Federal Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese denies there were any injustices and says funding decisions were based on departmental advice following independent assessments.
Mr Albanese says the four biggest grants went to projects held by Coalition or independent MPs.
“There’s no political bias in this program,” he said.
“Secondly, there’s no wastage in this program and thirdly, by funding through local government what we haven’t done is fund private projects like the former regional partnerships program, where money simply went missing, where we had funding for ethanol plants that didn’t exist or funding for cheese factories that had closed down.”
He says the discrepancy is nothing to do with Labor bias.
“When you’re talking about economic stimulus through large community infrastructure projects, then larger councils will tend to receive the funding, whether they be larger councils in regional cities or in urban communities,” he said.
But the Coalition’s infrastructure spokesman Barnaby Joyce says the auditor’s report tells a different story.
“It sounds like Mr Albanese hasn’t read the auditor-general’s report,” he said.
“The approval of projects in ALP held seats was 42.1 per cent, compared to 18.4 per cent in Coalition-held seats.
“They’ve headed back towards the process of find your seat, get the white board out and approve the projects regardless of their own guidelines, the guidelines that they set up for themselves.
“This is nothing more than a dirty Labor Party stack, a dirty Labor Party approach to bribing the electorate to vote for them again.”
But the Government says a lot of money went to projects in electorates held by Coalition or independent MPs.
In the beachside suburb of Manly there is a new plaque by a popular walking path, which says upgrades to the promenade were made possible by the Federal Government’s Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program.
Manly Council chief executive Henry Wong says the funding paid for landscaping and facilities for children along the beach front, which sees about eight million visitors a year.
He says he was not worried that the fact that Manly is in the electorate of current Opposition Leader Tony Abbott might mean the project would not be funded.
“Not at all. The Rudd Government at right outset indicated that applications for funding will be assessed on their merits and we believe that and certainly it comes through as that,” he said.