage that was present from their side when they were in government. And similarly, I think while the Labor government has made some progress, you could argue there's still a way to go. For example, the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, has said that he wants to overhaul the Freedom of Information Act so that people can get better access to public information. And he's genuinely committed to that. But there is still a general disinclination on the part of the government to throw open its doors and its books and let the public have a look at everything. So, we have a way to go. A few things have improved, but I don't think the public would say that we've reached a perfect situation just yet.

ANGE:

And, Karen, before we go, this is actually your last episode with 7am. I don't want to embarrass you too much, but I know our listeners and everyone who works here on the show at 7am is really thankful for all the stories you've brought us from Canberra and so on behalf of everyone, us in the team and everyone listening, thank you and best of luck with your new challenge.

KAREN:

Oh, thank you Ange. That's very kind of you. Well, I have loved working at The Saturday Paper and I have loved working on 7am and I would encourage people to continue to listen to this excellent podcast, and I will do the same. Thank you very much.

ANGE:

Thanks, Karen, and thanks for your time today.

KAREN:

Lovely to chat. Thanks Ange.

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ANGE:

Also in the news today…

NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb has responded to news that police have been uninvited from officially marching in the Sydney Mardi Gras, and to criticism of her leadership during the investigation of the alleged murder of two Sydney men.

In an interview on Channel Seven’s Sunrise program, Webb said: "There will always be haters, haters like to hate, isn't that what Taylor says?"

The Mardis Gras board said in their statement that they hoped this year was an opportunity to quote, “pause and reflect”.

And,

The Queensland Supreme Court has ruled that vaccine mandates for emergency services staff throughout the COVID-19 pandemic were unlawful.

The decision was brought on by 86 Queensland police and ambulance services employees who filed lawsuits. The ruling wasn’t based on the efficacy of vaccines or transmissibility of the virus, but the lawfulness of the mandates.

I’m Ange McCormack, this is 7am. We’ll be back again tomorrow.

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