Exclusive: grant awarded to Port Macquarie before 2019 election as part of $150m program with no open application process

This article is more than 7 months old

This article is more than 7 months old

The Morrison government pledged $4.5m to build a tidal pool in Port Macquarie before the 2019 election as part of a controversial $150m grants program with no open application process despite the opposition of the local council and no site having been chosen for the pool.

The grant was made as part of the female facilities and water safety stream (FFWSS), announced in the 2019 budget, which went on to fund Coalition election commitments, with 73% of the projects which received funding in marginal or under-threat seats.

On Thursday the health department told Guardian Australia the tidal pool grant is to be paid to the Port Macquarie Hastings council, but when contacted on Friday the council was not even aware the department has listed it as the recipient. In May 2018 the council explicitly warned that a tidal pool “is not a priority”.

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On Friday the department clarified the “administrative error”, stating the intended grant recipient is not the council but the Port Macquarie Tidal Pool Committee Incorporated, a charity formed in July 2018 to lobby government for funding for the pool that received $50,000 from the New South Wales government for a feasibility study.

Scott Morrison and Nationals candidate Pat Conaghan announced the $4.5m grant on 9 May, 2019, citing a 18,000 signature petition to the council as evidence of community support for the project.

Port Macquarie is in the seat of Cowper, which was held by retiring Nationals MP Luke Hartsuyker on a 4.5% margin but was once again under threat from the former independent MP for Lyne, Rob Oakeshott.

At a meeting on 16 May, 2018 the Port Macquarie Hastings council noted two petitions in favour of the pool but resolved that “an ocean tidal pool in Port Macquarie is not a priority for council” – a decision taken due to the uncertainty around the project’s future and a preference to focus on reconstruction of the Port Macquarie Aquatic Centre.

The resolution also called on the tidal pool committee to “make any future requests, submissions and grant applications through council’s recognised engagement processes to ensure that the competing priorities of all volunteer and community groups in our area receive appropriate and equal consideration by council”.

The tidal pool committee has said it is spending the $50,000 grant on environmental geomorphic and site studies conducted by James Carley, principal engineer of water laboratory at the University of NSW and Nicole Larkin, an architect and tidal pool designer.

Josh Rummery, a local mortgage broker and a member of the tidal pool committee, told Guardian Australia it “doesn’t have any of that [$4.5m federal money] yet” and said he had “no idea” if it would be given the grant to build the pool.

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Asked when the pool is likely to be built, Rummery replied: “It would be lovely if we could build it today. I have no idea. Until we’ve contracted – until whoever is going to build it is contracted, we’re still in the feasibility and planning stage.”

Carley told Guardian Australia he had assessed seven potential sites but the process of selecting one and conducting a full feasibility study is “still ongoing”.

“To actually do a feasibility study, the technical work, takes three months – in a dictatorship it would happen in three months,” he said.

“But like any complex piece of infrastructure it takes longer, with the to-ing and fro-ing it takes about six months.”

“From the time you decide you want to build a tidal pool to the time you open it, can take from two to five years.”

Conaghan told Guardian Australia: “Port Macquarie is a town of 45,000 people and has only one public swimming pool, so this tidal pool will deliver great sport and recreational benefits, plus the health and tourism benefits from having an alternative to a chlorinated pool.”

“Projects of this size and scale always take time to deliver as they need to have their environmental and social impacts and benefits properly assessed,” he said.

Conaghan said the feasibility study was already complete and the next step is to prepare a development application.

A Guardian Australia analysis of the 41 projects awarded FFWSS funding found that 58.5% were in marginal seats, including $30m for two pools in the Victorian seat of Corangamite, $25m in Christian Porter’s West Australian seat of Pearce and $20m in the WA seat of Swan.

When grants to Kooyong and Farrer, Coalition-held seats under threat despite larger margins, are considered, some 73% of projects were located in marginal or at-risk seats.

By dollar value, $111m of the program’s $150m of grants was spent in marginal seats.

On Friday, Labor leader Anthony Albanese said the FFWSS program was “sports rorts on steroids again”, describing it as “a program with no guidelines, $150m of taxpayers money, abused for political purposes where the only guidelines were the electoral map and the political interests of the government”.

Later, Morrison misinterpreted several questions about the $150m FFWSS program, telling reporters in Townsville the government had funded 60 projects across the country, which he described as “fantastic”, a reference to the $100m community sport infrastructure grants program which triggered the resignation of former sports minister Bridget McKenzie.

A spokesman for Morrison said the department “is finalising funding and contractual arrangements with the program’s participants” and noted Labor had promised “at least $250m” for local and community sport programs in the lead-up to the election.

The health department has told Guardian Australia the FFWSS program “was not open to applications for grants”.

“The projects were selected as election commitments. Projects eligible for funding included those that supported the development of female change room facilities at sporting grounds and community swimming facilities.”

The Greens have written to the auditor general asking for an audit of the FFWSS program, after the scathing report into the community sport infrastructure grant program found it was targeted at marginal seats .