Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I thank member for Parramatta for her question. There has been some commentary today about how the funding for the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure program matches up to the political balance in the House of Representatives. I must say I was surprised by some of the commentary because it simply does not stack up to analysis. Indeed, Labor members of parliament—those fine men and women on this side of the chamber—make up some 55 per cent of the House of Representatives. We, the electorates represented by the fine men and women here, got 53 per cent of the funding for the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure program.

It was also claimed that marginal electorates received a disproportionate amount of the funding. Marginal seats, measured by the standard measure of a margin of less than five per cent, make up a third of the seats in this parliament. They received less than a quarter of the funding under this program. By comparison, safe electorates—the standard measure is a margin of more than 10 per cent—make up 35 per cent of this parliament. They received 41 per cent of the funding. Indeed, one of the comments that came from local governments as a result of this program, whether in safe Labor seats or safe Liberal seats, was that it was the first time that the government had recognised that you should not have to be in a marginal seat to get funding from the Commonwealth government. Certainly the Mayor of Mosman was very vocal about that, as were the Mayor of Warringah, the Mayor of Ku-ring-gai and a number of the mayors represented opposite.

The other statement that was made was a claim that funding went disproportionately to Labor heartland seats. Well, safe Labor seats, as measured, received an average of $3.5 million. Safe non-Labor seats received an average of $6.1 million across the program. The great benefit of this program was not that bureaucrats sat down and made decisions; it was that local government made applications as a result of their priorities that they determined as local representatives. Indeed, every single local government area in the country—all 565—benefited from at least $100,000 of the funding under the first component.

But let us look at the top 10 projects—and I am glad the Prime Minister selects the frontbench now, because I am not sure I am doing myself some favours with the caucus! Of the top 10 projects, the first is Gold Coast Stadium in Moncrieff, a Liberal electorate—$36 million. Do you support that funding or not? Do you support it? I think the member for Moncrieff supports that project.

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