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Seats held by Nationals MPs received $104 million more than they deserved in a billion-dollar federal government grants program, an audit has found, faulting the program for a lack of transparency.
The Australian National Audit Office on Thursday handed down a scathing assessment of the $1.15 billion Coalition-run program, finding two thirds of funded infrastructure projects were "not those assessed as being the most meritorious".
Since 2016, the Building Better Regions Fund has splashed cash for community hubs, holiday parks, jetties, sporting facilities and more around regional Australia, almost 1300 projects in total.
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Labor, then in opposition, accused the Coalition of pork barrelling, dubbing the scheme "regional rorts".
The audit found many funding decisions were not appropriately informed by departmental advice and criticised a lack of documentation of decisions.
It said the grants program itself was well designed but the makeup of the ministerial panel wasn't transparently set out, and criticised the use of "other factors" to override the results of departmental merit assessments.
Nationals-held seats were given 29 per cent more — $104 million — across five rounds of funding "than would have been the case had the results of the merit assessment process been relied upon".
"Electorates held by all other parties were awarded less grant funding than would have been the case had the merit assessment results been relied upon," the ANAO found.
On 164 occasions, the ministerial panel made up of Nationals MPs, including former leaders Barnaby Joyce and Michael McCormack, decided not to approve applications the Infrastructure Department recommended, without giving any reasons.
Meanwhile, 15 projects not recommended by the department were funded.
"The decisions about the award of grant funding across each of the five funding rounds were not appropriately informed by departmental advice, particularly with respect to the third and fifth rounds," the ANAO wrote.
"The basis for the funding decisions has not been appropriately documented, particularly in the three most recently completed rounds.
"It was common in the infrastructure projects stream (the larger of the two streams) for the approved applications to not be those assessed as best meeting the published criteria and for applications assessed as highly meritorious against the published criteria to not be awarded funding.
"There were inadequate records of the inputs to the decision-making process and the basis for decisions to approve projects assessed as less meritorious against the four published merit criteria and to reject applications assessed as having higher merit."
The ANOA called for officials to tighten eligiility criteria and recommend the panel reject non-supported applications and clearly justify not approving any applications recommended for funding, as well as improving record-keeping
The audit office said both McCormack and former Nationals senator Fiona Nash provided letters of response to the report but only Nash's was published.
She said it was important to recognise departmental decision-makers were based in cities rather than regional Australia.
"They do not have the benefit of an on-the-ground understanding of the regional communities, and their circumstances, where projects are proposed to be located, and the potential impact and benefit of those projects," she said.
An analysis performed by Labor in 2021 found 72 per cent of the $300 million handed out in round five went towards Liberal and Nationals electorates and another 16 per cent went to marginal electorates or target seats.
That included a $5 million grant awarded to the Liverpool Shire Council in Joyce's electorate "to improve water availability, quality and security to Quirindi, Werris Creek and Willow Tree".
His spokesman at the time said "all projects were assessed against publicly available guidelines as eligible and providing value for money".
"The Liberal and Nationals Government is delivering for regional Australia and that's what we'll continue to do," the spokesperson said.
A sixth round of grants funding currently under way wasn't included in the audit.
Source: 9News
