The Morrison government has promised to spend almost $8m every hour since the election campaign began, pledging more than $7.5bn for projects across the country in its bid to remain in power.
Labor, for its part, has pledged about $5bn over the past six weeks, or about $5m an hour, with both major parties overwhelmingly focused on marginal seat contests that will determine the election outcome.
In the past week alone, the Coalition has pledged $1.5bn to marginal electorates, compared to Labor’s $650m, with both targeting more than half of their promised funding in electorates held by the opposing side.
About 77% of Labor’s local election commitments – those that target single electorates – have been made to people living in marginal seats, totalling $1.4bn, compared to about 66%, or $2.5bn, of the Coalition’s spend. Both sides are favouring marginal seats disproportionately, with these electorates making up just 32% of all seats nationally.
The Coalition’s most splurged on seats in the past six weeks are Eden-Monaro, Gilmore and Bennelong, while the top three Labor seats during the campaign are Leichhardt, Swan and Lingiari.
A Guardian Australia analysis of the campaign spending splurge shows the figures are even higher when commitments made since the beginning of the year are factored in, with a combined total of $43bn pledged by the major parties since 1 January, with almost $8bn of that promised to marginal electorates.
People living in the crucial swing states of Tasmania and Queensland are also disproportionately benefitting from the spending pledges, with the major parties clearly funnelling dollars into some states at the expense of others.
The Labor party’s election promises in Tasmania account for 18% of their total spending since the campaign kicked off on 11 April, while the island state only has 2.1% of Australia’s population.
Labor is hoping to win the seats of Bass and Braddon in Tasmania from the Coalition, and has stepped up its spending in the past week in the two seats, pledging funding for a dozen individual projects at a cost of about $30m.
In total, Labor has pledged $45m to electorate specific projects in Bass, and $37m to projects in Braddon since the start of the campaign, compared to the $97m the Coalition has promised in Bass and $60m in Braddon.
Similarly, the Coalition’s spending in the Northern Territory accounts for 20.7% of their spending, while the Territory has only 1% of Australia’s population.
The government has been throwing resources at the NT seat of Lingiari in the hope it can be flipped from the Labor party, spending more than $200m since the beginning of the year on local projects, along with territory-wide commitments that have been spearheaded by Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce.
Labor has been spending defensively in the seat, also promising $178m worth of projects to Lingiari which is being vacated by long-serving Labor MP Warren Snowdon.
Victoria has the biggest “underspend” compared to its population share. The state is home to 25% of the population yet the Coalition has only pledged 9.4% of its election spending there, while Labor has promised just 4.3%.
The parties are each targeting electorates held by the other in Victoria, with Labor hopeful of winning Chisholm and Higgins, and the Coalition targeting Corangamite and McEwen.
But the combined spend from both major parties in the state is the lowest of all states and territories bar the ACT, attracting just $926m of the total $12bn spend, about $700m from the Coalition and $200m from Labor.
Overall, Labor has promised 40% of its election spending to Queensland, where it is hoping to win up to three seats, compared to 24% of the Coalition’s spend, and its population share of 20.4%.
During the campaign, the two parties have each pledged about $2bn to projects in Queensland, focused on the marginal seats of Leichhardt, Flynn and Longman, with the state topping the list of election commitments for Labor, and behind New South Wales for the Coalition.
In the past week, the Coalition has boosted its spending in the marginal seats of Eden-Monaro and Bennelong in NSW, and Longman and Flynn in Queensland.
For Labor, its focus in the final days of the campaign has been projects in the seat of Leichhardt in Queensland, Swan in WA, the independent held seat of Clark in Hobart, and a last-minute flurry in the western Sydney seat of Greenway.
The total count of the Coalition and Labor’s election promises since the start of the campaign is more than 1,000, most of which are announced through the social media pages of MPs and candidates.
The total amount promised by the Coalition for both electorate-only and statewide projects since the start of the campaign is $7.5bn, compared to $4.9bn for Labor.
This equates to the Coalition spending $189m every day of the 40-day campaign, and Labor spending $122m.
