Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

On 9 December 2013, the responsible minister wrote to all mayors throughout Australia advising of the government's decision. It is unfortunate, but the money is just not there. RDAF was designed by the former government as a $952 million seven-year program to run from 2011-12 through to 2017-18. Two and a quarter years on, from July 2011 to the election on 7 September last year, Labor had promised all but $35 million of that RDAF funding, so 97 per cent of the money had already been promised based on this false premise that the MRRT was going to produce these wonderful rivers of wealth, which we all know did not happen.

I share your disappointment about your school library and about the local government areas in your electorate. Mind you, you would have benefited from one of the RDAF rounds, because they transformed it from being regional—and I view 'regional' as meaning part of Dawson, Riverina or one of those other good bush or country electorates, not peri-urban electorates. Labor mysteriously and miraculously, as they had a wont to do, changed the rules. Last year the member for Hotham, Simon Crean, the former minister for regional development, tried to make the Gillard government fess up to all their sins and lost his job over it. Then the member for Grayndler, Anthony Albanese, took over and he announced this funding on 19 June, and I welcomed it—$3.2 million for Riverina. More than 500 local government areas throughout Australia were going to benefit from it. But, just weeks on from the member for Grayndler taking over as the minister, we had Catherine King, the member for Ballarat, taking over. It was just shuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic.

That goes to show the lack of respect that Labor had for regional areas and for the really important funding announcements that were so needed, like the library in Lalor, Post School Options in Griffith in my electorate, the Khancoban Swimming Pool, the Griffith Regional Theatre and the Roxy Community Theatre at Leeton—all worthwhile projects. A lot of my local government areas put all the money into one funding bucket and some others had different projects, such as Tumbarumba Shire, but they all really needed that money. But the money was never there, because the MRRT gained only a fraction of what Labor thought it might.

Labor knew they would never have to deliver on their promises. That is why they sent Catherine King, the member for Ballarat, around just days out from the election promising this, that and everything else, particularly in National Party electorates. It is really galling to some of those small volunteer groups and vulnerable people to think that they were going to get something that was based on a false premise, and that is the MRRT. It was typical Labor spin.

See this speech in context