‘Conflicts’: Report scathing of Barilaro’s office

Concerning issues were raised over the integrity and effectiveness of how the Department of Regional NSW issued $541.8m in grants through the Bushfire Local Economic Recovery (BLER). The program was established after the devastating 2019 to 2020 Black Summer bushfires that claimed 26 lives and destroyed 2476 homes.

The report found that a $1m minimum threshold was applied by Mr Barilaro’s office “without a documented reason” and short-listed projects were excluded “without a rationale being documented at the time”.

Projects for all Labor-held electorates requesting funding for amounts under $1m were denied.

Critical issues were also identified with how the fast-tracked projects were administered. Projects funded by the BLER program were split into three streams, including fast-tracked infrastructure projects for “high and moderate bushfire impacted areas”, sector development grants that supported local industries and open round funding.

During the fast-tracked round, 445 projects were identified in consultation with local councils; however, only 164 projects were assessed for funding. No explanation was documented for the remaining 281 that were not assessed.

“The administration process lacked integrity, given it did not have sufficiently detailed guidelines, and the assessment process for projects lacked transparency and consistency,” the audit stated.

The report found that “conflicts of interest were not effectively managed”, and Mr Barilaro’s office didn’t “effectively engage with stakeholders during the grants process”.

Labor Opposition Leader Chris Minns accused Mr Barilaro’s office of “pork barrelling”.

“This is baked into the NSW’s government,” he said.

“(There is) pork barrelling at every level of the NSW government leadership and the worst thing is that the current cabinet let it happen because it was benefiting them politically.

“They’ve played politics with bushfire recovery grants. I don’t think we can allow a Coalition government to distribute recovery grants again.”

When asked about the report, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said he hadn’t read it but stood by the government for “getting money out of the gate”.

“I’ll obviously consider that report and where there are areas to be improved, we will,” he said.

The Department of Regional NSW has been contacted for comment.