Part of the government’s stimulus package response to the global financial crisis was the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program.It consisted of a series of grants to local authorities to build or renew things like community centres, sporting facilities, parks, town halls etc – the usual suspects in community infrastructure. The program consisted of two components; the Council Allocation component, where all councils received money for use in small projects involving the building or upgrading of local facilities – things like footpaths, lighting outdoor areas, upgrading toilet blocks etc. The second component was the Strategic Projects component, which involved the Commonwealth providing financial grants to much larger, more complicated projects that had a value of at least $2 million.
Yesterday, the Australian National Audit Office released their audit report into the Strategic Projects component of this Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program – which you can read in all its tedious glory over here.
Today, The Australian – searching for some relevance after being the only media outlet in the country that apparently didn’t have an exclusive cabinet leak on Julia Gillard – launched a front page assault on the intelligence of its readers over the contents of this ANAO report.
“Auditor slams ALP pork barrel”, “Albo’s journey from vigilante to pork-barreller”, “Mini-pork main dish of the day, with extra crackling served as a side” screamed just a few of the headlines of the stories covering the ANAO report – including on the front page of the treeware version.
From the headlines and the attached stories, The Australian would have you believe that the program funnelled disproportionally large amounts of funding into ALP seats, or key seats that the ALP believed were electorally crucial, as part of some sort of deliberate pork barrelling operation.
Now that’s all very good and well, except for the slight problem that it just isn’t true and it’s not what the audit report actually found at all 
The spin involved here by The Oz went far beyond breathtaking, firmly embedding itself into the comical.
When it came to the distribution of funding from this report at the electorate level – the dollars ending up on the ground and in what electorates – this is what the ANAO actually found (page 187)
Labor holds 55.3% of all seats in Parliament and those seats received 56.7% of all funding – a result within 1.5% of what we would expect those seats to receive if it was actually possible to distribute funding on an exact partisan-proportional basis.
Where the proportions got slightly out of whack – though by less than 5% – was where the three independent seats received slightly more funding at the expense of Coalition seats.
But if this was truly pork barrelling – an exercise where the government deliberately funnels money into key seats in an attempt to improve their electoral prospects – they were a dismal failure. Albo apparently lost his calculator.
ALP marginal seats – the seats that keep the ALP in government – make up 16.7% of the Parliament but received only 13.5% of funding in this program. If this was a real pork barrelling exercise, we’d expect to see funding in these seats at a rate higher than their 16.7% level of representation.
If we instead look at the seats the ALP would be most likely to gain – Coalition held marginal seats – we find that those Coalition marginals make up 21.3% of the electorate but only received 16.4% of the funding. Again, under-funded according to their representation level. If we take both sets of marginal seats together – we find that they make up 38% of Parliament, yet they only received 29.8% of all funding.
I don’t know about you, but I reckon you’d have to be a few neurons short to think that underfunding marginal seats – both the ones you hold and the ones you want – is an exercise in using public funding for electoral advantage
The Australian however, not being deterred by the piffling inconvenience of empirical reality, seized on the application approval data – which, when taken to its logical conclusion, becomes pretty funny.
Before we get to that application data, it’s worth providing some context on what the government was keeping an eye on in regards to the distribution of this funding. Point 86 on page 46 states the key point:
In April 2009, prior to Cabinet being provided with recommendations as to which projects should be approved for funding, analysis of the proposed funding distribution was undertaken on a geographic and electorate basis. In addition to providing what was considered to be a reasonable geographical spread of approved funding, the proportion of total funding awarded on an electorate basis was consistent with the proportion of seats held in the House of Representatives.
So what we had was the government deliberately keeping an eye on ensuring that when the money was eventually distributed, it was consistent with the proportion of party representation in the House of Reps – primarily to avoid allegations of pork barrelling and of using public funds to boost Labor electoral prospects on a seat by seat basis.
When the government opened this program up to applications, what happened was that the numbers of applications they received for funding by local councils wasn’t distributed evenly among seats or party representation. If we look at the number of applications for funding that the program received and their eventual approval rates, this is what happened on a partisan electorate basis.
A much larger number of applications for funding came from Coalition electorates than Labor ones by local authorities. Yet, because the government had decided to distribute funding across the country on an approximately proportional partisan basis – which they ultimately did – the eventual approval rates of applications had to fit within that pre-determined, non partisan funding distribution model.
As a result of there being a larger number of applications from Coalition seats chasing a relatively pre-determined amount of funding that was proportional to the Coalitions level of political representation in the House of Reps, the approval rates of those applications were necessarily lower than what occurred in Labor held seats. Necessarily lower simply to make sure that ultimate funding was distributed evenly on an approximately partisan proportional basis.
The Australian is ignoring the actual funding data and focusing on the application data to run an editorial line on alleged Labor pork barrelling. Now, sure – you’d have to be as thick as two short planks to believe this nonsense – but to see just how silly this is, let’s take the argument they are running to its logical conclusion.
If the lower application rates for funding in Coalition seats is described by The Australian as pork barrelling, what would happen if the funding for the program was actually distributed on the basis of equal approval rates for funding applications – apparently the outcome that The Oz would see as truly non-partisan?
To figure it out, first we need to find what the average approval rate was for the total amount of funding applications. So, reorganising the data above, this is what we get:
There were a total of 484 applications received, 137 of which were approved for an overall approval rate of 28.3%. If we apply that approval rate of 28.3% to all applications and look at what the results would be on an electorate basis, we get:
Under The Australian’s somewhat bemusing interpretation of non-partisan funding, the Coalition – holding 42.7% of all seats in Parliament – would have received 55% of all funded applications if the Labor party was being fair. Similarly, according to The Oz version of funding equality, the ALP having 55.3% of all seats in Parliament would have received only 40.3% of all funded applications if they weren’t hell bent on pork-barrelling.
Considering the large differences in size of some of these projects and where, according to the ANAO, “three of the four largest grants were made to projects located in Liberal Party held electorates”, the ultimate proportion of funding flowing through to Coalition electorates would likely to have exceeded the 55% that The Oz’s preferred “equality in approval rates” joke would suggest.
Insulting your intelligence? Well, you don’t really have to Think Again about that.
42 Comments
The good thing is hardly anyone reads the Oz (apart from political junkies).
The bad thing is people like Alan Jones and the other talk back hacks, TV reporters for ABC, 7, 9, and 10 read it and then propagate the BS.
The lumpen swallow it hook, line, and sinker, and it suddenly becomes irrefutable fact.
There was a small typo in the first table that’s been fixed.
You beat me to it, Scott.
Wow! Amazing just how blatant it all is, but as DR said this will just get echoed out by the rest of the lazy (or at least time poor and under-skilled) journos in then MSM.
I’d wager most of the Oz hacks writing this stuff wouldn’t even realise what they’re doing. Someone at the top glanced at the report, found a stat that could be disembodied sufficiently to run with the party line and set the minions in motion.
Whatever they pay you isn’t enough Possum!
Hi Poss -
The _Oz_’s analysis would make sense if you thought that number of applications received was likely to be proportional to some sort of criterion of objective need for these grants. Which doesn’t seem a crazy view, but it would need some sort of evidence or argument for it, which I assume they don’t provide.
What would be really interesting would be to see a comparison with the corresponding figures for the Howard govt’s road rorts program, or even the Keating govt’s sports rorts – are they available somewhere?
It just goes to prove that you might as well just go ahead and porkbarrel to your heart’s content.
Sadly, the level of commentary in the MSM is below ordinary.
Charles, the ANAO audit of Howards regional partnerships program is here:
http://anao.gov.au/download.cfm?item_id=40BC1C6C1560A6E8AAA43AAB96708E61&binary_id=40CC2B811560A6E8AABD1888AE16D9D3
It’s a zip file of the report that comes in three parts. An absolute cracker – *that’s* what a rort looks like!
Thanks Poss. I questioned this in PB yesterday.
I think the bias is even worse than you say. The fund targets community infrastructure, which is primarily in urban seats, which is where most of Labor’s members are. So you would expect the majority of money to go to them. How is that biased?
The comparison I used was, if there was a drought relief fund that mostly went to National Party seats, nobody would call that bias. That is where the droughts are.
ABC On-Line too:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/28/2966291.htm
An auditor’s review of the Federal Government’s $550 million infrastructure grants program has found that applications in Labor seats were more than twice as likely to be approved as projects in Coalition-held electorates.
the problem is that they know this. it is pointless to point out the obvious reasonableness and unreasonableness of the situation. the thing is, these tactics work. they brought down rudd and they will elect abbott at the next election. this is the sham of parliamentary democracy. giving self-interested greedy frightened people the vote is a bad way to govern.
in four weeks we will have an abbott government and mean old uncle johnny is gonna feel like a kindly old friend as the social fabric and decency of this country deteriorates even further.
this is disgusting to watch. pure evil.
I wonder – is it possible that there is anyone smart enough in the Liberal machine to have boosted applications in Liberal seats in order to enable this attack?
On reflection, it seems most unlikely.
Fear not muk0le muk (#12) for the trend is your friend. I would only get worried about a change of government when I see the polling trend headed below 51% TPP. I think Bob McMullan was correct when he told the Labor caucus that no government had ever lost with 52% TPP in the polls this close to an election.
The Australian will be scrambling to find an Abbott-positive angle when one of the next two Newspolls shows at least 54% TPP for Labor, seemingly junking their ‘gap is closing’ argument. Bet on it.
cb. i hope you’re right, but i have not seen a blitz like this across all media in favour of one party since 1975. even 96 was fairer coverage. but then, the libs were in the unbeatable position.
if it continues at the current level of intensity, no party could survive it.
what surprises me is that we hear so much about the supposed political skill of the labor party, but for the last 6 months, the only smart political thing they’ve done is get rid of a pm who did a lot of good stuff but had not a true political bone in his body. and since then they’ve sunk into the same torpor. and this is in the face of a liberal opposition which, under the guidance of abbott, has become the most unprincipled and ruthless political machine in australian history.
As that describes a substantial proportion of the population of any western nation, may I ask who should be given the vote? Surely you wouldn’t seriously suggest a retreat from universal suffrage.
muck,
We have social networks like ‘facebook’ &’tweeter’ to spreed the facts.That’s why MSM tried to discredit ‘facebook’ once,remember?
It should be pretty obvious by now that journalists can’t count. Most struggle to pass HSC maths, while excelling in creative writing. Most have the attention span of an eight-year-old ADHD sufferer who forgot his Ritalin. And we know that most at Murdoch’s organ check what’s left of their brain at the door as their do their master’s grubby bidding each day. Taken together with the Coalition’s lack of acquaintance for the truth makes this fairly fertile ground for the excuses for journalism exposed by your rigorous and public-spirited analysis.
I think the proper expression for a journalist is “the attention span of a gnat on speed”..
I can’t wait for traditional media to die.
It’s got me buggered why the Australian doesn’t change its name to Volkischer Beobachter, they’re about as balanced. I read an article by Glenn Milne on ABC about Abbott spending $6000 worth of tax payers money to travel around a sell his BS Book but not only didn’t I hear a Peep out of the Murchoch press but the bloggers at the ABC Drum accussed Milne of being a Labor stooge of all things.
Just a brilliant post Possum. It is a shame that only Crikey readers get to see such intelligence in their news.
The Oz has obviously gone full scorched earth policy on Gillard. They’ll sacrifice whatever credibility they have left to take her down.
Sure they’ve always been right wing, but now it is beyond the pale.
Does getting Abbott in to put the kybosh on ABC24 getting the Australia Network contract mean that much to them?
Peter Switzer this am on Adelaide ABC was still making derogatory comments about “the Julia Gillard memorial halls”, why the fuck are these morons so anti development of any kind?
Oh geez!
The Liberals are pretending to be sweetness and light but they weren’t so pleasant while they were in government and aimed to create an upper class made up of their friends. There are a lot of decent people in Australia who voted labor to get rid of Workchoices and won’t be so easily fooled by a wolf in sheeps’ clothing pretending that what he wrote down in his book wasn’t true either.
Impressive work, Possum, as always from you.
And to repeat my earlier complaint about the ABC, this morning, they’re at it again with screaming pro-Liberal headlines.
Anyone would think, reading them, that the Liberals are a credible government-in-waiting with intelligent policies.
If Abbott wins government it’ll be the most bathetic government since Marshall Petain arrived in Vichy.
calypto – see my post in the other thread
I am incensed by the performance this morning of the two presenters on LIB Breakfast
Whoops, Marshal Petain.
While I’m typing: the Vichy regime had as its motto ‘Travail, Familie, Patrie’ (work, family, country (sound familiar?)). The acronym TFP was, amusingly, also the French legal acronym for ‘Travail force en perpetuite’ (few acutes in there) (=hard labour for life).
Excellently chuffed to see that you had your finger on the pulse of the previous Howard Govt’s Regional Partnerships Programme….in a not-too-previous life, I was in one of the regions which benefited from RPP, a region which just happened to be – and still is – a very safe National Party seat. So I waded through that previous ANAO report, all three volumes of it, and had followed the not one but two Senate / HoR Inquiries into the programme. Now THAT was a case of rorting which you’d teach as a case study in a Public Policy / Administration course!!!
I suspect that the current govt’s care with funding distribution this time around is directly related to trying to distance itself from exactly the charges which beset the previous government. Much of this regional / local stuff gets buried in pre-election media, and as Poss and others rightly observe, it only comes into the wide public gaze when organs like the Oz are trying to dig up dirt. Best part is, as Poss elegantly argues, they f*6ik it up routinely, heheh.
Completely off topic Poss, just a couple of observations about what is actually happening rather than tea cup gazing.
There appears to be less “others”. The AEC web site is fing useless but there appears to be far fewer independants and nutter parties than last time. Whether this indicates a lack of urgency for change??? Whether its just politics overload, who knows, the point can be debated, however the effect on the polls and the result for ‘Other” is definately going to impinge if there is no ‘Other’ other than the God Botherers down there at preference central, chatting to the Sex party? Interested in thoughts.
The LDp are running a candidate in my seat – but does that mean the Shooters, Fishing, and Gerbil Preservation parties are not running this time?
Great post Pos
@David Richards – Couldn’t have said it better myself. truth doesnt matter.. headlines matter
>Posted July 28, 2010 at 10:49 am
>The good thing is hardly anyone reads the Oz (apart from political junkies).
>The bad thing is people like Alan Jones and the other talk back hacks, TV reporters for ABC, >7, 9, and 10 read it and then propagate the BS.
>The lumpen swallow it hook, line, and sinker, and it suddenly becomes irrefutable fact.
Damn, I’ve missed the comment. Someone here asked the possibly rhetorical question “Why don’t you trust the Australian?” (apologies if I have misquoted)
The answer is Rupert Murdoch has always been a destroyer, not a builder. He acquires other peoples publications, TV stations, etc. But the only thing he personally built was the Australian. And when he did so he was young and moderately left-wing. And it was reflected in the juvenile Oz.
After that it was all destruction. Seldom has the MSM ever had such an icon of evil as RM, unless it was the man who was Citizen Kane (William Randolph Hearst).
With age and fame, Rupert Murdoch has not mellowed at all, although he could afford to.
Perhaps it is the fate of old men to become bitter? Perhaps it is the way he gets his jollies? Perhaps it’s because he is an Australian?
Surely no one with any intelligence could trust the love child of Rancid Rupert?
Possum, going back to the issue of elections and polling.
How did your trend or poll average do last time? If memory serves me it came in slightly high for Labor. Is that part of the reasoning in having a separate phone poll/all polls trend this time around? Which would you trust more?
“An absolute cracker – *that’s* what a rort looks like!”
Possum
Well I read through the Howard govts Regional Partnerships Scheme audit and it did not look like a rort. Point 40 on page 24 of volume 1 said
“40. It is also noteworthy that there is little difference in the overall rate at
which applications submitted by applicants in electorates held by the various
parties were approved for funding over the full three years examined to
30 June 2006, with overall party success rates ranging from 69 per cent to
72per cent. ”
So you had a 70% chance of getting funding no matter what seat you lived in. The Coalition got more money because they had more seats in the regional areas of Australia. It looks like a media beat up to me. Similar to the current media beatup.
The remainder of point 40 in the ANAO report on the previous government’s Regional Partnerships Scheme says:
“However, ANAO analysis revealed that Ministers were more likely to approve funding for ‘not recommended’ projects that had been submitted by applicants in electorates held by the Liberal and National parties and more likely to not approve funding for ‘recommended’ projects that had been submitted by applicants in electorates held by the Labor party.”
So yes, in partisan terms the allocation was pretty even but it was achieved by funding unworthy projects at the expense of others more likely to give lasting benefits. And these approvals were directly made by ministers. As ANAO said at point 26:
“the manner in which the Programme had been administered over the
three year period to 30 June 2006 examined by ANAO had fallen short
of an acceptable standard of public administration, particularly in
respect to the assessment of grant applications and the management of
Funding Agreements.”
Whether these lessons about transparent and honest administration have been absorbed by the current government is a separate issue. But Possum’s analysis of the funding distribution for their Infrastructure Program is on the money. So to speak.
“The remainder of point 40 in the ANAO report on the previous government’s Regional Partnerships Scheme says:”
Yes. Howard govt ministers overturned 43 grants “not recommended” by the PS. This was out of a total of 1,366 grants. For 97% of the grants they followed PS advice. Of these 43 grants only 5 of these were for grants in Labor electorates and 38 were for grants in coalition electorates.
Those 43 grants were for a total of $10M.
So I guess the auditor is correct. But do you want to argue that there was massive political interference when only 43 grants did not follow PS advice out of a total of 1,366??
I think the ANAO’s point was that by the time in 2006 that the Ministerial Committee took over the decision-making the proportion of “not recommended” projects being approved was increasing and that increase continued under the Committee. Since doubts about the effectiveness of even the “recommended” projects were surfacing an increased rate of approval for “not recommended” projects was not going to improve the situation.
Also the Regional Partnerships Scheme audit was different. Usually audits are performed and after the results are released, people make the changes recommended by the audit.
With the RPS audit it looks like the changes were made as the audit progressed so when the report was released all the problems were fixed. Any new govt scheme will have initial problems.
DOTARS lists their responses to the audit in Volume 1 on page 120-132.
Why the ALP abolished the scheme after all the problems were fixed beats me.
Where is the statistics that says how many voters in each of the elctorates were likely impacted by the spending? It not so much about the amount spent, but how many voters are ‘connected’ by the spend. Why not look at the distribution of student numbers across safe, fairly safe and marginal, or better still families – but doubt that last stat is easily identified with any accuracy?