New plans … the Homebush Bay Bridge Draft Environmental Assessment for public exhibition.

DEVELOPERS plan to build a 300-metre-long bridge across one of the most polluted waterways in Australia to provide access to public transport and parks in one of Sydney’s fastest growing areas.

A bridge connecting Rhodes and Wentworth Point, next to the Sydney Olympic site, has been recommended in several government reports for years but the project now appears close to beginning with developers building housing at Wentworth Point agreeing to fund the $43 million project and hand it over to the government.

Under plans on exhibition, the two-lane bridge will be closed to cars and available to people travelling only on buses, walking or riding bicycles to discourage vehicle use.

The bridge will give thousands of new residents in apartments on the Rhodes peninsula direct access to the Homebush Bay Olympic facilities, surrounding parks and the ferry that runs to Circular Quay.

Residents on the western side of Homebush Bay will have direct access to the railway station, shops and other facilities at Rhodes.

Fairmead Business, a company representing developers, has agreed to build the 11-metre wide bridge that will have one lane running in each direction to be shared by buses and cyclists, with a separate, partly covered footpath with rest stops for pedestrians.

Under a proposed voluntary planning agreement, the bridge will be handed over to the Sydney Olympic Park Authority once built.

Fairmead says the bridge will encourage walking and cycling to work as a viable alternative to the cars and help the government meet its targets to increase cycling and walking rates.

The bridge would be built from two work sites, one each at Rhodes and Wentworth Point. Some work would also occur over the water from barges.

The bridge superstructure would be built from reinforced and prestressed concrete supported on piers in the bay, which remains the most polluted in Sydney Harbour because of the waste dumped by factories which once lined the Parramatta River.

Anthony Albanese … approved $31 million in grants. Photo: Luis Enrique Ascui

THE Infrastructure Minister, Anthony Albanese, approved more than $31 million in grants for his own electorate or against his department’s advice, in breach of government policy.

The federal Auditor-General, Ian McPhee, has named 11 ministers and parliamentary secretaries who defied a policy designed to eliminate pork-barrelling.

His statement, tabled in Parliament yesterday, also shows the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, directly approved 14 grants, worth more than $730,000, when she should have asked the finance minister to oversee the decisions.

The former finance minister Lindsay Tanner established the grant-reporting rules in 2008 after accusations the Coalition rorted the now defunct Regional Partnerships Program.

Under Labor’s policy, lower-house ministers can neither approve grants for projects in their own electorate, nor can they approve funds against their department’s advice. Instead, these decisions are referred to the finance minister.

Mr McPhee’s office audited about 800 grant-related briefs, prepared over 18 months in 2009 and 2010. It found ministers approved 33 projects in their own electorates without telling the finance minister, and 11 grants against the bureaucracy’s advice.

However, Mr McPhee blamed in part the poor quality of public servants’ briefs.

”The most significant issue raised by the audit report … was the fairly widespread shortcomings [of] briefings to ministerial decision-makers.”

Among Mr Albanese’s decisions was approval of $18 million for a bridge over the Einasleigh River in north Queensland. Although his department advised against the grant, cabinet said the area was disaster-prone and the bridge would reduce the risk of a flood isolating the community.

Mr Albanese, the MP for Grayndler in NSW, was also warned against endorsing a $10 million grant for the Brisbane City Council, but he argued that the unspecified project had ”capacity to deliver significant economic stimulus”.

The public accounts committee decided to publish Mr McPhee’s statement yesterday ”in the interests of transparency and accountability”.

The other frontbenchers, current and former, who breached the policy were Tanya Plibersek, Bill Shorten, Mark Arbib, Nick Sherry, Kate Ellis, Laurie Ferguson, Peter Garrett, Tony Burke and Robert McClelland