Australian governments have an unfortunate history with community grants programs. Sports infrastructure programs, car park grants and other schemes have repeatedly raised the same concern: public money intended to serve communities becomes entangled with electoral politics.

The Albanese government’s $560.9 million Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program (MLCIP) was established to deliver community infrastructure commitments made at the 2025 election.

It was a one-off, invitation-only and non-competitive program. More than 220 organisations were invited to apply — but beyond saying they were election commitments, the government has never publicly explained how it decided which community projects were invited.

New analysis released this week by the Centre for Public Integrity raises serious questions about the scheme, with almost three-quarters of the funding going to the government’s own electorates. Even after accounting for Labor holding more seats, Labor-held electorates received substantially more funding than a proportional distribution would predict, while Coalition and other electorates received correspondingly less.

A closed, invitation-only program

The integrity questions around this program began before we even knew where the money went. Unlike an ordinary competitive grants program, community organisations could only apply if invited by the federal government.

The 2022 New South Wales ICAC Report on investigations into pork barrelling described closed, non-competitive, one-off grants as relying on ministerial discretion, and often announced during election campaigns. The report warned:

[F]or obvious reasons, this category of grant is at high risk of pork barrelling.

[F]or obvious reasons, this category of........

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