MPs’ Stronger Communities fund ‘needed improving’

A political fund available to MPs for community projects needs improving, the head of the department has admitted.

Local Newcastle couple Melinda Roberts and Craig Smolen playing mini golf at Kahibah Bowling Club. The mini golf course is a government funded project. Picture: Britta Campion

The government department ­responsible for overseeing a $22.5 million political slush fund available to MPs for community projects admitted during a private briefing that the scheme needed to be improved.

The Australian yesterday revealed that an 18-hole mini-golf course, costing taxpayers $22,000, in Labor MP Pat Conroy’s NSW electorate of Shortland was among the latest hand-picked projects under the Coalition’s Stronger Communities program. Each of the 150 lower house MPs are allocated $150,000 a year to spend on small-scale community projects in their electorates to boost local ­infrastructure and deliver “essential” community equipment. Individual grants are worth between $2500 and $20,000.

In a briefing to MPs about the fund on June 27, the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science acknowledged improvements had been made, including clearer guidance on what the money could be spent on and clarity about eligible applicants.

An MP must invite an organisation to apply for the grant, and the organisation needs to have an ABN and be an incorporated ­entity. Between October 2017 and the middle of this year 237 applicants were deemed to be ineligible across 107 of the 150 electorates.

More than half of these — 149 projects — were from ineligible entities, while 47 projects were not in the nominated electorate and 41 were classified as ineligible project activities or expenditure.

Labor regional services spokesman Stephen Jones said he had been unable to find one opposition MP who knew about the June briefing, which was held during a parliamentary sitting week.

“If there’s important information about the administration of the scheme it should be open to all MPs,” he said. “This smacks of them politicising something. It shouldn’t be about politicians, it should be about the community.”

The department did not ­respond to Mr Jones’s claim.

Regional Development Minister John McVeigh’s spokeswoman said there were regular compliance checks, and an independent evaluation of the first two rounds of funding had found the program was “effective” and had strong support in the community.

“All projects are independently assessed,” she said.