Anthony Albanese\u2019s sewage saga has drawn more of his ministers into the muck, forced to defend their boss after he incorrectly claimed that a $6m grant awarded to a golf club in his electorate was to prevent effluent flowing into a nearby river.<\/p>\n
The Prime Minister had been accused of misleading Parliament for the reason the Marrickville Golf Club \u2014 of which he is a member \u2014 was given the cash, following accusations from the Opposition and crossbench that it was a porkbarrelling exercise designed to shore up his support within his seat of Grayndler.<\/p>\n
Mr Albanese made a rare concession in Question Time on Tuesday to clarify that \u201cit was not correct\u201d to say the money channelled to the club through the Federal grant was for sewerage works. The sewerage works were instead funded through NSW Government spending.<\/p>\n
Sign up to The Nightly’s newsletters.<\/p>\n
Get the first look at the digital newspaper, curated daily stories and breaking headlines delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n
By continuing you agree to our Terms<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe funding was going to be for sewerage, the NSW government have stepped in which is appropriate given that NSW runs water and sewerage,\u201d Mr Albanese said.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring election campaigns, people make commitments \u2013 I have said it was not correct. It was not correct.\u201d<\/p>\n Ministers Catherine King, Tanya Plibersek, Murray Watt and assistant minister Patrick Gorman were among called upon to do damage control on Mr Albanese\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n Ms Plibersek, who represents the neighbouring electorate of Sydney, said Mr Albanese was simply keeping an electoral promise.<\/p>\n \u201cI think to be fair, the Prime Minister said (on Tuesday) in Question Time that he did get the detail wrong of the inclusion of the sewerage works in that proposal,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, it is very clear that when he made that original commitment, the sewerage works were part of the original commitment.\u201d<\/p>\n Senator Watt told ABC Breakfast on Wednesday the Federal government was working with the council to determine what the final design of the project would look like.<\/p>\n \u201cIt will include works that are complementary to that sewerage work, so, as I say, the Prime Minister was correct in saying the original announcement included sewerage work to remove pollution going into the Cooks River,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n And during an interview with News24, Mr Gorman, who is the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, rejected any suggestion Mr Albanese had been deliberately untruthful \u2014 in doing so drawing a comparison with the golf club and late American action star Chuck Norris, who died in March aged 86.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t accept that characterisation. The Prime Minister added additional information in Question Time yesterday,\u201d Mr Gorman said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a golf course that is about 84 years old. So, the same age as Chuck Norris. It hasn\u2019t held up as well as Chuck Norris has but it\u2019s an old golf course. It needed some investment.\u201d<\/p>\n Infrastructure Minister Catherine King, who had earlier repeated Mr Albanese\u2019s claim that the grant was awarded to fix sewerage flows, has also found herself in it after it was revealed she signed off on a brief which had made no mention of sewerage works.<\/p>\n \u201cThis funding commitment was made in April 2025. Part of the commitment included sewerage works. In September 2025, the NSW Government stepped in to fund the sewage-related aspects,\u201d she said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n She accused the Coalition of making commitments under the influence of One Nation leader Pauline Hanson.<\/p>\n Coalition frontbenchers sought to table documents in Question Time on Wednesday, showing the Prime Minister hadn\u2019t made any previous mentioned to sewerage issues at the club prior to the grant being awarded.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve said that part of the original commitment of the upgrade of Marrickville Golf Club was going to fix the long-running sewerage issue,\u201d Mr Albanese said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was to be part of renovations. That isn\u2019t the case (now) because the State Government has stepped in and announced funding in September 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n The grant first hit headlines last month after a Centre for Public Integrity investigation found the $560 million program it was funded through was invitation-only and heavily favoured safe Labor seats and marginal contests the party hoped to win.<\/p>\n Days later, it was revealed that the Prime Minister had not included his honorary membership of the club on his register of interests, claiming he was unaware he was a member.<\/p>\n The PM dismissed reporting on the scheme at the time, telling the ABC to \u201cdo better\u201d and saying he made \u201cno apology\u201d for that funding.<\/p>\n \u201cI make no apologies for my electorate being serviced by me as a good local member. These three grants are all appropriate,\u201d he\u2019d said.<\/p>\n In a 2SM radio interview on Wednesday, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said it was telling that the PM\u2019s admission only came after intense scrutiny.<\/p>\n \u201cThis guy cannot admit that he got it wrong and it gives you a huge insight into this Prime Minister and his character,\u201d Mr Taylor said.<\/p>\n \u201cHis strategy is to dig in, refuse to admit any wrongdoing, arrogantly attack your opponents, which he did, and refuse to respond to people seeking answers to legitimate questions.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the problem with our country right now, with this Government.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Albanese\u2019s sewage saga has drawn more of his ministers into the muck, forced to defend their boss…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":943689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,84,85],"class_list":["post-943688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-politics","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=943688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}