Albanese admits golf club grant was not for sewage works as he had told parliament

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has acknowledged he was wrong when he told parliament that a $6m grant to a golf club in his electorate would stop "raw sewage" flowing into a nearby river.

The grant to Marrickville golf club, in Sydney's inner-west, is being examined as part of a larger $560m invitation-only grants scheme. Transparency advocates say the scheme largely paid for projects that were promised at the 2025 election in seats held by Labor.

At a Senate estimates hearing on Monday afternoon, infrastructure department officials contradicted the prime minister's account. "I can confirm that sewerage is not a component of this grant," said the department's assistant secretary, Jacinta McDonald.

The matter was first reported by the ABC. Albanese holds honorary social membership at the club. He has rejected suggestions that he influenced the decision or benefited from it, noting that it was signed off by another minister.

In question time in early September, Albanese told the house the money would fund "an environmental project stopping raw sewage going into the Cooks River during flooding". In another answer about his role in the process, he said the club had existed for almost 100 years and had a septic tank because it sits on a floodplain. When Marrickville floods, he said, raw sewage flows into the river, and "that is what the funding is for".

The opposition pressed the prime minister repeatedly on the grant in question time on Tuesday afternoon. The shadow energy minister, Dan Tehan, accused Albanese of misleading parliament and urged him to correct the record.

Albanese responded that "it was not correct" to say the funding was for sewerage works. He said the details were a matter for the infrastructure department and that the council was finalising the project design, which includes improvements to the clubhouse, stormwater harvesting, a new toilet and landscaping.

He said the New South Wales government committed in September 2025 to address sewerage infrastructure at the club. "The [federal] funding was going to be for sewerage. The New South Wales government have stepped in, which is appropriate given that New South Wales run water and sewerage," he said. He also noted that the club is council-owned and that its last major remodel was in 1947, according to the media release announcing the project.

Assistant education minister Anthony Chisholm defended the prime minister's earlier statements at the estimates hearing. He said sewerage was part of the original plan, but that the scope of such announcements can change, and that his understanding was that the NSW government had stepped in to support the sewerage work.