The Senate is probing the contentious Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program, including a $6 million grant to the Marrickville Golf Club in Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's electorate.
The program funded dozens of projects, typically sports facilities, cycleways or park upgrades, on an invite-only basis.
Good governance groups, including the Centre for Public Integrity, say this happened without a proper merit-based assessment process.
Analysis shows the half-billion-dollar fund skewed payments toward Labor-held and marginal seats, with almost a third of Australian electorates missing out on any funding.
Three projects in Mr Albanese's electorate of Grayndler were shoulder-tapped to apply and receive funding, including the golf club.
The Greens hoped to question the prime minister and Infrastructure Minister Catherine King about any role they might have had in selecting projects for funding, but both declined invitations.
Representatives of Marrickville Golf Club also won't appear before the senators, with president Andrew Tighe telling AAP "the club isn't appearing because we are too busy with other business".
Opposition senators Bridget McKenzie and Paul Scarr said confidentiality clauses in the funding program guidelines acted as non-disclosure clauses preventing transparency on the scheme.
Centre for Public Integrity director Geoffrey Watson said if enforced, the non-disclosure clauses would be another inappropriate element of the scheme.
"If there are NDAs being requested and provided by people who are getting public money, then that is just appalling," he said.
The government has defended the scheme as an above-board way to meet commitments made during the 2025 election campaign.
Constitutional lawyer Anne Twomey, appearing before a hearing on Wednesday, called the spending "grey corruption" which sits in between a proper process and full-blown misuse of taxpayer funding.
Professor Twomey said without a competitive process, projects appeared to be funded for "a party political purpose" and "not for the need or merit of the community".
While ministers did not appear, bureaucrats will be grilled on Thursday, with the committee hoping to learn who decided which projects would receive funding and why.
Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne, whose council sponsored the Marrickville Golf Club application, said the upgrade was worthy but he was not involved in its selection for federal funding.
"The club has been advocating for funding to renovate the clubhouse, which is essentially a fibro shack, for close to a decade," he said.
"It's, I think, the lowest cost and most accessible golf course in Australia.
"When people say Royal Marrickville, that's a joke because it's such a working-class institution."
Mr Byrne could not say whether the club was on a council priority list for investment.
Mr Albanese has a history of advocacy for the par-60 course, including three times promising to fund an upgraded verandah if elected in 2013, 2016 and 2019.
While that funding didn't transpire as Labor lost those elections, by the 2025 campaign, the pledge had morphed into a multimillion-dollar renovation of the clubhouse and grounds.
Mr Albanese defended the funding as necessary to stop sewage during flooding, however the golf course funding plans do not show this as part of the redevelopment.
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