House debates Questions without Notice
Growing Regions Program
Darren Chester Gippsland, National Party
2:32 pm
My question is to the Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories, and the member for Eden-Monaro. I refer to the minister for transport's admission yesterday that the Growing Regions Program funding guidelines haven't been finalised in the 10 months since the federal election. Does the minister for local government agree that Labor's failure to deliver this program in a timely manner means that local councils will be forced to build less with the funding when it's finally provided?
Kevin Hogan Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism
The protection racket continues!
Milton Dick Speaker
Order! The member for Page! Can I hear from the Leader of the House?
Mr Tony Burke Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations
It's just in terms of the minister it's directed to. By definition, in the way that question was framed, he went through the minister responsible and then directed the question somewhere else.
Paul Fletcher Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy
The question was directed to the minister for local government, and she has portfolio responsibility. We ought to hear from her.
Milton Dick Speaker
It was directed to the minister for local government, so I call the minister for local government.
Kristy McBain Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories
2:34 pm
Thank you very much for the question. There is no doubt that it is incredibly important for our local councils to have certainty. I think what happened over the last 10 years is that there was no certainty because those opposite needed a colour coded spreadsheet to actually deal with any applications from councils. We have 546 local councils across the country. What we saw was councils spending time and money applying for grants and they were never assessed on their merits because you guys needed a colour coded spreadsheet. You know that councils have limited budgets, and what you did to them was put them through a process where they expended money, they expended ratepayers money, expecting they'd have a fair and transparent process and you never delivered one.
Honourable members interj ecting—
Milton Dick Speaker
Order! The minister will resume her seat.
The member for Barker, I'm trying to hear from the Leader of the Opposition on a point of order!
Peter Dutton Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition
Mr Speaker, on relevance. Firstly, thank you for allowing this minister to speak. It's a great insight.
Peter Dutton Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition
It refers to the minister's admission yesterday that the Growing Regions Program funding guidelines haven't been finalised for 10 months. Can she please go to that part of the question?
Milton Dick Speaker
Resume your seat.
Honourable members interjecting—
Order! The question was directed to the minister for local government. She's answering the question. She's had a preamble. I'm going to ask her to—
Opposition members interjecting—
Order, members on my left! I'm going to give her the call in continuation.
Kristy McBain Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories
Thank you, Mr Speaker. It's incredibly important that we engage local councils. What we've done, the first time ever, is we've actually invited local government associations, we've invited local councils to have input into the guidelines.
Kristy McBain Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories
We take collaboration with our local government sector seriously. This is a program that was announced in October, because those opposite rorted the Building Better Regions Fund so much that the whole program became tainted. We've announced $1 billion over three years in two specific programs. We've consulted with local government. We are working with them because they are a trusted delivery partner of our federal government.