Pork barrelling is not always corrupt, but discretionary grants create obvious risks of political favouritism and conflicts of interest. The NACC should provide clear guidance on where legitimate politics ends and corruption begins.
The furore over the $6 million-plus in federal grants to the Marrickville Golf Club in the prime minister’s electorate offers the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) an opportunity to become relevant and provide ethical and corruption guidelines for our federal politicians.
Two integrity issues may be involved – pork barrelling and potential conflicts of interest, particularly where a politician involved in promoting or selecting a project has a personal connection with the recipient.
The very notion of the federal government giving money to sporting and other community clubs throughout Australia also raises constitutional and legal issues, but the government may have overcome these by using section 96 of the Constitution, which allows it to make grants to the states that are then passed on to sporting clubs.
There is nothing new about politicians trying to win votes by using government funds to benefit voters in their own electorates. In colonial New South Wales, in the 19th century and before the advent of modern political parties, politicians made their mark – and kept their places in parliament – by being good ‘roads and bridges men’. Their political success depended on their ability to do deals with other like-minded gentlemen in parliament to get budget allocations for (mainly) essential public works in their electorates.
Politicians still believe they can win votes by delivering benefits specifically for their electorates – a shipyard here (Adelaide or Fremantle), a government agency there (New England). Sometimes, they are even urged by others to indulge in pork barrelling.
In the same week that the Sydney Morning Herald reported the concerns of Professor Emerita Anne Twomey about the ‘grey corruption’ involved in the grants to the Marrickville Golf Club, the Canberra Times devoted its front page to a story about a proposal for a new stadium in central Canberra with the headlines ‘City stadium backers call for PM’s support’ and ‘Over to you, Albo’, while it editorialised, ‘Stadium could be Albanese’s legacy’.
Not all pork barrelling is corrupt; however, the fact that ‘everyone does it’ does not make it legitimate.
In 2022, the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) conducted an inquiry into pork barrelling, prompted in part by its inquiry into grants the NSW Government, under then premier Gladys Berejiklian, had made to a sporting club in the electorate of Daryl Maguire, an MP with whom Berejiklian was in a secret relationship at the time. She said in evidence to ICAC that such grants were not illegal. “It’s not unique to our government,” she said. “It’s not an illegal practice.”
ICAC reported:
As a general rule, pork barrelling entails targeting electors on a geographical basis. That is, targeting electorates that a political party wants to win or retain. A typical hallmark of pork barrelling is disproportionate allocation of funding to marginal electorates. However, pork barrelling is not necessarily confined to geographical discrimination. It could, for instance, involve targeting a particular demographic, such as retirees. If this targeting was for the partisan purpose of winning or retaining electorates with a high proportion of retirees, rather than because it represented good public policy, the conduct could be construed as pork barrelling…
… for pork barrelling to exist, the decision-maker must have an intent to achieve a political or partisan objective.
It concluded that in certain circumstances pork barrelling can constitute corrupt conduct under the provisions of the ICAC Act. It found that a minister may engage in corrupt conduct if the minister:
- conducts a merit-based grants scheme in such a way as to dishonestly favour political and private advantage over merit, undermining public confidence in public administration, and benefiting political donors and/or family members
- deliberately exercises a power to approve grants in a manner that favours family members, party donors or party interests in electorates, contrary to the guidelines of a grant program which state that the grants are to be made on merit according to criteria
- exercises a power to make grants in favour of marginal electorates, when this is contrary to the purpose for which the power was given.
The NACC Act contains comparable concepts of breach of public trust and abuse of office, meaning serious or systemic pork barrelling could fall within its jurisdiction. But it will probably take an investigation and a corruption finding, and perhaps a referral for prosecution, for the major political parties to abandon the blatant pork barrelling that both have practised.
The NACC should not wait. Corruption, even if it is only grey and borderline, is damaging to public trust and faith in government. It may be that the $6 million Marrickville Golf Club grant is not pork barrelling of the kind ICAC was considering – rather, it is the ‘roads and bridges’ pre-election policy promise that all politicians indulge in.
But that and the general problem of pork barrelling need to be explored by the NACC, which should provide guidelines for government, for politicians and for integrity bodies such as the Auditor-General. The NACC, as well as being able to investigate corruption issues, can hold public inquiries into corruption risks.
There can be no doubting the risk of corruption associated with pork barrelling. Nor the need for guidance from the anti-corruption body. One of the objects of the NACC, as set out in its legislation, is ‘to educate and provide information about corruption and the detrimental effects of corruption on public administration’.
At the moment there isn’t a single word about pork barrelling on the NACC’s website.
David Solomon is a former legal and political correspondent. He has degrees in Arts and Law and a Doctorate of Letters. He was Queensland Integrity Commissioner 2009-2014. His latest book is ‘Footnotes’, part autobiography, part political and historical commentary