The only golf club

On 9 September 2026, Parliament put a five-dollar golf club membership to the Prime Minister on the floor of the House of Representatives. Anthony Albanese told MPs he had been advised he held an honorary membership of Marrickville Golf Club, in his own electorate of Grayndler, granted about 2012 and never declared on his register of interests in the thirty years since he entered Parliament in 1996.

The club was promised A$6.05 million under an invitation-only federal program that sent nearly three-quarters of its A$560 million to the government's own seats, and it was the only golf club invited for funding under the scheme. In this masthead's terms that is a rort, and this article says so plainly. It says the rest just as plainly: nothing read for this article makes a finding that the fund or the grant was unlawful, and this article does not make one either.

01The question

Anthony Albanese's own account of the membership came in his own words, on the floor of the House. “I have been advised I was given an honorary membership in 2012, fourteen years ago,” he told MPs on 9 September 2026. “If anyone wants to join what is affectionately known as Royal Marrickville, what they need for two years’ membership is $5.” ¹

A club spokesperson said the membership “hasn’t been reaffirmed” and “may have been 15 years ago or more”. The register of interests requires members of Parliament to declare memberships where a conflict of interest could foreseeably arise, and Albanese had not declared this one at any point across three decades in the House. ¹

The membership sits beside a grant, and the grant is why the membership matters. Marrickville Golf Club was promised A$6.05 million under the Major and Local Community Infrastructure program, announced in April 2025 during the election campaign, and it was the only golf club invited for funding under the scheme. Shadow Infrastructure Minister Bridget McKenzie asked the government to explain “what process was used to construct the list of projects” and whether “you would have to stock the beer of your local member in order to get a grant”. ¹

02The fund

The Marrickville grant is one line inside a much larger program. The Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program was worth A$560 million in total. It was invitation-only and non-competitive: projects were not invited to apply, they were chosen. Nearly 75 per cent of its funding went to seats the government already held, more than a proportional share of the country’s electorates. ²

Michelle Grattan calls the design “pork barrelling by design”, and concludes that such practices remain “entrenched, whoever is in power”. Crossbenchers have called instead for a merit-based, transparent selection process. Labor itself made the same criticism of the Coalition under Morrison; the criticism did not stop the same design being used again. ²

By this masthead’s own standard, that is a rort: an invitation-only fund that sends close to three-quarters of its money to the government’s own electorates is exactly the pattern THE RORT exists to name. Say that plainly, and say the rest of it just as plainly: nothing read for this article makes a finding that the fund or the grant was unlawful, and this article does not make one either. What is documented is a design, named by an independent commentator, not a verdict from any court, auditor or inquiry.

The grant itself pays for a specific problem: the club’s septic system discharges into the nearby river, and the money is intended to fix that. Regular membership at the club costs A$1,100; the honorary membership Albanese held was not separately priced in the record read for this article, and the social membership open to anyone costs A$5 for two years. Albanese said: “I don’t have a membership...they gave an honorary membership...I don’t play golf.” ²

The grant’s own value differs slightly between accounts. This article uses the more precise A$6.05 million reported alongside the program list; a separate account of the same program rounds the figure to A$6 million, and this article treats that as rounding, not a second figure. ¹²

03The rule that ended a ministry

The disclosure rule Albanese tripped is not new, and it has already ended one ministerial career. Members of Parliament must declare memberships where a conflict of interest could foreseeably arise; that rule does not distinguish between a A$5 social membership and a A$1,100 one, or between a golf club and a gun club. ¹

McKenzie resigned, citing a perceived conflict of interest because she was the minister who had signed off on the money. The parallel to Marrickville is exact in one respect: an undisclosed honorary club membership sitting beside a grant to the same club. It is inexact in another: McKenzie personally approved the payment to her own club, and no source read for this article says who selected Marrickville Golf Club for the funding list, or what process was used to construct it. What both cases share is the same plain rule, pressed each time by the opposition of the day: Labor pressed it against McKenzie in 2020; the Coalition presses it against Albanese now, six years apart. ¹

04Ten September

By the next day’s Question Time, the Opposition had the grant’s own breakdown to work with: A$1 million for stormwater and sewerage works and A$4.55 million for the clubhouse precinct. Those two components add to A$5.55 million; no source read for this article accounts for the remaining A$500,000 of the A$6.05 million total. Liberal frontbencher Tony Pasin asked why only the smaller amount went to the sewerage work the Prime Minister had emphasised, while the larger sum went to a clubhouse he said Labor had used for campaign launches. ³

Manager of Opposition Business Dan Tehan asked how The Daily Telegraph knew Albanese was a member in 2019, when Albanese says he did not know of it. Albanese’s answer was that the club sat in the electorate of Barton in 2019, not his own seat of Grayndler. Liberal frontbencher Angie Bell asked why he had declared a membership of Royal Sydney Golf Club, acquired as Prime Minister after the 2025 election, but not the Marrickville one. “I knew about one, I didn’t know about the other,” Albanese said. ³

The government’s stated justification for the works is flood protection: preventing sewerage wastewater spilling into the Cooks River. The same round of election commitments in the seat also funded a women’s health centre and a domestic violence facility, spending that has no connection to the golf club and is not in dispute. ³

05The pattern

Strip away the golf and what is left is the shape THE RORT keeps finding: public money handed out by invitation rather than won on merit, and handed disproportionately to the side that controls the handing out. The A$560 million program was not a competition anyone could enter. It was a list, and nearly three-quarters of the list went to seats the government already held. Grattan’s judgment is that the practice is “entrenched, whoever is in power”, and the record bears her out: Labor pressed exactly this case against the Coalition in 2020, then used the same non-competitive design in office. ²

What is not on the record is as important as what is. No source read for this article names who built the funding list or what process chose Marrickville Golf Club as the only golf club on it. No court, auditor or inquiry has made a finding that the fund or the grant broke any law, and this article makes no such finding. The A$500,000 gap between the A$6.05 million promised and the A$5.55 million the government has itemised is unexplained in the record read here, not alleged to be missing. These are open questions, and they are named as questions. ¹³

There is a second reason this case matters, and it belongs to a different one. In the same September sitting week that Parliament spent two days on a five-dollar membership, a A$38 billion war windfall booked by the Commonwealth went unexamined by anyone. That comparison, the smallest sum drawing the most scrutiny and the largest sum drawing none, is the subject of a separate case, THE WAR TRADE, where this same membership stands as the small end of a scale that runs to thirty-eight billion. This case stays with the pork barrel: the invitation, the list, and the seats the money went to.

Update, 7 October 2026. Since publication, a search of the record for this update found that the Auditor-General, responding to a request from Ben Small MP dated 15 August 2026, has added the Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program to the Australian National Audit Office's Annual Audit Work Program for 2026-27 as a potential performance audit topic. That is a topic on a work program, not an audit under way and not a finding. Separately, on 14 September 2026 the Senate referred the program to its Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee, whose terms of reference include the processes for identifying, inviting and selecting applicants and the role of the offices of the Prime Minister and other ministers in deciding who was invited; public hearings are listed for 21 and 22 October 2026 and the committee is due to report on 18 November 2026 ⁵. Neither has yet made any finding, and the statement above, that no court, auditor or inquiry has made a finding that the fund or the grant broke any law, still stands. The same search found no source naming who built the funding list; that is now a question before the Senate committee. ^{4 5}

Update, 7 October 2026. The ABC reported on 7 October 2026 that the A$6.05 million promise was not the club's first closed grant. Marrickville Golf Club had received five earlier closed, non-competitive federal grants, totalling A$57,860, after local MPs nominated it: A$21,450 in 2019-20 for a toilet and locker room upgrade, A$11,000 in 2021 for its computer system, A$12,650 in 2021-22 for energy-saving lights, and A$3,410 and A$9,350 in 2022 for jubilee trees and a plaque and for benches around the course. Constitutional lawyer Anne Twomey identified the grants in a submission to the inquiry into the scheme. ⁶