Should taxpayers be footing the bill for murals, dog parks and footy jumpers?

No matter who wins the election on Saturday, taxpayers will be forking out to build dog parks, BMX tracks and better playgrounds.

The leaders and frontbenchers from both major parties have been travelling the country making promises big and small to communities everywhere, but especially in marginal seats.

Labor has promised $200,000 towards upgrading two dog parks while the Coalition is promising $320,000 to a single park.Credit: Brook Mitchell

This started well before the election campaign began on April 10, but it has stepped up to a whole new level over the past five weeks. Now, every day, each side is making about a dozen promises with cash attached – mostly announced below the national radar through social or local media.

Every dollar spent will be on the national credit card, given the spending needed to keep Australia afloat during the coronavirus pandemic plunged the budget deep into deficit and sent debt soaring.

It’s also adding to the escalating pork-barrelling that integrity experts have likened to soft bribes for voters.

And now it turns out it might not even be constitutional.

Top constitutional law expert Anne Twomey says the nation’s founders would be horrified to know the way governments are spending money now.

She points out that section 51 of the Constitution – easily the longest part – doesn’t have any powers among its lengthy list for the Commonwealth to be spending money on dog parks or bowling greens.

A decade ago, the then-Labor government got a shock when the High Court ruled it didn’t have the constitutional power to be spending money on school chaplains (a program initially set up under John Howard). The parliament rushed through a legislative fix to shore up funding for the school chaplains and dozens of other programs, but the High Court later ruled that still didn’t give the Commonwealth the power to spend money on whatever it felt like.

Labor and the Coalition insist their promised spending is constitutionally legal but did not provide any legal advice to prove they’re right.

The problem with the legal validity of pork-barrelling is it seems you’d have to find someone who had received government money to install new carpet in their football club or build an accessibility ramp who was willing to turn around and say, ‘actually you probably shouldn’t have given that to us – and we’re taking it to the High Court’.

And that appears even more unlikely than enacting any constitutional change.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has repeatedly said throughout the campaign that his Coalition passionately believes in the power of community organisations.

“We don’t leave everything to the market or think the government has to do everything,” he said at the end of the first week.

That’s all well and good, but why should the federal government be paying for small community projects? Morrison says Australians want governments out of their lives, so why is the government upgrading a distillery’s gin still, building aircraft-themed playgrounds and re-turfing bowling greens?

Late last year, it gave $250,000 to the Noosa Pickleball Club to build new courts. The club has 58 members, almost half of whom stumped up $10,000 each to match the government’s funding. Is that what Morrison means when he says his government wants to back individuals who take responsibility for their communities through their not-for-profit organisations?

Labor has promised it will get bureaucrats to run the ruler over all its promises to make sure they stack up.

It’s hard to know how many would get knocked back, especially since public servants have to treat election promises differently to commitments made during ordinary times of governing. The party also insists it has drawn its pledges from lists made through consulting local and state governments.

“Everything we are investing in is about boosting productivity,” Albanese declared on Monday.

Pushed on how some of his candidates’ local promises would boost productivity, he said: “Commitments that are about improving the quality of life for people are also things that happen during election campaigns”.

When those commitments include painting a mural on a plain brick wall or paying for football club jerseys, taxpayers have the right to start wondering whether that’s the best – or constitutionally legal – use of their money.

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