Community grants were ‘brazen pork barreling’

A grants scheme set up by the NSW Government improperly used more than $250 million of public money, inquiry finds.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian with Deputy Premier John Barilaro. Picture: AAP

A communities grants scheme set up by the NSW government “morphed into a brazen pork-­barrel scheme” that improperly used more than $250m of public money and should be referred to the state’s corruption watchdog, an inquiry has found.

The scheme was a clear abuse of the grants process, with ­approval for the Stronger Communities Fund projects resting directly with Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Deputy Premier John Barilaro, the parliamentary committee concluded.

The findings contradict claims by both that they had nothing to do with the approval process, with Ms Berejiklian previously stating “it was not my responsibility or authority to approve the dollars or support the dollars going out the door”.

Of the $254m allocated in the scheme, $241m — 95 per cent — went to councils in Coalition-held or marginal electorates.

The largest grant, of $90m, went to the Liberal council of Hornsby Shire to resolve a legal issue between council and the government and was “made without due process or merit assessment, and was a misuse of public money by the NSW government for a political purpose unrelated to the objects of the grants scheme”, the inquiry found.

“One of the most remarkable pieces of evidence … was how that $90m was paid to Hornsby Council within 72 hours, without any application form from the council and after a couple of phone calls and emails,” said Greens MP and committee chair David Shoebridge.

“Ultimately, the Coalition designed a scheme with so few checks and balances that $252m 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 punish any council that had objected to being forcibly merged.

“There was not even an attempt to assess whether these projects, or this scheme as a whole, provided an overall benefit to the public.”

The fund was set up to assist councils created from forced mergers but later expanded to include councils that required funding for projects that could demonstrate a “social and/or economic” benefit.

The committee made 15 recommendations, including that the Legislative Council refer its concerns about the maladministration of the fund to the Independent Commission Against Corruption and the Audit Office.

In a dissenting statement, ­Coalition members of the committee said the report failed to acknowledge evidence the fund had benefited projects that MPs of all political persuasions had enjoyed.

Liberal MP Natalie Ward said: “This report is a biased, partisan sham and waste of taxpayers’ money. There is no attempt at bona fides here on the part of non-government members; it’s just a cheap, political attack by people with no ideas and no ­vision for NSW.”