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Partisan Pork‐Barrel, Independents and Electoral Advantage: Australia's Regional Partnerships Program in 2004
Author(s) -
Denemark David
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
australian journal of politics and history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.123
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-8497
pISSN - 0004-9522
DOI - 10.1111/ajph.12076
Subject(s) - credibility , victory , barrel (horology) , government (linguistics) , political science , politics , public administration , political economy , economics , law , geography , archaeology , linguistics , philosophy
This article, building on previous research into earlier Australian pork‐barrel schemes, uses data from Australia's Regional Partnerships Program (RPP), and its apportioning of $104 million in constituency‐level grants in 2003–4, to explore the distinctive logic of parliamentary pork‐barrel politics. Results show that the Liberal‐Nationals Coalition's distribution of these funds was consistent with three electoral priorities — to reward its own MPs and show voters that the government “can deliver”; to provide vote‐winning assets in the Coalition's most marginal seats, where even small vote gain can make the difference between victory and defeat; and to try to re‐establish its credibility at the local level in regional seats that had proven vulnerable to inroads made by Independent candidates.