Voters in marginal seats collect tens of millions of dollars more than those in safer electorates, a Fairfax Media analysis of seven years of pork barrelling by both Labor and Coalition governments shows.
For the first time, the true scale of electorate-winning promises can be revealed, with figures showing that both parties shamelessly reward their own constituents and the seats in which they have the most to lose.
Almost 20 per cent of the taxpayer-funded $624 million allocated to Community Development Grants under the Coalition since 2013 has gone to just five marginal seats, which hold just 0.2 per cent of the population.
According to the analysis of Australian Electoral Commission data and Department of Infrastructure grants, marginal seats have received funding at a rate almost 3?? times greater than safer seats.
The Coalition learned their trade from Labor, who awarded 40 per cent of $568 million in grants to marginal seats they held before they lost the 2013 election. That equates to marginal seats receiving funding at six times the rate of safer seats.
Since 2013, the Turnbull government has awarded 70 per cent of all grants in its community development fund to Coalition seats.
Former Liberal leader John Hewson has lashed the findings, labelling the billion-dollar slush funds as "blatant political exercises" and accused both parties of a race to the bottom.
"The public suspicion of the political process has just been heightened by all these snouts in the trough," he said, calling for wholesale reform and the establishment of an independent panel modelled on the Foreign Investment Review Board.
The decade-long tit-for-tat means that many community organisations located in safe seats have to wait years to be considered for funding, while grants worth millions of taxpayers of dollars are provided with few checks and balances at the minister's discretion.
In 2017, the Coalition spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on grants that included a "mezzanine boat racking system and hot showers for the Maroochy Rowing Club", a "coin-operated split system air conditioning unit for the Old Church Hall in Bli Bli" and a "new trophy display cabinet for the Beverley Swimming club".
The smaller grants sit alongside much larger $10 million-plus splurges on car parks, swimming pools and libraries, including one $11 million splash in the Prime Minister's own seat of Wentworth to promote grassroots and elite rugby.
In the midst of Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce's citizenship-driven byelection, the Coalition spent $2 million on a new landing system at Tamworth Airport.
Just two weeks before Mr Joyce referred himself to the High Court in August, the electorate scored another $8.5 million grant for a new athletics, cycling and equestrian centre.
The Coalition also granted $300,000 to "recognise the accomplishments of the Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation," a government entity set up in 1973 that failed to complete its aim of boosting the population of the area by 300,000 and was disbanded in 2014.
It remains unclear what the $300,000 in taxpayers "recognition" was spent on.
The story is repeated in the far more marginal seats of Corangamite in Victoria and Eden-Monaro in NSW, the two largest recipients of community development grants in either state.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull appeared in Corangamite's largest urban centre Geelong this week, spruiking a $20 million investment in local businesses.
The hotly contested seat, which was decided by less than 1000 votes at the 2010 election and is currently held by the Liberals on a margin of 6 per cent, has already received $12 million in grants for 17 projects since 2014, including an "elevated coaches box" at Grovedale sports club and a new war memorial at Rokewood RSL.
The grants, though often relatively small, target large vote-winning communities such as war veterans groups and sporting associations that offer value for money at the ballot box.
Eden-Monaro, historically a bellwether seat that was won by Labor in 2016, has been pork-barrelled by the Coalition ever since through grants to Narooma swimming pool, the Riverside soccer club and a $10 million grant to build a cruise ship wharf at Snug Cove.
Labor's regional development spokesman Stephen Jones has been frustrated by the lack of transparency over how the grants are awarded and previously described the program as a "slush fund" but a Fairfax Media analysis of Labor's own Regional Development grants shows the opposition was even more prolific in its handouts to marginal seats when it was in office.
Under former prime minister Julia Gillard, Labor gave 70 per cent of their $550 million program to marginal electorates. Money handed to marginal Labor-held seats totalled nearly 42 per cent of the program.
Overall, Labor spent almost six times more in marginal seats than safer seats while in power, including a $9 million splurge on a city "rejuvenation" in Dawson and a multimillion-dollar investment in skate parks, stadium upgrades and public amenity projects in inner-city Melbourne.
Labor handed out eight times the amount of money to independents compared to the Coalition while it was courting independent votes to maintain power in minority government, making up 5.5 per cent of the total grant budget for just 0.025 per cent of the population.
Bob Katter, Andrew Wilkie, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor all received large grants for their respective electorates. Mr Windsor was granted the most with close to $13 million in New England.
Labor's administration of the program was slammed by the Australian National Audit Office in 2014, which found 80 per cent of ministerial decisions to decline funding to recommended applications were in Coalition-held electorates.
Auditor General Grant Hehir will now set his sights on the Coalition's $1 billion grants program, with a new National Audit Office Report expected to be handed down later this year.
A spokeswoman for the newly installed Minister for Regional Development John McVeigh said the Turnbull government stood behind the scheme.
"Projects funded under the Community Development Grant program address the needs of individual communities, and are selected based on the feedback from local councils, community groups and businesses," she said.
Do you know more? eryk.bagshaw@fairfaxmedia.com.au
