Analysis
Politically targeted government grants may do little to change election results, despite politicians believing otherwise, according to research presented by political scientist Distinguished Professor Ian McAllister.
McAllister, director of the Australian Election Study at the Australian National University since 1987, told a Centre for Public Integrity webinar on grants reform that he and economist Andrew Leigh tested the theory using a rare complete dataset: a leaked spreadsheet covering every application to a 2018–2019 sports infrastructure grants program, which became colloquially known as the “sports rort.”
“We knew grants that had been successful, grants that were unsuccessful, and then we have an independent evaluation by the public servants of the merits of those grants,” McAllister said.
“In terms of the electoral effects, we found zero effect.”
“That was one of those findings—if you work in my area doing a lot of statistical modelling, you think you’ve made some incredible error in the data, and you’ve got to go back and check it. It’s absolutely true. There’s zero electoral effect.”
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The researchers described the grants as having “virtually no electoral impact.”
In South Australia, an analysis of a state sports programme found that 69 of 72 grants went to seats held or won by Labor, with more than half the money allocated to marginal electorates the party was seeking to hold or win.
MPs Believe it Works
Despite the findings, McAllister said a straw poll of about 80 members of the House of Representatives, conducted for the same research, found MPs believed targeting spending could influence votes.
Asked what effect giving $500,000 to their electorate would have on their first-preference vote, the median answer was about a 1 percentage point gain. Only 14 percent of MPs said the effect would be zero, and none predicted a negative effect.
McAllister said this gap reflects politicians misreading how voters actually decide.
“Voters are actually a bit smarter than that,” he said. “They look at the national interest, they look forward, they evaluate policies.”
He also pointed to a rise in career politicians and former party staffers in Parliament who, he said, “think party politics, party conflict, is what politics is all about.”
Constitutional law scholar Professor Emerita Anne Twomey, of the University of Sydney, said the practice persists because both major parties benefit from it.
“Both sides, at least the main political parties, are on a unity ticket that they want to essentially be engaged in what the Productivity Commissioner, Danielle Wood, called grey corruption,” Twomey said.
Twomey added: “It wastes taxpayers’ money. It has a whole lot of evil consequences. It destroys trust in the system of democracy, and yet they do it anyway. It’s not an accident; it’s by design.”
Twomey said the culture could become self-reinforcing.
“Once you get to the point where people say, ‘well, everybody’s doing it, and even the politicians are doing it … I have to do it too, or otherwise I’m a schmuck,’ that’s how you get entrenched corruption,” she said.
Advocacy Unnoticed
Independent MP Helen Haines, who has pushed for grants reform through her End Pork Barrelling Bill, said colleagues often defend closed grant programmes by assuming their own electorate would lose out under a fair, competitive process.
She recounted one MP in a marginal seat telling her: “I never get any credit for the advocacy that I do and the policy work that I do. Everybody in the electorate thinks that everything that comes our way comes our way because of pork-barrelling.”
The panel’s discussion centred on the $560.9 million Major and Local Community Infrastructure Programme (MLCIP), an invitation-only scheme established to deliver the Albanese government’s 2025 election commitments.
Recipients have included Marrickville Golf Club, in Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s electorate, which received a $6.05 million grant.
Haines told the webinar she hoped the inquiry would not become “purely about political point scoring,” but would instead produce “solid recommendations that bring reform to the grants process.”
