One of the ministers who oversaw a program that directed extra funds into National Party seats ahead of more deserving electorates has rejected accusations of pork-barrelling, saying the regions were getting their fair share | katinacurtis swrighteconomy
went to projects that did not have the most merit. National-held seats received $104 million more than they should have if the money were handed out fairly, it said.
He rejected the audit’s findings that National Party seats had received extra support, saying all decisions had been done on merit.Advertisement Centre for Public Integrity research director Catherine Williams said ministers should set the parameters for a spending program but the decisions should be made at arms-length by the public service.
The auditor-general also found the ministers’ staff drew up shortlists of projects based on their spread across electorates and whether the local MP backed them.For the third round, which McCormack oversaw, this shortlist started more than three weeks before Infrastructure offered its written funding recommendations. Projects that made it onto the shortlist were more likely to have been approved than those the department recommended.
In this round, 87 per cent of the 166 infrastructure projects approved had not been recommended for funding – the highest proportion of any round. In the fifth round, announced in October 2021, 75 per cent of projects approved were not recommended by the department.
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