A lack of government-held marginal seats in Victoria may have cost the state billions in Commonwealth grants for infrastructure projects in the 2016 federal budget.

While Victoria will collect about $1.5 billion to develop new transport projects, its overall funding is dwarfed in Scott Morrison’s maiden budget by the mega-cash flowing to NSW and Queensland.

The Turnbull government will spend almost $6 billion on new roads across Australia in 2016/17. Victoria is earmarked to receive only about $600 million of the pie.

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NSW will rake in about half of the Commonwealth’s spending on roads, receiving about $2.5 billion, while Queensland will harvest more than $1.6 billion.

Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas hit out at the infrastructure program, claiming his state was “forgotten” by Canberra because of politics.

“When it comes to infrastructure funding, under Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison, Victoria is once again the state the nation forgot,” Mr Pallas told The New Daily.

“This is a budget that’s focused on the electoral map and not on what is in the best interests of Victoria.”

Victoria also came up fourth-best on supplementary infrastructure spending by the federal government. 

While Queensland and WA will rake in more than $200 million each in extra funding for economic infrastructure, only $51 million has been doled out to Victoria.

Queensland and WA are in line to win billions in extra Commonwealth funding over the next four years as the Turnbull government accelerates the rollout of its plan to develop the northern Australian economy, known as the Our North, Our Future policy.

Marginal seats drive funding

Politics appears to be a big factor behind Victoria’s paltry allocation on infrastructure funding.

At the forthcoming election, the Turnbull government’s fate is likely to hinge on the voting patterns in NSW and Queensland where most of its marginal seats are located.

Labor requires about 18 seats to form a government in its own right, which could happen if there was a uniform national swing of four per cent.

However, Victoria only has one Coalition seat – Corangamite – that would fall to the Opposition if the swing came within that range.

In stark contrast, the government holds eight seats in NSW that would be picked up by the ALP, with a uniform swing in the order of four per cent.

Turnbull’s authority within the party

As noted previously in The New Daily, there could be yet another factor driving the government’s decisions on infrastructure spending.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s support base within the parliamentary Liberal party is heavily weighted to lower house MPs who hold the Coalition’s most marginal seats.

Because most of those members are in NSW and Queensland, a cynic might surmise that the government has used the budget to pork-barrel their constituents.