NRL club upgrades promised Coalition funding in 2013 among projects yet be to completed

Multimillion-dollar upgrades at Penrith and Manly Warringah rugby league clubs are among 11 grant projects promised by the Coalition before the 2013 election that are yet to be completed.

Both clubs were promised more than $10m in 2013 but the grants were only delivered in early 2019, with the construction of a 3,000 seat grandstand at Manly’s Brookvale oval only commencing earlier in October 2020.

Labor probed the community development grant program at Senate estimates this week, revealing that 11 projects promised before the 2013 election and 104 before the 2016 election were still not completed.

Since 2013, the program has paid for projects that are selected by the government without a competitive application process, initially to pay for election promises but increasingly to pay for new priorities midterm.

Labor and the Greens have expressed concern that a $103m top-up to the program in the 2020 budget is largely being spent in Queensland and South Australia to pay for projects selected by minor parties One Nation and Centre Alliance, including a $23m grant to build a 16,000-seat stadium in Rockhampton.

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Documents tabled at Senate estimates reveal there are nine projects announced in 2013 that are still “active” because they are not yet completed.

An infrastructure department spokeswoman said the Manly Sea Eagles centre of excellence and northern grandstand at Brookvale Oval was promised funding of $10.5m as “the result of a 2013 election commitment, and an additional $1,995,000 was the result of a 2016 election commitment”.

The grant was made in March 2019 but a New South Wales Liberal party media release stated construction on the new high-performance centre and 3,000-seat grandstand began only on 16 October 2020.

The infrastructure spokeswoman said: “Projects identified for funding … are expected to be tender ready, with the project scoped, costed and planned sufficiently, including identifying additional funding requirements, prior to the project being approved for funding”.

“The grantee, the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles, are responsible for the delivery timeframes of the project – questions on the timeframe are a matter for them.”

The Western Sydney Community and Conference Centre in Penrith was promised $12m in 2013, matching a commitment Labor had made ahead of the 2013 election.

The grant to the Penrith Rugby League Club for “a multi-purpose facility with a community centre, conference/exhibition and events centre, public amenities, car parking and landscaping” was made in January 2019.

The Gosford Regional Library was promised $7m in April 2014 but received funding only in September 2019.

Other projects promised in 2013 and delivered years later include: $35,000 for equipment for the new clubrooms at Weigall Oval in Plympton, South Australia, delivered in November 2018 ; and $5,000 to install floodlights at the Olympic precinct in West Heidelberg, Victoria, delivered in July 2018.

Labor’s shadow infrastructure minister, Catherine King, said that “seven years later and the Morrison government still hasn’t delivered on these processes”.

“It doesn’t take seven years to upgrade an oval or install some lights,” she said. “The Morrison government never cared about delivering these projects, all they cared about was making the announcement.

“This is a pattern we see again and again from this government: a big announcement but nothing to back it up.”

At the hearing on Tuesday, infrastructure department officials said 99% of 2013 election commitments had been contracted and 96% delivered, although a “very small number” had encountered challenges. Of the promises from 2016, 97% have been contracted and 77% delivered.

The social services minister, Anne Ruston, defended delays, saying projects had to undergo “due diligence” that might take “longer than the year or longer than six months, as [Labor] seem to think”.

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Speaking about unspecified projects that had since been rejected, Ruston said: “If a commitment is subsequently assessed and it didn’t meet due diligence, you wouldn’t expect us to fund it.”

Officials claimed the “significant majority” of community development grant projects were for election promises, and Ruston said “successive governments” had funded such commitments through such closed-tender processes.

Officials then revealed 206 projects were promised before the 2019 election and 312 have been announced since, which Labor’s Murray Watt noted contradicted earlier evidence the program is primarily for election commitments.

Guardian Australia has contacted the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles and Penrith rugby league club for comment.