Australia has not witnessed a more profligate cultural expense proceed with such a shamefully reckless absence of political scrutiny as the proposed half billion dollar expansion of the Australian War Memorial.

That is because both sides of federal politics – the Coalition government and the Labor opposition – have been cowed into supporting this needless $498 million project for fear of being seen to disrespect that most overblown shibboleth of Australian national identity, Anzac.

The truth is that the director of the war memorial Brendan Nelson – a former defence minister who is cosy with weapons manufacturers to the point that he scouts out their sponsorship for one of the nation’s most revered cultural institutions – has played both the government and Labor off a break.

They have been sucker-punched into falling in behind a proposal that is unnecessary, has arguably been devoid of proper executive evaluation and has drawn the ire of everyone from the nation’s most esteemed architects, historians and writers to the memorial’s own respected former officials.

Only the Greens have opposed the memorial plans so far.

Rewind to April 2018, in the lead up to the last Anzac Day, when Nelson – thanks to what was effectively a PR job by the ABC – made a soft announcement about the expansion plans.

Nelson told the ABC, “As a nation we have a responsibility perhaps to do better and in this regard we have received very strong support from our government, supported by our opposition.”

Hello! “Supported by our opposition ...”. When and how did federal Labor commit its support? Where was the rigorous Labor public or, indeed, behind closed doors, scrutiny of this proposal to spend so much money on an institution that has, because it is Anzac’s shrine of worship, been quarantined from so many of the budget imposts that have clipped other national cultural institutions including the national library, archives, museum, gallery and portrait gallery, and the Museum of Australian Democracy?

By the time the prime minister formally announced the expansion last November bipartisan guarantee was already, apparently, well and truly a foregone conclusion.

Still, it must be asked: what was the extent of the cabinet (never mind shadow cabinet) scrutiny of the spending proposal? Was there even a formal, detailed cabinet submission at the time of the Nelson announcement via the ABC and, not least, who wrote the later, more orthodox, spending proposal for government once bipartisan political support was apparently already a done deal? Was it then, finally, the subject of cabinet debate or just an under the line formality? The latter, I think.

As Nelson himself said of the potential cost in that cruisy interview: “Whatever the cost is, as one man said to me, ‘We’ve already paid. We’ve paid in blood, and whatever the government spends on the Australian War Memorial ... will never be enough’.”

What emotive rubbish. Tell that to today’s medically discharged veterans, some of whom are fighting protracted legal battles for compensation for their service-related injuries. Tell that to the veterans of all our wars who might think that the story of Anzac has already (thanks to a $600 million Australian spend on commemorating the first world war) artificially been inflated to eclipse the other stories that were more formative to Australian nationhood.

Stories such as: the frontier wars that raged across the continent from 1788 and killed, in Queensland alone, perhaps as many Aboriginal people as Australians who died (60,000–plus) in world war one; a celebrated federation attained without cordite and cold steel; a world-leading suffrage movement and precocious, globally-lauded, post-industrial revolution workers’ rights and living standards. All of this before Anzac was heard of.

Public opposition to the proposal – amid some apparent confusion about what, precise, demolition works would take place to provide for the expansion – has been growing.

In late March a group of 83 prominent Australians signed a public letter opposing the memorial’s expansion on the grounds “they cannot be justified, they show the memorial is being given preference over other national institutions, and the money could be better spent”. Signatories included two Booker Prize winning novelists, Richard Flanagan and Tom Keneally, former war memorial director and deputy director Brendon Kelson and Michael McKernan, and esteemed historians Mark McKenna, Stuart Macintyre, Carolyn Holbrook, Clare Wright, Henry Reynolds, Peter Stanley, Tom Griffiths and Frank Bongiorno.

In response the memorial said the “overwhelming majority” of Australians supported the project, an assertion for which there is little supporting evidence given that just 134 individuals gave the memorial feedback during its consultation process. Those who did so were mostly men from the Australian Capital Territory. Most were former or serving defence force members. In a recent fortnight 1,236 people signed a change.org petition opposing the expansion.

Meanwhile the president of the ACT chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects, Philip Leeson, said some architects would effectively black ban the design competition for the memorial expansion because the design brief assumes demolition of Anzac Hall, which won the Zelman Cowen Award for Public Architecture after it was built in 2005. A number of leading architects have publicly criticised the proposed expansion.

It remains to be seen how much of this bothers Nelson, irrepressible it is said, in the face of opposition. Such is the way of the eternal politician. But every public figure has a limit.

Certainly he’s been on the front foot with his critics, labelling the 83 signatories to the public letter of opposition, “intellectuals, academics, public servants and a bunch of fellow travellers”.

Broadcaster Chris Smith, elevating sycophancy and smug self-satisfaction to new levels, said at the end of his “interview” with Nelson, “… some of those quotes are just sensational. We appreciate what you do and what the memorial does even if some of these turkeys don’t”.

Right now, in the midst of an election campaign where the major parties are playing an unedifying game of deficit chicken, the Labor Party ought to show some spine and withdraw, or qualify, its support for blowing $500 million on an unnecessary expansion of the war memorial.

Process demands it.

Because even Anzac must be accountable.