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