Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Services, Local Communities and Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I am happy to facilitate the ongoing debate about this by withdrawing that comment. As the minister responsible for many of the issues you have raised, I am very happy to discuss them. I am really disappointed that the shadow minister for this area does not seem to understand what regional development is about. There are many people—like me, like the member opposite and like the many regional members who have come here today—who live in what are classified as regional or provincial cities. But that is not the sole definition of regional development. It never has been. It has not been the sole definition across the entire history of academic work in regional development. There are regions in capital cities, there are regions in outer metropolitan areas, there are regions in and around provincial cities and there are regions in and around rural towns. The RDA network we have developed was in fact based on the previous government's area consultative committee councils. Are you telling me that you had no area consultative committee councils in city areas?

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