Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

Under the new Building Better Regions Fund, compared to the previous National Stronger Regions Fund, major capital cities will no longer be able to apply for funding. This is going to be a regional program for regional communities. In the knowledge that many of our rural regional and remote communities occasionally face hardship and challenges, for the first time, there is going to be capacity for exemption for the requirement for co-funding. This is very important for our local rural, regional and remote communities who do on occasion not have the ability to have that co-funding. While I expect this will be very rare, there will be, for the first time, opportunity for those communities to access in partnership funding with government to drive their futures in their regions for a stronger regional Australia.