An exclusive gun club with links to the Liberal MP Andrew Hastie was awarded three government grants worth a total of 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 electorate of Canning, has restrictive membership conditions and “over 300 active members”.
The conflict of interest declaration was contained in disclosures made under the Stronger Communities grant program obtained by Guardian Australia through freedom of information laws.
The declarations also show that the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, sought a grant for the Property Trust of the Anglican Church Diocese of Sydney in the 2025 round of the program, but was knocked back.
The grant was deemed ineligible by the department after Albanese declared a conflict; however, it is understood the conflict was not the reason the grant was deemed ineligible.
While the nature of the conflict is redacted, the diocese was the landlord for Albanese’s Marrickville electorate office, which is next door to its St Clements church and was closed in September.
The closure came after repeated protests at Albanese’s office, which he claimed was the reason for the church’s decision to discontinue the lease.
Ross Ciano, the senior minister at the church, told Guardian Australia he was not advised why the grant – which had been intended for internal renovations – was knocked back.
The prime minister’s office declined to comment.
In 2020, Guardian Australia reported that Hastie had allocated a $20,000 Stronger Communities grant to the Port Bouvard gun club for electrical work, but since then three further grants have been awarded in collaboration with his office, bringing the total to almost $40,000.
The club has received a total of four grants through Hastie’s office since he was elected, paid out across three separate government programs, all of which require direct input from the MP’s office.
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Each of the four grants has been awarded through programs that require the MP to either nominate or invite organisations 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.
Departmental guidelines for the program required each MP to identify potential applicants and projects, and invite them to apply. These were then assessed against the program’s eligibility criteria. A maximum of 12 projects in each electorate was eligible.
Just three months later, the club was awarded another grant – worth $4,350 – under the Stronger Communities program, which gives every MP in the House of Representatives a $150,000 envelope of funds to allocate to small capital projects in their electorates.
The stated purpose was to renovate the club’s entrance doorways, “to improve the usability and accessibility of the club and encourage further community participation”.
This year, the Port Bouvard club also received a volunteer grant, which guidelines state require nomination from each federal MP after consultation with a community committee.
In a statement to Guardian Australia, a spokesperson for Hastie said: “Grant recipients are chosen through an independent process not involving Mr Hastie, who has declared he is a patron of the club since 2018, as per the grant guidelines.”
For the Stronger Communities program, MPs invite community groups to submit an expression of interest for a grant, which are then assessed by a community consultation committee that has been set up by the MP.
All nominations are then assessed by the department against the eligibility criteria.
The documents show that about 30 MPs declared potential conflicts of interest in the most recent round of the Stronger Communities program, with many listing themselves as patron of successful clubs.
Only three grants were deemed ineligible: Albanese’s; an application by the Labor MP Zaneta Mascarenhas for the Curtin Student Guild in Perth; and an application from Labor’s Anne Stanley for a grant to the Prestons Hornets Cricket Club in Sydney’s south-west.
The nature of their declared conflicts is redacted, but Mascarenhas is a former president of the Guild, while Stanley is the cricket club’s patron.
The department of infrastructure was unable to say why these grants were deemed ineligible.
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