Alison Penfold (Lyne, National Party) | Hansard source

I'm incredibly disappointed at the last speaker's attempt to try and justify this government's support of councils. As the Deputy Chair of the Regional Development, Infrastructure and Transport Committee, who's participating in an inquiry on the financial sustainability of local government, let me say that local governments are, frankly, sick and tired of the political arguments. They are responsible for a third of this nation's public infrastructure. They're responsible for delivering and supporting liveable communities.

As someone who represents a regional community, one that was smashed by a disaster just over 12 months ago, I think the days of trying to score political points around who's funding our local government more over the years—frankly, right now, what we're hearing from local governments is they just don't have enough funding. It's no use standing here and saying, 'We're delivering more than the coalition.' If you listen to what local governments are saying, they're genuinely wanting to deliver real upgrades in community infrastructure: roads, bridges, community facilities and sporting facilities. They just want government to stop. They want parliament to listen to their needs. They're here in their droves over the course of this week, debating these issues. This is a serious problem. This is a crisis of federation. When we're dealing with something of this order, what we need is less of the politics, more of the active listening and more of the consideration of how we support our local communities—how I, and how we all get together and support communities.

I have five local councils across the Lyne electorate: Port Macquarie-Hastings Council, Mid-Coast Council, Dungog Shire Council, Maitland City Council and Port Stephens Council. They are all trying their hardest to make sure that the citizens, the ratepayers in their communities, have the support, have the facilities and have the roads that they deserve and they expect. They play such an important role as the tier of government closest to the people.

Councils are raising a number of issues in the context of the inquiry. Concerns include cost shifting, where more federal and state responsibilities like aged care, GP care and child care are being pushed onto local government without the funding required to deliver them. They're also raising concerns about aging infrastructure and workforce shortages. And they're raising concerns about a disaster funding system that too often rebuilds assets to yesterday's standards.

We've had many councils appear and talk about the challenges they have in securing betterment funding. Indeed, in my own electorate, where the bike bridge has been completely washed out as a result of the May floods, the council there cannot get betterment funding to raise the height of the bridge. They can build the bridge back at the same height to a better engineering standard, but that still puts it in frame for a one-in-100-year flood, which means that Wingham and communities such as Tinonee and surrounding areas are disconnected from schools, GPs, pharmacies and their workplaces. This is why betterment funding matters. In terms of the Lyne electorate, the Prime Minister came and said the May flood was due to climate change. Well, if that's the case, that's a stronger argument for betterment funding. Yet what do we see? No funding for betterment.

The other issue that's been raised, of course, is the issue of financial assistance grants. The fact of the matter is that there was a promise to move towards one per cent. That was a promise that the minister for local government made. And yet, in this budget, we see it at 0.49 per cent. Now, I don't want to play politics. We all need to do better at ensuring that our local governments have financial sustainability. We can't call them a tier of government and not give them the financial autonomy that they need to deliver the services for their communities. I commend this motion.

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