Infrastructure Minister Catherine King reveals Labor head office role in taxpayer-funded grants

Infrastructure Minister Catherine King has admitted Labor’s head office was involved in the process behind the Albanese government’s $560 million community grants scheme.

It comes as questions mount over the allocation of taxpayer funds to projects in Labor-held electorates.

The revelation raises further questions about the division between Labor’s political decision-making and the formal departmental process used to approve grants.

Of the $560 million in the Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program, $409 million went to Labor-held electorates.

Those grants included $6 million in taxpayer funding for the Marrickville Golf Club in Anthony Albanese’s electorate.

“There is an election commitments process that all political parties run as we lead into the election campaign,” Ms King told News24.com.au.

“Candidates and MPs are asked to put forward, obviously, their election commitments and what their preference in their local areas.”

Asked if the Labor Party’s head office was involved in the process, Ms King said “absolutely, it’s an election commitment process”.

“Of course that is done through party machinery, not through government machinery… We have to.”

Ms King said the process was “no different” to what has typically happened under previous governments.  

The grants program has faced allegations of pork-barrelling following an analysis by the Centre for Public Integrity.

The transparency research institute found funding overwhelmingly favoured Labor-held electorates, while 45 electorates were not invited to apply.

The program distributed hundreds of millions of dollars through a closed, non-competitive process.

Ms King has defended the scheme as a way to deliver election commitments, arguing it was consistent with longstanding practice under successive governments.

But the involvement of Labor’s political organisation in identifying projects has intensified scrutiny over how funding decisions were made.

Shadow foreign affairs minister Ted O’Brien told News24.com.au that the Labor Party’s head office was “calling the shots” on taxpayer money.

“The program that Labor has used was entirely closed, invitation only. No one else could come in,” he said.

Mr O’Brien said the former Coalition government had a community grants scheme, but opened it up to applications after the election.

He also said the process involved MPs taking proposals to the relevant minister, who then took it to the expenditure review committee inside parliament.

“That’s my personal experience on the Coalition side with how a wish list was dealt with in in my previous portfolio,” he said.

“If Labor are saying they do it differently, they give the wish list to the head office outside of parliament.

“(Then) head office processes it, they make the decisions, and they basically tell the government… That is, for me, highly inappropriate and needs to be investigated.”

In a submission to a parliamentary inquiry, the department said it had no role in identifying or selecting projects invited to apply under the program.

“The department did not provide any advice to government in relation to identifying, selecting, or recommending applicants invited to apply,” it said.

“The government did not seek any such advice from the department. This includes the geographic distribution of projects.”

The department was responsible for assessing applications after organisations had been invited to apply, while the selection of projects took place before the assessment.

The controversy has centred on a $6 million grant promised to Marrickville Golf Club, in the Prime Minister’s Sydney electorate of Grayndler, at the 2025 federal election.

University of Sydney professor emerita Anne Twomey, one of Australia’s leading constitutional law scholars, has delivered a scathing assessment of the grants process.

Professor Twomey described the scheme as a form of “grey corruption”, arguing federal politicians should not use public money to fund specific local projects.

“If federal politicians want to win elections by making promises about swimming pools, golf clubs … in their electorates, then they need lessons in … integrity,” she said.

“No, this is not about ‘being a good local member’. It is about indulging in grey corruption and the misuse of public money at the public’s expense.”

Professor Twomey also questioned whether the scheme’s rules provided a meaningful safeguard against political favouritism.

“The system is a farce, with the paperwork drafted to justify decisions already made without any consideration of merit, need, value for money,” she said.