Mathew Ward, the Marrickville Golf Club’s general manager, testified that sewage works were excluded from the grant because the club was already pursuing separate NSW funding and felt optimistic about it.
This contradicts Albanese’s initial parliamentary claim that the money targeted raw sewage flowing into the Cooks River during floods, a point he later conceded was incorrect.
Testimony also revealed Albanese’s undisclosed honorary membership since 2012 offered full golfing rights worth $1,100 yearly, not the $5 social value he described, though he never used it for play and relinquished it amid scrutiny.
The grant, part of a $560 million invitation-only program, funded clubhouse upgrades, stormwater systems, and landscaping instead.
Marrickville Golf Club has just blown the lid off Anthony Albanese’s $6.05 million grant rort – and confirmed he repeatedly misled parliament.
Club management fronted a Senate committee and stated the $6.05m federal cash was never intended to fix sewerage problems.
General manager Mathew Ward told Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie it was “basically correct” that sewage was never part of the $6m grant.
The club had already applied to NSW for the sewerage works and were “very optimistic” it would be funded separately – so it was deliberately left out of the federal money.
Albanese told parliament the opposite.
He claimed the federal grant was to fix the sewerage. He was forced to walk it back last month after his own department confirmed it wasn’t.
The club’s evidence now makes that retreat look even worse.
They also confirmed the Prime Minister’s “honorary” membership, granted in 2012 with essentially no paper trail, was worth $1,100, the same as a full golfing membership.
Not the $5 “social” membership he claimed. He only relinquished it on 14 September this year after the scandal broke.
Plans for stormwater harvesting, a botanic garden and a major overhaul were shown to his electorate office in August 2024.
The sewerage issue was real and pressing at the time, but it was never what the $6m federal grant was for.
Club president Andrew Tighe says the backlash has been “unprecedented.”
Staff have been abused, the phones had to be disabled, and members of the public have been demanding “Albo’s money back.”
This isn’t a misunderstanding. The club’s own managers have now contradicted the Prime Minister’s claims in parliament on both the purpose of the grant and the value of his membership.
Taxpayers handed $6 million to a golf club where the Prime Minister held a hidden full value membership – and the justification he gave parliament doesn’t match what the club says happened.
Barry O’Farrell lost his job over an undeclared bottle of red wine.
What’s the standard for this bloke to keep his, you can now be corrupt and lie about it?