An exclusive gun club linked to Liberal MP Andrew Hastie has been awarded three government grants totaling almost $20,000 after being nominated by his office.
Hastie has declared a conflict of interest with the Port Bouvard Pistol and Small Bore Rifle Club. He is a patron, and has competed there at least twice.
The club, based in Dawesville, in Hastie’s Western Australian constituency of Canning, has restrictive membership terms, an annual membership fee of more than $1,500 and “over 300 active members”.
The disclosures, made under the Strong Communities Grants Program, received by Guardian Australia through freedom of information laws, included a declaration of conflict of interest.
The announcements also revealed that the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, had sought a grant for the Anglican Church Diocese of Sydney’s Property Trust in the 2025 round of the programme, but was turned away.
The grant was deemed ineligible by the department after Albanese declared conflict; However, it is understood that the conflict was not the reason for the grant being considered ineligible.
While the nature of the conflict has been amended, the diocese was the landlord of Albanese’s Marrickville electorate office, which is next to its St Clement’s Church and was closed in September.
The closure followed repeated protests at Albanese’s office, which he claimed was the reason the church decided to discontinue the lease.
The church’s senior minister, Ross Siano, told Guardian Australia that he was not advised why the grant – which was for internal renovations – was withdrawn.
The Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment.
In 2020, Guardian Australia reported that Hastie had allocated a Strong Communities Grant of $20,000 to the Port Bouvard Gun Club for electrical work, but three further grants have since been awarded with the support of her office, bringing the total to approximately $40,000.
Since Hastie was elected the club has received a total of four grants from her office, paid for in three different government programs, all of which require direct input from the MP’s office.
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Each of the four grants are awarded through programs that require MPs to nominate or invite organizations to apply before they are assessed by the department.
In November 2021, the club received $5,000 under the government’s Powering Communities program for the installation of solar panels.
Each MP must identify potential applicants and projects and invite them to apply as per departmental guidelines for the programme. These were then evaluated as per the eligibility criteria of the programme. A maximum of 12 projects were eligible in each voter.
Just three months later, the club was awarded another grant of $4,350 under the Strong Communities Program, which gives each MP in the House of Representatives a sum of $150,000 to allocate to small capital projects in their constituencies.
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The stated aim was to refurbish the club’s entrances, “to improve the usefulness and accessibility of the club and encourage further community involvement”.
This year, the Port Bouvard Club also received a volunteer grant, the guidelines of which require a nomination from each federal MP after consultation with the community committee.
In a statement to Guardian Australia, a spokesperson for Hastie said: “Grant recipients are selected through an independent process that does not involve Mr Hastie, who has declared that he has been a patron of the club since 2018 in accordance with the grant guidelines.”
For the Strong Communities Programme, MPs invite community groups to submit expressions of interest for grants, which are assessed by a Community Advisory Committee established by the MP.
All nominations are evaluated by the Department as per the eligibility criteria.
Nearly 30 MPs declared potential conflicts of interest in the most recent round of the Stronger Communities programme, documents show, with many of them listing themselves as patrons of successful clubs.
Only three grants were considered ineligible: Albanese; An application by Labor MP Zanetta Mascarenhas to the Curtin Student Guild in Perth; and an application from Labor’s Anne Stanley for a grant to the Preston Hornets Cricket Club in Sydney’s south-west.
The nature of their stated conflicts has been modified, but Mascarenhas is a former president of the guild, while Stanley is a patron of the cricket club.
The Department of Infrastructure was unable to explain why these grants were deemed ineligible.
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