Albanese is under fire over a grants program that benefitted his local golf club. Were any rules broken?

The majority of grants under the $560m Labor program are given to seats held by the party before the election

Anthony Albanese is under fire after an invite-only grant program allocated millions to marginal Labor seats and his old local golf club.

The government claims it has broken no rules and delivered its election promises by the standard method but transparency advocates have said the system needs reform and have drawn comparisons to the notorious “sports rorts” affair.

What went wrong – and is this sports rorts all over again?

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How did Labor run the program?

Ahead of the 2025 election, Labor promised to fund more than 200 projects in different electorates if re-elected.

After winning the election, Labor set up the $560m Major and Local Community Infrastructure program, which opened for applications in September 2025 and closed on 1 March 2026.

The program was, by design, only accessible to groups singled out by the government. Applicants were asked to explain their project’s viability, social benefit, value for money and their ability to deliver it.

It received 229 applications. Government data shows 92 of those, worth $246m, have already been approved. Guardian Australia has confirmed the government has not rejected any of the applications, though three have been withdrawn by the applicants.

The infrastructure department ran the program and its minister, Catherine King, signed off on each grant. King has said a different minister signed off on the commitments in her own seat of Ballarat, of which there are five recorded.

Where did Labor spend the money?

The scandal erupted when research found the money went overwhelmingly to Labor electorates.

The Centre for Public Integrity found 73% of the allocated funding went to seats already held by Labor MPs ahead of the election, in a report released on Tuesday.

Closer analysis showed a disproportionate amount of money – $368m – went to seats where Labor was competitive but not a dead certainty to win. Safe Labor seats received $125m. Seats where Labor was not competitive received $65m.

Victoria was allocated a disproportionate $205m of grants, far more than New South Wales, which is more populous but was allocated $135m. Tasmania was handed nearly $51m, the same as the far bigger state of Queensland, the centre found.

What about Albanese’s golf club?

The prime minister promised $6m for renovations of the Marrickville Golf Club, in his electorate.

Anthony Albanese has not declared that he is an honorary member of the golf club. He said he had not known about the membership, which was bestowed in 2012, until the ABC reported the story on Wednesday.

Albanese’s Marrickville membership was reported in a 2019 Daily Telegraph article. He has also declared an honorary membership of the Royal Sydney golf club, saying he knew about one but not the other.

Albanese’s ministerial code of conduct reads: “Ministers must declare and register their personal interests, including but not limited to pecuniary interests, as required by the Parliament from time to time.”

King has said there was no conflict of interest as Albanese was not the decision maker on the grant. She did not directly answer when asked if she had known Albanese was a member of the club, saying: “I’m sure there are memberships right the way across a whole range of grant programs that I administer.”

She was right: Matt Thistlethwaite, an assistant minister, has declared a membership of the Maroubra Surf Lifesaving Club, which got a $3.5m grant.

Is this the same as sports rorts?

Labor has been keen to distinguish this from the former Coalition government’s “sports rorts” affair.

In that case the decision-maker, Bridget McKenzie, breached ministerial standards as she awarded a grant to a gun club without disclosing that she was a member. McKenzie resigned but denied wrongdoing.

Albanese at the time described it as “just red hot. This is just a rort. It fails the pub test. It fails every test”.

In this case, Albanese also did not disclose his membership, though he was not the decision-maker.

The “sports rorts” affair became notorious for its “colour-coded spreadsheets” after the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) found McKenzie’s office recommended grants in marginal electorates over other applications with more merit. McKenzie has said marginal electorates did not receive special treatment.

While Labor’s program allocated disproportionate funds to marginal seats, it is not clear how the party picked its priorities or whether it considered other, potentially more deserving, projects. One minister, Kristy McBain, said she listened to local groups’ priorities and then put those forward as potential commitments Labor could promise.

The sports rorts program would have breached the government’s grants rules had it been subject to them.

Has the grants program broken any rules?

Labor ministers have repeatedly claimed their program did not break any rules.

The Centre for Public Integrity could not identify whether the program had explicitly breached the commonwealth grants rules and principles, the non-binding framework for government programs which the Albanese government updated in the wake of sports rorts.

According to the framework, governments departing from a competitive and merit-based process should explain their reasons for doing so in the grant guidelines. It recommends closed, non-competitive processes to name the eligible applicants or provide information on how eligibility was determined. The program did not take these steps and explanations have only come in the wake of public scrutiny.

Closed, non-competitive grant programs have been used by numerous governments, with the auditor general in 2018 describing such a method as “sound”.

Government GrantConnect data shows closed, non-competitive processes accounted for $17.7bn out of the $38.4bn across all of the government’s recorded grants for the year 2025-26, or 46%. In the infrastructure department, 1,900 of 2,930 grants were selected by such a method.

What happens next?

Debate over the program is set to roll on despite the prime minister’s obvious discomfort. Albanese has criticised the ABC for its reporting and accused the Liberals of making $1.6bn worth of election commitments, more than double Labor’s.

The Australian has reported Labor sources accusing one critical crossbencher of hypocrisy.

The centre has called for stronger, enforceable standards and more transparency in grant allocation. The Greens and more than a dozen crossbenchers have joined calls for reform. The Greens plan to move for a Senate inquiry into the program on Monday.

The auditor general has added the program to her office’s annual audit work program and may choose to investigate.