A Senate inquiry begins public hearings today into how a $560 million community infrastructure program chose its winners, amid allegations that grants favoured safe and marginal Labor seats.
The Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program was set up to deliver Australian Government commitments from the 2025 federal election and the 2025-26 Budget. It funds sporting and community infrastructure, including open space improvements. The program was invitation-only. Only organisations the Government identified could apply.
Australian Greens spokesperson for democracy Senator Steph Hodgins-May will take part in the hearings.
The inquiry has been referred to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee. It will examine the administration of the program, starting with its design, guidelines, funding criteria and eligibility requirements.
It will look at the processes for identifying, inviting, assessing and selecting applicants. It will also examine the role of the offices of the Prime Minister and other relevant ministers or members of Parliament in determining which organisations were invited to apply, which grants were awarded and who would announce successful grants.
The role of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts in identifying and recommending which organisations were invited to apply is also part of the inquiry.
Other matters include the geographic and electoral distribution of grants. The inquiry will also consider any actual, potential or perceived conflicts of interest involving ministers, members of Parliament and applicants or grant recipients, or breaches of the Code of Conduct for Ministers, along with any other related matters.
The inquiry follows an investigation by the Centre for Public Integrity, which concluded the program was overwhelmingly directed into safe Labor seats and marginal seats the party wanted to win. Forty-five electorates were not invited and received no funding.
“Prima facie, it looks like the misuse of public money or serious pork-barrelling, as it’s sometimes called,” said Centre for Public Integrity chair Anthony Whealy.
“I think there’s a heavy onus on the government now to justify the process it has used.”
The centre found 73 per cent of funds went to seats held by Labor, 23 per cent to Coalition seats, and 4 per cent to all others.
“To put this another way, for every dollar spent in a Coalition seat, $3.20 was spent in a notionally ALP-held seat,” said Centre for Public Integrity executive director Dr Catherine Williams.
Infrastructure Minister Catherine King said in a statement the program followed longstanding practice and updated grant rules, and that ministers do not decide applications in their own electorates. The Government also points to $1.7 billion in competitive grants through the Growing Regions and Thriving Suburbs fund.
Among the grants is $6 million for Marrickville Golf Club in the Sydney seat of Grayndler, held by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. It was the only golf club invited.
“I was shocked by the scale of this, by the depth of this,” said Independent MP Helen Haines, whose seat of Indi was one of the 45 where no projects were invited.
“The difference is you have got a half-a-billion-dollar program where it’s very, very opaque as to how and where the decisions were made,” said Shadow Infrastructure Minister Bridget McKenzie.
The hearings will be held at Parliament House in Canberra and will be broadcast on the Parliament House website. They run from 10am to 1.30pm on Wednesday, 21 October, and from 9am to 4pm on Thursday, 22 October.
To find the hearing schedule, visit www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Rural_and_Regional_Affairs_and_Transport/MLCIP2026/Public_Hearings.
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