‘Unsuitable’ projects approved for community safety grants after ministerial visits, auditor general says

The Coalition used its $187m safer communities grants program to fund at least 10 projects that had been deemed "unsuitable" by the department after the project applicants were visited in person by Peter Dutton's assistant minister, Jason Wood.

An auditor general's report into the program released on Monday also revealed that decisions to award grants against the recommendations of the department had been influenced by the lobbying of MPs and senators. It raised concerns about applicants having direct access to decision-makers.

The audit, which found the program favoured Coalition-held seats in the lead-up to the last election, is critical of how grants were awarded with more than half delivered without a "clear basis for the decision".

Over five rounds of the program - which fell under the responsibility of Dutton as then home affairs minister - 225 applications were awarded funding worth $47.9m against the recommendations of the department.

Of these, 23 projects worth a combined $7m were "assessed as either ineligible or unsuitable".

According to the audit, nine "unsuitable" applications were approved for a combined $3m of grant funding in round four of the program, which was opened just before the 2019 election, with five of these decisions being "informed by a visit by the minister during the assessment process".

"However, the records did not explain how the information obtained during the visit had impacted upon how well each application was considered to have performed against the published merit criteria," the audit stated.