Australian Federal Election 2022: what do political funding rorts look like and are they part of a corrupt process?

Looking at past Liberal Party of Australia political rorts may help to assess Scott Morrison's current election campaign promises which have a dollar amount attached when first announced and/or a specific electorate is included in the announcement.

So what has all the Liberal Party's much touted "individual freedom and free enterprise" delivered since 2013?

Well between 2013 and 2018 it appears to have delivered federal regional grants totally $714,563,851. With 57.62% of this funding directed to 77 Coalition-held electorates and, the remaining 26.92% going to 74 other electorates - 68 ALP & 6 minor party/independent.

Some electorates such as Hinkler (Qld) held by Nats-LNP since 1993 received well in excess of $26 million in regional grants. Mallee (Vic) held by Nats since 1972 and Capricornia (Qld) held by LNP since 2013 received over $24 million each. While Dawson (Qld) held by LNP since 2010 received over $31 million - and on it went over the approximately six year span.

Has this brazenly partisan allocation of Treasury funds lessened under the prime ministership of the Liberal MP for Cook?

Apparently not, because the bulk of the billions listed in the next paragraph were distributed on Morrison's watch.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald on 16 April 2022, taxpayers have funded $55.6 billion in federal government grants over less than 4 years (including a hefty $20 billion last year) under rules that give ministers sweeping powers to decide payments, often without any criteria or reporting & against departmental advice. From January to March this year another $1 billion was distributed as grants.

So where might some of those $55.6 billion dollars have found a home?

Nor being a forensic accountant I am not up to the task of tracking that down, but there are some clues to be found.

Take the joint Federal-States Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Grants Program.

The “Black Summer” bushfire season actually ran from July 2019 through to early March 2020 and during this period est. 2.9 million adult Australians had their property damaged, their property threatened, or had to be evacuated, often along with their families.

This Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Grants Program funding pool held $390,893,779 – with $296,746,274 allocated and $94,147,508 still unspent in February 2021.

Over 100 local government areas in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria were listed in the grant eligibility criteria.

A total of 57.63% of all grant allocations worth est. $171,035,576 went to Coalition electorates, 31.33% worth $92,994,495 to Labor electorates and, 11.02% worth $32,716,230 to Independent/minor party electorates.

In December 2020 it was revealed that one of Australia's richest men who happens to be a Liberal Party donor had received $10 million in bushfire recovery funding - to expand a paper mill not directly affected by fire.

In February 2022 the Morrison Government announced that the Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Fund had received an additional $110 million for 524 "broad recovery projects" with unspecified recipients. The this grants program is now listed as closed.

Just in case a reader might think that the nature of that 2019-2020 mega bushfire season might have skewed funding allocations, here is another example which clearly indicates bias.

Round 5 of the Building Better Regions Fund – Infrastructure Projects Stream.

There it is in glorious colour.

A total of 73. 23% of this grant round, worth est. $215,281,617 going to Coalition electorates and 26.76% worth est. $78,678,728 going to electorates held by Labor and the cross benches. Liberal & LNP MPs receiving the bulk of this largesse held federal seats in New South Wales and Queensland.

Then there is the National Commuter Car Park Fund.

The Urban Congestion Fund (UCF) was established in the 2018–19 Budget. Total funding for the UCF had grown from $1 billion to $4.8 billion as at 31 March 2021.The National Commuter Car Park Fund is a component of the UCF.

This is what commuter car park funding allocation looked like in February 2021.

A total of 77 Liberal Party electorates received a whopping 81.75% of the total funding pool worth $575,890,000. Among the Liberal Party luminaries lining up for the prime minister’s largesse were; Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong Vic), Alan Tudge (Aston Vic), Tim Wilson (Goldstein Vic), Michael Sukkar (Deakin Vic), Jason Wood (La Trobe Vic), Angus Taylor (Hume NSW), David Colman (Banks NSW), Stuart Robert (Fadden Qld), Bert Van Manen (Forde Qld) Peter Dutton (Dickson Qld) and Andrew Hastie (Canning WA).

In June 2021 the Australian Auditor-General handed down a performance report titled “Administration of Commuter Car Park Projects within the Urban Congestion Fund”.

The performance report found numerous inadequacies, including:

• at 31 March 2021, there had been 44 commuter car park projects announced involving upgrades at 47 identified sites with a total Australian Government funding commitment of $660.4 million;

• assessment work had been completed for 10 car parks resulting in $100 million of Australian Government funding being approved for the full project (including delivery of construction work). Construction had been completed at two sites and had commenced at a further three sites;

• The Department of Infrastructure’s administration of the commuter car park projects within the Urban Congestion Fund was not effective;

• The department’s approach to identifying and selecting commuter car park projects for funding commitment was not appropriate. It was not designed to be open or transparent. The department did not engage with state governments and councils, which increased the risk that selected projects would not deliver the desired outcomes at the expected cost to the Australian Government. Departmental advice did not contain an assessment against the investment principles or policy objectives and it was not demonstrated that projects were selected on merit. The distribution of projects selected reflected the geographic and political profile of those given the opportunity by the government to identify candidates for funding consideration; and

• The selection of 47 commuter car park sites for funding commitment were decisions of government taken over the period January to July 2019 and:

• effected in 38 cases (81 per cent) by the written agreement of the Prime Minister to a written request from Ministers;

• effected in seven cases (15 per cent) by the election commitment process; and

• in two cases (four per cent) the department had not evidenced how the funding commitment was effected, beyond email advice from the Minister’s Office and a media announcement by the Prime Minister. [my yellow highlighting]

By 2022 it was apparent that most of 47 commuter car parks which had funding allocated were no longer considered active proposals and at least 5 proposed car parks appear to have been scrubbed from the original list – 4 in Labor electorates and one in a Liberal Party electorate.

Lack of transparency, across the board poor record keeping, no apparent accountability for decisions made and politically partisan use of public money - are all indicators of corrupt processes in this particular grant fund. 

This next chart demonstrates funding allocations for sports infrastructure.

A breakdown of full details can be found at:

https://www.thevogfiles.com/uploads/1/3/5/1/135189168/copy_of_sporting_grants5_1.xlsx

To say that voters are not happy with the Liberal Party is an understatement. This was one voter in the Australian Capital Territory......

“Firstly, the biggest misdirect, perhaps lie, perpetrated by the Liberals is that they are a Federal Political Party - a single administrative & policy unit like the ALP. They are a bunch of independent Fiefdoms, ruled in what looks like a Feudal system with a truly byzantine organisation…..

I’ve looked at the Liberal Federal Secretariat & "Liberal Party NSW" sites and they don’t publish any “Values”,

They publish some very rubbery & loose “Beliefs”. Untestable, and unaccountable motherhood statements. Summarised at the end as:

“In short, we believe in individual freedom and free enterprise"

Tony Abbott around 2013 clearly annunciated both Liberal Party Values & Purpose: “We are not Labor”.

Nobody in their right mind would invest in a company with the absence of proper Governance & Accountability embodied in the many “Liberal” party Fiefdoms in Australia, nor would they tolerate the absence of consistent Values, Priorities and Policies.” [Voter from Kippax, ACT, 3 March 2022]

SOURCES

The VOG Files, Rorts Central at:

https://www.thevogfiles.com/rorts-central.html

Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) at:

https://www.anao.gov.au/work/performance-audit/administration-commuter-car-park-projects-within-the-urban-congestion-fund

Parliament  of Australia, Members at:

https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Members

And the bad news concerning Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government rorting just keeps coming

The New Daily, 1 June 2020:

I was wrong. The Community Development Grants program isn’t the Coalition’s hot $1.126 billion political rort – it’s the Coalition’s hot $2.5 billion-plus political rort.

It’s not 11 times bigger than #sportsrorts, it’s 25 times bigger and counting.

The government has a number of corrupt slush funds, but none more blatantly designed to buy votes with taxpayers’ money than the CDG scheme purpose built in 2014.

As reported last week, analysis of the government’s GrantConnect website showed Coalition seats “luckily” scored 75.5 per cent of last year’s CDG money, while Labor seats managed just 19.9 per cent.

Of the 68 federal seats Labor now holds, 22 have never received a cent in CDGs while those that did score well tend to be of particular political interest or history.

And the Coalition has quietly arranged to keep this particularly rich pork barrel rolling for another six years.

As Michael West Media has posed, why buy one election when you can buy three?

Billions of dollars in corrupt pork barrelling can seem a little abstract, so using Vince O’Grady’s spreadsheet analysis, I’ve chosen an example of a frontline seat and those that adjoin it to demonstrate how much an Australian Electoral Commission boundary costs or benefits communities.

The Labor-held seat of Hunter in regional New South Wales abuts three National seats to its west and north.

It is a particularly rich green line that separates Hunter from the Nationals’ Calare, Lyne and New England.

Since the Coalition invented CDGs in 2014 through to and including the 2019 election year, only $108,000 in CDGs show up on the GrantConnect site for the good folk of Hunter.

Source: AEC map; TND graphic

…..CDGs are not supposed to be purely regional grants – some of the biggest winners are rich Liberal-held city seats – but it is the National Party that has done by far the best out of the way this barrel has rolled.

In 2019, the 68 Labor seats averaged $836,000 in CDGs, Liberal seats $2.086 million, LNP seats in Queensland $2.473 million – and the 10 National Party seats scored an average of $6.712 million.

That contrast is stark on the ground……

As previously reported, the CDG process was designed by the newly elected Abbott government to avoid any embarrassing involvement of public servants in divvying up the spoils, as subsequently happened with the McKenzie/Morrison #sportsrorts scandal, and the $100 million environment grants program that was also conveniently established before the 2019 election.

Read full article here.

It wasn't enough that the Morrison Government gamed the rules and began an unofficial election campaign months before 11 April 2019 at taxpayers' expense - the fiddle appears to have continued right up to polling day

On the morning of Thursday 11 April 2019 Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison visited the Australian Governor-General in order to formally dissolve Parliament at 8:30am and call a federal election. 

Once that was done a reasonable person would suppose the Prime Minister, along with every other MP and senator, would be obliged to use party and personal campaign funds until after polling day on 18 May. 

That may possibly have been the original intent when the rules were first drafted but over the years that has morphed into a loose obligation to use party and personal funds only after the official political party campaign launch.

These same rules also allow government ministers to campaign right up to polling day on other people's money by listing the expense claim as "Official Business", as well as getting free VIP jet travel around the country.

In 2019 Scott Morrison launched the Liberal Party campaign just 6 days out from polling day - playing the national electorate for fools

So instead of using Liberal Part funds from 11 April 2019 onwards, Scott Morrison spent $11,540 of taxpayers' money crisscrossing the country and staying overnight to give his stump speeches as well as glad handing voters and the party faithful. 

He also spent $1,786.40 on travel by Com Car at taxpayers' expense during the official federal election campaign. Morrison even made a Com Car claim on polling day.

These claims were on top of the est. $1,961.79 charge to taxpayers for fuel for his own car in the period which included the 38 day election campaign. 

That is a total of $15,389.19 charged to the taxpayer during the official federal election campaign. 

If he was an ethical politician he would immediately pay back that money back. 

See Scott Morrison's expense claims here.

The Deputy-Prime Minister & MP for Riverina Michael McCormack was even more of a drain on taxpayer wallets.

He spent $9,544 on overnight stays for his stump speeches and glad handing courtesy of the taxpayer and, a further $1,769.09 for campaigning in his own electorate.

Then there the $4,900 to travel to and from his own electorate on Day 14 of the official election campaign.

Taxpayer generosity apparently also extended to $4,373.52 in Com Car expenses so that he could campaign in comfort.

Then of course there was the est. $2,659.50 charge to taxpayers for fuel for his own car in the period which included the 38 day election campaign. 

That is a total of $23, 246.11 charged to the taxpayer during the federal election campaign. 

See Michael McCormack's expense claims here.

Readers can find other MP/Senator expense claims at https://www.ipea.gov.au/pwe.

However, if you want a quick summary.....

The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 September 2019:

Taxpayers copped millions of dollars in bills for flights, charters, hotels and luxury cars as politicians and their staff jetted around the country campaigning in the federal election. 
 
Ministers also kept charging taxpayers for travel right up to polling day, despite a convention that most expenses after the official campaign launches should be paid by the political party...... 

The records reveal that despite the government being in caretaker mode, cabinet ministers still claimed almost $550,000 in travel allowance, air fares and luxury car transport during the campaign period - for themselves alone. 

Shadow cabinet ministers claimed about $385,000 in similar expenses. Ministers usually travel with multiple staff such as media and policy advisers, meaning the true cost of those trips is likely to be many times higher. 

A detailed breakdown of staff campaign costs is not available. But across April, May and June, cabinet ministers' staff racked up nearly $5 million in travel expenses, and shadow ministers' staff had travel bills of about $1.6 million during that period....

National Party ministers spent more than most, with the outgoing Mr Scullion racking up more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded expenses during the campaign, including $80,000 in charter flights. He declined to comment. 

Agriculture Minister David Littleproud billed taxpayers more than $65,000 for travel during the campaign period, including $46,000 in charter flights around regional Queensland....

The profligacy was not limited to the major parties, with Katter's Australian Party leader Bob Katter spending $60,000 on travel during the campaign, including $50,000 on charter flights. 

Former senator Fraser Anning, the far-right Queenslander who lost his seat, spent $11,250 on flights alone during the campaign, including trips to Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide.

Read the full article here.

Another federal Coalition Government ‘epic fail’

Seems whatever our neigbour to the west, the National Party’s Barnaby Joyce, touches turns to dross……

The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 April 2019:

A phone tower that Barnaby Joyce fought for ended up on the northern NSW property of long-time friend and mining baron Gina Rinehart, who gets an annual fee to host the tower. Locals are baffled why the tower was put there over another location, as it's plagued with reception problems.

The Northern Daily Leader reports that Kingstown's community in Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce's New England electorate campaigned hard for the tower, switched on two weeks ago, to be co-located with a police and emergency services tower at the highest point in the district.

But it was built instead at Sundown Valley Pastoral Company, bought by Ms Rinehart's pastoral arm Hancock Prospecting in August last year. Landowners are paid a yearly fee by telecommunications companies to have towers placed on their property.

Kingstown resident Jeff Condren led the charge for a tower to be funded by the federal government's Mobile Blackspot Program and called it an "epic fail".

"Now that the tower has been in operation for several weeks it's evident the community concerns relating to the location and the service was well-justified," he said.

"Service levels drop to nothing just a couple of kilometres in any direction.....

Another Liberal Minister caught out not passing the ‘pub’ test

The Canberra Times, 18 February 2019:  

      

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann's flights for a family holiday to Singapore were paid for by a travel company controlled by Liberal Party Treasurer Andrew Burnes within weeks of that company winning a $1 billion contract from Cormann's department.

Helloworld, a listed company of which Mr Burnes is the chief executive, booked the flights for Senator Cormann, his wife and two children on the company's "staff and family travel" account.

Records kept by Helloworld and obtained by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald reveal that the Melbourne-based travel company paid $2780.82 for the Singapore flights, which were booked in July 2017.

Helloworld announced the following month that its subsidiary, AOT, was the winner of the three-year-plus, $300 million per year finance department tender. Departmental sources claim Helloworld had achieved preferred tenderer status before Senator Cormann's flights were booked in July.

Senator Cormann and his family took the trip in early January, 2018.

The minister only paid for the return flights to Singapore from Perth on Monday afternoon, after Mr Burnes and Senator Cormann were contacted by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann's flights for a family holiday to Singapore were paid for by a travel company controlled by Liberal Party Treasurer Andrew Burnes within weeks of that company winning a $1 billion contract from Cormann's department.

Helloworld, a listed company of which Mr Burnes is the chief executive, booked the flights for Senator Cormann, his wife and two children on the company's "staff and family travel" account.

Records kept by Helloworld and obtained by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald reveal that the Melbourne-based travel company paid $2780.82 for the Singapore flights, which were booked in July 2017.

Helloworld announced the following month that its subsidiary, AOT, was the winner of the three-year-plus, $300 million per year finance department tender. Departmental sources claim Helloworld had achieved preferred tenderer status before Senator Cormann's flights were booked in July.

Senator Cormann and his family took the trip in early January, 2018.

The minister only paid for the return flights to Singapore from Perth on Monday afternoon, after Mr Burnes and Senator Cormann were contacted by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.

Senator Cormann said on Monday he had "no idea" that the travel had been booked on the family and staff travel account, nor that his credit card had not been charged. He was "completely unaware of internal administrative arrangements at Helloworld in terms of how they managed private and personal travel".

Mr Burnes said it was "absolutely an internal administrative oversight" that Senator Cormann’s credit card had not been charged for the trip when it was booked, which allowed the politician and his family to fly for free to Singapore.

Senator Cormann, who is a close personal and political associate of Mr Burnes, a Liberal donor, has never declared the Singapore family holiday on his parliamentary register of interests….

When The Age and Sydney Morning Herald sought comment from Mr Burnes on Monday about why his travel group had booked the Cormann family’s travel, he said: “We sell $6.5 billion worth of travel. So many people use our company to book their travel.”

Sources close to the company said that his personal office had arranged the Perth to Singapore booking after a request from Mr Cormann some time before 17 July 2017.

A Helloworld source said it was “probably inappropriate” that Mr Cormann’s travel was booked via a “family and staff” account.

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald are not accusing Senator Cormann or Mr Burnes of any wrongdoing.

Read the full article here.

UPDATE

It's not just 'friends' who give Cormann trips for free, he has something of a history when it comes to having the taxpayer foot the bill......

Daily Mail, 14 February 2019:

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann charged taxpayers $4,400 to take his wife on a romantic beach getaway on her birthday.

The Liberal senator for Western Australia treated his new spouse Hayley Ross, a lawyer, to a weekend away in a remote resort town known for its beach camel rides on July 9, 2010.

To mark her 28th birthday on a Friday, he arranged for her to fly 2,200km from their home city of Perth to Broome in the far north of his vast state, Department of Finance records show.

This direct flight cost the public purse $1,741 as part of a three-day weekend away to Broome which cost taxpayers $4,397.

It included $221 in charter hire cars to get around Broome on Hayley Ross' birthday, and $118 in Commonwealth car transport to get the couple to and from Perth airport.  

The senator also claimed $676 in travel allowance for two nights' accommodation in Broome as 'electorate business'. 

This romantic weekend away on the public purse took place a year after the senator married Ms Ross, the daughter of West Australian wheat farmers. 

Proof positive that money buys government policy?

Liberal MP for Warringah and soon to be Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, in April 2012 at the Institute of Public Affairs 70th Anniversary celebration promised:

“I want to assure you that the Coalition will indeed repeal the carbon tax, abolish the Department of Climate Change, abolish the Clean Energy Fund. We will repeal Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, at least in its current form. We will abolish new health and environmental bureaucracies. We will deliver $1 billion in red tape savings every year. We will develop northern Australia. We will repeal the mining tax. We will create a one stop shop for environmental approvals. We will privatise Medibank Private. We will trim the public service and we will stop throwing good money after bad on the NBN. So, ladies and gentlemen, that is a big “yes” to many of the 75 specific policies you urged upon me…”

https://youtu.be/j4pA5nTr8i0

The Sydney MorningHerald on the subject of the IPA, 7 April 2016:

Four months from election and the people scratch their heads. Why, again, are we destroying the Reef for some billionaire Indian coalminer? Why fund private schools and de-fund public ones? Above all, how did Australia go from a country where the poor occasionally stole the goose from the common to one where the rich are consistently rewarded for stealing the common from the goose? The answer, at least in part, appears to be the IPA.

The IPA has three member senators, David Leyonhjelm, Bob Day and James Paterson, and a fourth-in-waiting with ex-human rights commissioner Tim Wilson running in the lower house. It also has several state MPs and members with regular media gigs – like IPA senior fellow Chris Berg (The Drum and Fairfax) and board member Janet Albrechtsen, whose recent column in The Ozpuffed Paterson and Wilson as "outstanding warrior[s] for the freedom cause". They all talk a lot about warriors – which is also what Abbott called Credlin.

But the IPA's real power is the charisma of wealth. At its 70th birthday gala dinner in 2013, Rupert Murdoch gave the keynote. NewsCorp's Andrew Bolt was MC and opposition leader Tony Abbott called the IPA "freedom's discerning friend". Gina Rinehart, George Pell, George Brandis and Alan Jones were guests…..

Still, the IPA then seemed like harmless cranks. Now it seems they're all but writing government policy. Even that's not bad in itself. The wealthy are allowed their clubs, and governments must get ideas from somewhere. But when the private interest of Big Money consistently presents as public interest, it's time to worry. Big time.

We've heard much lately of illegal developer funding, which caused the NSW Electoral Commission to withhold $4.4 million from the NSW Liberals. But developers aren't the only group who might seek influence, and brown paper bags are not the only vehicle.

The IPA has long insisted NGOs should be transparent, but it's notoriously secretive about its own sources of money. (Executive director John Roskam says its donors get intimidated). But revealed sources include all the bad boys of Big International Money: media, oil, tobacco, genetics, energy and forestry. Who benefits from IPA policy? They do.

In 2012, the IPA published "Seventy-Five Radical Ideas to Transform Australia". I haven't done the math, but I'd say over a third are now law or seriously discussed.

DeSmog reporting on the IPA, 17 July 2018:

Australia’s richest person, mining magnate Gina Rinehart, has been revealed as a key funder of the right wing think tank the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) – a major pusher of climate science denial.

Rinehart’s company, Hancock Prospecting Proprietary Ltd (HPPL), donated $2.3m to the IPA in 2016 and $2.2m in 2017, according to disclosures made to the New South Wales Supreme Court.

As part of a long-running legal dispute over the use of company funds, Gina Rinehart’s daughter Bianca had served a subpoena to access documents that would have shed light on the two donations from HPPL to the IPA.

The IPA is an influential right wing think tank with close ties to Australia’s governing Liberal Party.  IPA fellows regularly appear in the media. The payments suggest that more than a third of the IPA’s income in 2016 and 2017 was from HPPL – majority-owned privately by Gina Rinehart.

According to Forbes, Rinehart was the seventh richest woman in the world in 2017 and Australia’s richest person, with current wealth estimated to be $17.6 billion.

The IPA is a registered charity but is not legally required to disclose its funders and has declined to reveal them in recent years, citing concerns that donors could be “intimidated”.

According to the court judgement, Bianca’s solicitors had been provided with a schedule of “donations and sponsorships” from HPPL where it was disclosed, the judgement said, “that HPPL paid or provided amounts to IPA in a total of $2.3 million for the 2016 financial year and $2.2 million in the 2017 financial year.”

The donations also raise questions about the way the IPA has disclosed the nature of its revenues. 

The IPA's 2017 annual report declared $6.1m of income but said that “86 per cent” had come from individuals. HPPL’s $2.2m donation constituted more than a third of the IPA’s income that year.

In 2016, the IPA reported that 91 per cent of donations were from individuals, but that year HPPL’s $2.3m donation constituted almost half the IPA's income of $4.96m that year.

DeSmog has emailed HPPL asking why it was supporting the IPA, if the donations were linked to specific work and if it was still a supporter. DeSmog also asked the IPA about the donations and if supporters should be concerned that so much if its income is derived from one person. IPA spokesperson Evan Mulholland replied: “No comment.”