Rort? Who cares? Not even an official audit is enough to stop the pork

Is there anything more brazen than pouring money into a grants scheme that is already being investigated for rorting? 

The Building Better Regions fund is being audited by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) over whether funding was consistent with the Commonwealth’s grant rules. But that hasn’t stopped the National Party from topping up the scheme, and bragging about how much control it had over the money via a colour-coded spreadsheet.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce announced another $100 million for the fund this week, saying he didn’t care if the scheme was labelled pork-barrelling.

Now one of his colleagues has openly discussed on radio how the scheme could apparently be rorted.

It follows a familiar script: Coalition MPs were given the chance to lobby for grant funding in their electorates, including ones that didn’t meet the eligibility criteria. And inevitably, funding disproportionately ended up in government-held seats. 

Colour-coded democracy

Such is the nature of a government free of a federal integrity body that the details of this latest scandal emerged from an interview on radio station Flow FM, based in Kapunda, South Australia. 

Nationals MP Dr Anne Webster, who represents the Victorian electorate of Mallee, said Coalition MPs were given access to a colour-coded spreadsheet and had the opportunity to lobby for projects that did not fully meet the funding criteria.

“The Department of Infrastructure goes through every project application. They make a list and they colour-code them in green and pink,” she said.

“Green is for projects that actually tick off on the criteria for the fund, and pink — they don’t quite. But if an MP wants to really push the project because it’s important for the community, then you’ve got the opportunity to do that.”

The ANAO’s investigation follows questions about whether the scheme misused taxpayer funding in handing out $201.8 million in grants ahead of the 2019 election. 

An analysis by Nine newspapers found 156 of the 166 funded projects went to Coalition-held or -targeted seats. 

The new revelations could be included in the ANAO’s investigation, which is still taking contributions. But it is not expected to report its findings until May next year, after the federal election. 

“I would trust that the ANAO would consider the latest developments in their ongoing audit of the program,” Labor’s infrastructure spokeswoman Catherine King said. 

“Deep down, though, the findings of the ANAO won’t change the government’s behaviour. They are so rotten that the only way to stop the rorts is to vote them out.”

A spokesperson for Joyce said the Office of the Auditor-General would expect “nothing less” than for the department to categorise projects according to their eligibility and value for money.

“All selected projects were assessed against publicly available guidelines as eligible and providing value for money,” he said.