The latest update from South Australia’s anti-corruption watchdog barely made a ripple.
But a much bigger wave might be coming, as the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) evaluates grants administration.
So what do we know about what Commissioner Ann Vanstone is looking at? And why should you be paying attention?
What’s going on?
An eight-line statement, without any bombshell findings or revelations, was never going to generate too much excitement.
But Ms Vanstone’s update, released on Monday, gave fresh details about her examination of an often-controversial area of government spending.
Since January, SA’s ICAC has been evaluating the “practices, policies and procedures” surrounding government grants — an area Ms Vanstone described at the time as “vulnerable to corruption”.
Ms Vanstone warned without “robust processes and supervision”, grants programs can be exploited by the public officers charged with rolling them out and by recipients themselves.
She pointedly mentioned in her initial public statement grants distribution involves “significant sums of public money” which can support business and innovation, provide emergency relief, aid projects and enrich communities.
What sparked this?
Both sides of politics regularly accuse each other of using grant processes to “pork barrel” — where taxpayer funds are channelled to places that are politically advantageous for a government.
And in South Australia, concerns have been raised about how successive governments have handled grants by the state’s independent financial watchdog — the auditor-general.
Andrew Richardson found the Peter Malinauskas-led Labor government did not use the usual public sector assessment processes when assessing more than $130 million in grants to pay for election promises.
Under Steven Marshall’s former Liberal government, he raised transparency concerns around how two grants were allocated through the Regional Growth Fund.
What’s happened with the evaluation so far?
As it turns out, quite a bit in the background.
And there have been significant changes in how the probe is being handled.
Instead of one set of findings being handed to parliament, an unknown number of “discrete” reports will now be completed.
Ms Vanstone has already found “variations” in how grant programs were rolled out, even in one agency.
She said there were arrangements that “span open competitive and merit based” schemes through to “strategically targeted invitation only programs and ad hoc grants”.
Ms Vanstone revealed the volume of grants administered “exceeded our expectations” when it came to the forms they took and how complex they were.
Due to that, the evaluation will be done in stages.
So, who’s in stage one?
The Department of Trade and Investment and the Department for Industry, Innovation and Science, specifically the chief executives of both departments and how they administer grants.
Ms Vanstone says she will be looking at the administration of “commercial, investment, research and entrepreneurial” grant programs.
“These schemes, which are aimed at attracted investment and encouraging commercial opportunity to the state, are at risk of corruption because they involved significant financial incentives,” she said.
Minister for Trade and Investment Nick Champion said the department had a very large grants program and he expected his chief executive to “co-operate fully” with the evaluation.
“We’ll assist ICAC with their overview of the department’s grants. I think that’s an important thing,” he said on Tuesday.
Who could be next?
While not critical of the actions taken by the departments, the auditor-general’s attention last year focused concerns about grants issued through two agencies to fund Labor’s 2022 election promises.
They were the Office of Recreation, Sport and Racing, and the Department for Infrastructure and Transport.
Other areas of interest could include the Department of Treasury and Finance, which was responsible for distributing grants and business support throughout the height of the pandemic, the Department of Premier and Cabinet and the Department of Primary Industries and Regions — the agency that was in charge of the Regional Growth Fund.
Why is this an evaluation and not an investigation?
To put it simply, one reason is because SA’s parliament decided to take away a big chunk of ICAC’s powers.
Laws passed unanimously in 2021 made it that Ms Vanstone’s office can no longer initiate a corruption investigation.
ICAC also cannot investigate maladministration or misconduct and there are tighter limits on the corruption offences it can investigate.
But the watchdog still has the ability to start an evaluation of practices, policies and procedures, to try to minimise the risk of corruption.
If conduct is discovered during an evaluation which requires investigation, that can still happen.
Why does all this matter?
Independent scrutiny of grants can turn into a prickly issue for governments.
The so-called “sports rorts” saga became a sizeable political headache for Scott Morrison’s federal government, after findings that grant money had been funnelled towards marginal seats the Coalition was targeting — without appropriate assessments.
A similar scandal was also problematic for Labor in federal parliament during the 1990s.
Whether this ICAC probe causes similar troubles in South Australia may only be known deeper into Ms Vanstone’s evaluation, or if it emerges the state’s ombudsman is looking at any issues surrounding maladministration of grants.
But given the political history around the issue, there might be some nerves on North Terrace as ICAC’s work ramps up.