Tapping the pork barrel: How the government grants data was compiled

After reporting for months on pork-barrelling programs, such as the commuter car parks promised ahead of the 2019 election where more than three-quarters went into Coalition seats, we wanted to take a closer look at how taxpayers’ money is distributed when it is left in the hands of ministers.

Finance Minister Simon Birmingham claimed a fortnight ago it wasn’t possible for his department to determine into which electorates flowed billions of dollars of grants overseen by ministers.

Finance Minister Simon Birmingham claimed it wasn’t possible for his department to determine into which electorates flowed billions of dollars of grants overseen by ministers.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen/Mark Stehle

It would “require a manual assessment of all grant opportunity guidelines” and take “an extensive period of time to assemble the information”, he wrote to his Labor counterpart Katy Gallagher.

Today, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age reveal the results of just such an examination of grants data. It took us two months to comb through more than 19,000 successful grants to work out where $2.8 billion of taxpayers’ money has been spent.

We started with an Auditor-General’s report on more than 108,000 grants handed out since the start of 2018; it revealed a rich source of publicly available data on the GrantConnect website. But nobody had analysed it on an electorate-by-electorate basis.

So in that sense, Senator Birmingham was correct. It was a huge amount of work.

There are hundreds of grants programs used by the government to distribute money for everything from academic research to pandemic-related funding top-ups to keep childcare centres open.

Our analysis focuses on 11 schemes where the local member or a minister has to invite applicants, including two regional grants systems where the deciding panel is made up of Nationals’ ministers.

The projects that received money under these 11 schemes make up 19 per cent of every government grant given out.

The schemes we looked at were the Armistice Centenary grants, the Building Better Regions Fund, Community Development Grants, the Communities Environment Program, the Drought Communities Program, Community Sport Infrastructure Grants (Female Facilities and Water Safety Stream), the Regional Growth Fund, the Safer Communities Fund, the Safer Streets Program, the Stronger Communities Program and Volunteer Grants.

The projects that received money under these 11 schemes make up 19 per cent of every government grant given out.

We did not include the commuter car parks, which we have previously reported on because the money for them was distributed using a different method.

Three of the programs we looked at offer incumbent MPs $150,000 to hand out to local community groups and other projects they deem worthy. Many of them then feature in MPs’ communications with constituents. For two others, the grant guidelines explicitly state the program “delivers on the government’s election commitments”.

Five of the schemes have either been examined by the Auditor-General or are currently under scrutiny.

Focusing on these 11 programs whittled the list down from the 108,000 identified by the Auditor-General to 19,123 grants. The analysis covers money given out in 2018-19 (an election year), 2019-20 and 2020-21 and amounts to almost $2.8 billion.

The next step was to work out into which electorate each grant went. The publicly available information lists a recipient town, suburb, postcode and, in some cases, a delivery postcode. Public servants say it is routine these days to include electorates in any list of projects, but that information is deleted from the final document – and it is not published on GrantConnect.

Grants were allocated to electorates based on the suburb of the recipient or where the project would be delivered. After an initial automated process, the remaining grants were checked line by line.

The cross-checking threw up some anomalies. Nearly 500 grants went to the headquarters of national or statewide organisations, such as Scouts Australia or the Salvation Army, but did not include details of where the money would be spent. These have been excluded from the electorate totals.

Once all this was done, it quickly became apparent these grants were flowing in particular directions.

Coalition-held seats received four times as much money as Labor ones. Seats that border each other, with almost the same demographic characteristics, appeared to get vastly different sums of money depending on which party the sitting member represented or how marginal the seat was.

Grants programs included in the analysis

• Armistice Centenary grants program: Grants between $3000 and $50,000 available to schools, ex-service organisations and community groups for commemoration projects. Each electorate was allocated $50,000. MPs invited projects to apply.
• Building Better Regions Fund: Grants between $20,000 and $10 million available to councils and community groups in areas outside Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra. Final decisions on grants are made by a ministerial panel that consists essentially of Nationals ministers. Currently under examination by the Auditor-General.
• Community Development Grants: The government identifies projects and invites applicants to submit paperwork. There is no minimum or maximum grant amount. Was subject to an audit in August 2018. 
• Communities Environment Program: Grants between $2500 and $20,000 for community-led environment projects. Each electorate gets $150,000 and the local MP identifies projects and invites applicants.
• Drought Communities Program: Grants up to either $500,000 or $1 million depending on the stream available to projects in 180 council areas across. Ministers identify projects and invite applicants.
• Community Sport Infrastructure Grants (Female Facilities and Water Safety Stream): Established to fund election commitments. The government identifies projects and invites applicants to submit paperwork. An earlier version of this program was the subject of the audit report that became known as “sports rorts”.
• Regional Growth Fund: Grants of at least $10 million for state and territory governments, councils, private providers and community groups. A ministerial panel makes a decision on initial applications and successful projects are asked to make a full business case for further assessment. Established in 2018 and spent $258.4 million on 16 projects, all but four of which were approved in the months before the election.
• Safer Communities Fund: Grants up to $500,000 or $1.5 million depending on the stream, for CCTV, lighting, fences at schools and churches, youth early intervention programs. Currently under examination by the Auditor-General.
• Safer Streets Program: A precursor to the Safer Communities Fund, now ended. Was subject to an audit in 2015.
• Stronger Communities Program: Grants between $2500 and $20,000 available to councils and community groups. Each electorate gets $150,000 and the local MP identifies projects and invites applicants.
• Volunteer Grants: Grants between $1000 and $5000 for community groups. Each electorate gets $132,450 and the local MP identifies projects and invites applicants.

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