Constitutional expert labels Albanese government’s golf club grant ‘grey corruption’

A leading constitutional expert has labelled an Albanese government decision to award a $6m grant to a golf club in the prime minister’s electorate as “grey corruption” and called the scheme under which it was given a “farce”.

Anne Twomey, a University of Sydney professor emerita, submitted the scathing assessment to a Senate inquiry into an opaque $560m invitation-only grants scheme used to fund projects Labor promised at the 2025 election, and which largely went to Labor-held seats. During the 2025 campaign, the government promised the Marrickville golf club, which is in Albanese’s electorate of Grayndler, $6m for a series of upgrades. The grant was awarded under a “closed non-competitive” process last July.

After coming under fire last month for the grant, Albanese said the funding was meant to fix problems caused by raw sewage flowing into the adjacent Cooks River. But Twomey wrote that there was no reference to this in the prime minister’s original announcement in 2025, only that it involved renovations and the harvesting of storm water to irrigate the golf course.

A scandal erupted last month when research found that the money in the program went overwhelmingly to Labor electorates. The Centre for Public Integrity found 73% of the allocated funding went to seats held by Labor MPs before the election.

Labor strongly defended the program as within the rules. The infrastructure minister, Catherine King, has said there was no conflict of interest as Albanese was not the decision-maker on the grant, and applications had been approved after they were assessed to show they met value for money.

Twomey labelled the gold club grant “grey corruption”, which she described as a “broad term that encompasses any actions where governments exercise their powers to favour private interests or political interests over the national interest”.