University of Sydney professor emerita Anne Twomey delivered a blistering assessment of the Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program in a submission to a Senate inquiry, warning that politicians needed 'lessons in both federalism and integrity' before promising taxpayer money to local projects.
The inquiry was triggered by a September investigation from the Centre for Public Integrity, which found nearly three-quarters of the $560.9 million program was allocated to notionally Labor-held or competitive seats.
Twomey noted that Marrickville Golf Club, in Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's electorate of Grayndler, had already received five federal grants totalling almost $58,000 before Albanese promised it the $6 million during the 2025 election campaign. Those earlier grants were made through closed, non-competitive programs where local MPs could nominate organisations, meaning there was no meaningful comparison with other projects to establish need.
'They were effectively gifts of political largesse, funded by taxpayers,' Twomey wrote in her submission.
Twomey also said the original design of the program was constitutionally invalid because the Commonwealth lacked a general power to directly fund local sporting and community facilities. The scheme was later altered so grants could flow through state or local government bodies under section 96 of the Constitution, which Twomey said appeared to make the Marrickville grant constitutionally valid.