‘I Don’t Play Golf’: Albanese Defends $6 Million Grant to Local Golf Club

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has defended a $6 million grant awarded to the Marrickville Golf Club in his Sydney electorate, after it emerged he held an undeclared honorary membership of the club.

Albanese told Parliament on Sept. 9 that he does not play golf, does not have a membership card, and had not knowingly used the honorary membership, which he said he was advised he had received in 2012.

“I don’t have a card. I don’t go to the club,” Albanese said.

“ In 2012, I’d been advised that I got honorary membership, someone made a decision.

“The fact is that in 2012, they said ‘You’re an honorary member.’ I never got anything, I don’t use the facilities, I don’t do anything whatsoever for it.”

The $6.05 million grant was originally promised to the golf club, located in his electorate of Grayndler in Sydney’s inner west, ahead of the 2025 federal election, under an invitation-only scheme.

The funding has come under scrutiny because Albanese’s honorary membership was not listed on his parliamentary register of interests.

Albanese has previously spoken publicly about his longstanding connection to the club. In 2019, he joined a campaign opposing a proposal to halve its 18-hole course, and at the time said he had been coming to the club for decades.

Albanese has defended the grant on the grounds that the funds will fix ageing infrastructure that can lead to raw sewage entering the Cooks River during heavy rain.

“I make no apologies for my electorate being serviced by me as a good local member. These three grants are all appropriate,” Albanese told the ABC.

The funding comes from the government’s $560 million Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program. Analysis from the Centre for Public Integrity found this grants program heavily favoured Labor-held seats.

“When approximately three-quarters of a $560 million community grants program goes to the government’s own electorates, serious questions have to be asked,” Chair of the Centre for Public Integrity Anthony Whealy said on Sept. 8.