Partisan Pork-Barrel, Independents and Electoral Advantage: Australia's Regional Partnerships Program in 2004

Abstract

This article, building on previous research into earlier Australian pork-barrel schemes, uses data from Australia's Regional Partnerships Program (RPP), and its apportioning of $104 million in constituency-level grants in 2003–4, to explore the distinctive logic of parliamentary pork-barrel politics. Results show that the Liberal-Nationals Coalition's distribution of these funds was consistent with three electoral priorities — to reward its own MPs and show voters that the government “can deliver”; to provide vote-winning assets in the Coalition's most marginal seats, where even small vote gain can make the difference between victory and defeat; and to try to re-establish its credibility at the local level in regional seats that had proven vulnerable to inroads made by Independent candidates.