Topic: Australian Federal Elections
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he was unaware he held an honorary membership to the Marrickville Golf Club. ( Instagram: lewis_cavoodle )
An undisclosed honorary membership to the Marrickville Golf Club given to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was actually worth $1,100, not $5 as Mr Albanese claimed.
The club's management also said the $6.05 million grant value was based on a "guesstimate" of what its proposed upgrades would cost.
An inquiry into the grants program under which the golf club was funded is continuing.
Marrickville Golf Club's management says the honorary membership it gifted Prime Minister Anthony Albanese granted full access, putting its worth over $1,000, far more than the $5 social membership Mr Albanese claimed he was conferred.
The club's management also admitted the $6.05 million grant it was awarded by Mr Albanese was never intended to fund sewerage fixes, which are being done under a separate NSW grant.
Earlier this month, Mr Albanese conceded he was wrong when he told the House of Representatives that the grant he had promised the Marrickville Golf Club at the 2025 election was to stop septic tank sewage flooding into the river.
"When it floods in Marrickville, raw sewage flows into the Cooks River. That is what the funding is for," Mr Albanese told the House of Representatives in September.
General manager Mathew Ward, however, said sewerage upgrades were never part of the federal grant.
"I think that's basically correct … we were very optimistic about the prospects of the [NSW] grant. Certainly that was one of the leading issues we brought to [Mr Albanese's] electorate office," he said.
"It was not ultimately part of what was funded with the $6.05 million."
Anthony Albanese promised the Marrickville Golf Club $6.05 million at the 2025 federal election. ( Supplied )
Mr Ward said the grant had come about after the club had approached Mr Albanese's electorate office with proposed fixes, and was invited in return to put forward other upgrade ideas it might have.
Mr Ward returned with a "bundle of ideas" in November 2024, which, beyond a $1 million stormwater harvesting upgrade, he said he had costed at $6.05 million based on "a bit of an educated guesstimate".
"[It was] purely my estimates based on a combination of my experience of renovations at golf clubs," Mr Ward said.
The general manager noted after the club had been invited to apply for that funding, it commissioned "very detailed" professional costings.
Mr Albanese made the claims in the chamber that the grant was for sewerage fixes under scrutiny over his undisclosed honorary membership, revealed by the ABC .
The prime minister said that same day the membership was worth just $5 for two years.
"If anyone wants to join what is affectionately known as Royal Marrickville, what they need for two years' membership is $5," Mr Albanese told the House of Representatives.
"I don't have a card, I don't go in there, I haven't been in there for years."
The club's management said it had three membership types: a social membership worth $5 for two years, golfing membership worth $1,100 a year and honorary membership, which grants all the rights of a golfing member.
The conferral of Mr Albanese's honorary membership also led to the creation of a golfing account for him in national handicapping service GOLF Link, now Golf Australia CONNECT.
The club's management said Mr Albanese's membership had been entered into its database without accompanying public notification or acknowledgement by the board at the time.
"Conventionally you only give it to people who never use it," Mr Ward joked.
The prime minister has received golfing lessons from the Marrickville Golf Club's head professional, but the club confirmed there were no entries under his honorary membership since it was granted in 2012.
Mr Albanese wrote to the golf club to formally decline his membership following the ABC's report.
