Sports Grants and the Political Pork Barrel: An Investigation of Political Bias in the Administration of Australian Sports Grants

The Australian federal Labor government initiated and administered over a period of four years a Community Cultural, Recreational and Sporting Facilities Program, supposedly with priority funding to disadvantaged groups. This program has recently been the subject of considerable public controversy with allegations of maladministration and political bias. This paper examines the program for objective evidence of political bias and finds that priority funding appears to have gone to government-held marginal electorates rather than disadvantaged groups. While first acknowledging the normal scientific caveat that absolute proof is not possible, the results here are strongly suggestive of political bias in the allocation of funds and supportive of the pork-barrelling hypothesis.     

MOLECULAR AND ISOTOPIC DEMONSTRATION OF THE PROCESSING OF AQUATIC PRODUCTS IN NORTHERN EUROPEAN PREHISTORIC POTTERY*

A number of charred surface residues, adhering to ceramic containers, were obtained from various coastal and inland sites in north‐west Europe dating from the sixth to the fourth millennium cal bc . In order to investigate the use of these vessels and in particular to identify any marine products, the residues were subjected to carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis. Variation in carbon isotope ratios between different samples indicated that some vessels may have been used to process marine products. This analysis was corroborated by specific identification of aquatic products following structural and isotopic characterization of lipids extracted from selected samples.