Clayton Barr says grants handed out before the last election was blatant pork barreling by then Arts Minister Don Harwin and Deputy Premier John Barilaro who ignored expert recommendations and used the 94% of the $47 million in Coalition Seats. Cessnock Performing Arts Centre (CPAC) sought $118,700 to convert its lighting to a more energy efficient LED system- assessors ranked this project extremely high. According to the documents, the project was ranked 13th out of a possible 159 applications however the council-owned venue missed out on a grant to update their lighting to LED not because of the meritoriousness of the...