Audit Office confirms Alan Tudge directed commuter car parks 'marginals list'

Auditor-General Grant Hehir and ANAO executive director Brian Boyd confirmed then-infrastructure minister Alan Tudge directed staff to create a document referred to as the "top 20 marginals" list.

Mr Boyd said the list, sighted by the audit office, was developed within the minister's office and was started by asking a handful of Coalition MPs about "their infrastructure priorities".

"The minister asked his staff to start organising for meetings with, as he put it, particular named marginals," Mr Boyd said.

"The staff then developed what was essentially a key tasks list of things they were going to do."

It eventually grew to 29 electorates by its conclusion in April 2019 - a month before the federal election.

Mr Boyd noted the majority of canvassing was directed by Mr Tudge's office but the Prime Minister's office had also undertaken some for the fund.

Mr Tudge has previously denied any knowledge of the list in question.

Labor senator Katy Gallagher, who probed Finance Minister Simon Birmingham on grants rorts in a separate estimates hearing, said she did not believe Mr Tudge had no knowledge of the incident.

"The Prime Minister and his office oversee decisions about where all funding from these funds goes," Senator Gallagher said.

"The colour-coded spreadsheets and maps prove it - and ministers, like Minister Tudge, are rewarded for funnelling money into Coalition seats or target seats."

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Senator Gallagher launched at Senator Birmingham, claiming the federal government was using grants programs as political slush funds to win elections.

The Labor finance spokeswoman claimed 82 per cent of funding across five major grants programs, including the urban congestion fund went to Coalition or marginal seats.

That translates to $5.7 billion out of $6.7 billion across all the grant schemes.

"Is that the best value for the Australian community, or the best value for the Liberal Party?" Senator Gallagher said.

"We've got a trillion dollars in debt, deficits for as far as the eye can see..."

The Department of Finance said it had no oversight of the urban congestion fund, which currently has $890 million unallocated.

"The Department of Finance was not involved in providing any advice on project selection," deputy secretary Cath Patterson said in reference to the urban congestion fund.

Senator Gallagher responded by saying: "It was a damning audit".

"It is a fund, which has grown to $4 billion. The audit said it was not effective, not open or transparent and the distribution of projects were granted in a geographical and political way," she said.

Senator Birmingham said the government is following the ANAO's recommendations after it was delivered its report on the commuter car park scandal.

"We should always work within grant guidelines," he said.

"Where there are issues identified by the audit office, the government should respond to them and that is precisely what we are doing."

The funding for the commuter car parks scheme was allocated the night before the federal government entered caretaker mode at the last election.

The audit office's 104-page report into the program, released in June this year, found the process for choosing which proposals got the funding was not "demonstrably merit based".

More than three-quarters of commuter car park sites selected were in Coalition-held seats, with 64 per cent located in Melbourne.

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