Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is facing accusations of “pork barrelling” over a Government grants program.
A new investigation found a $560 million scheme overwhelmingly funnelled money to Labor-held and marginal seats ahead of the 2025 federal election, including Albanese’s own electorate.
It’s raised fresh questions about how public money gets handed out, and whether it’s being used to win votes rather than meet genuine need.
So, what’s going on?
And from which barrel is the PM getting his pork?
Pork barrelling
Before refrigeration, many households preserved salted pork in wooden barrels.
The political meaning emerged in the U.S. in the late 19th century, describing how members of Government would hand out funds to voters, i.e. giving them pork (money and/or resources) from their barrel (taxpayer funds).
The term has since spread to other English-speaking countries, including Australia.
Here’s an example: a local member wins their seat at an election by a few hundred votes.
When the next election campaign rolls around, the Opposition announces funding for a new hospital in the area, without investigating if it’s actually necessary, in order to secure votes to win back the seat.
This could be described as pork barrelling.
Is it legal?
Current rules mean ministers can allocate funding against departmental advice, and without completing processes to determine merit.
While there are no laws specifically banning pork barrelling, the practice can be associated with ’electoral bribery’ – where someone seeking election or re-election directly gives or receives gifts or benefits from voters.
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Election bribery is illegal, but the law specifically excludes “a promise of public action” – meaning politicians who promise funding to win votes are not in breach of the law.
Investigation
Pork barrelling has re-entered the national conversation this week after a think tank called The Centre for Public Integrity (CPI) published an investigation into a Government initiative called the “Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program”.
It found the program handed out more than $560 million, but it was invitation-only.
Community groups couldn’t automatically apply, they had to be invited by the Government to submit an application.
How those invitations were decided has never been fully explained.
The CPI examined the program and found seats held by Labor, or seats for which Labor was competing, received an average of $60 million more than their proportional share.
Seats Labor had no chance of winning received a total of $116 million less.
Almost a third of electorates got nothing at all.
The ABC reported that one of the grants was $6 million for the Marrickville Golf Club, in Albanese’s own electorate of Grayndler.
He’s also an honorary member of the club, though he told the ABC he didn’t know the club had made him a member.
Response
Albanese has defended the funding, telling the ABC the golf club sits on a flood-prone area near the Cooks River and needed the upgrade to stop sewage overflow during floods.
Independent MP Helen Haines described it as “pork barrelling by design”.
Haines has previously introduced a bill that would force grants programs to have clear, public selection criteria and create a parliamentary watchdog to oversee them.
