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

I will briefly cover a couple of points. Firstly, I want to acknowledge that you have pointed to funding under Regional Development Australia round 3 that was in your electorate. I am happy that that project has been widely welcomed in your electorate, as it has been across the 79 project areas that were funded under that. I think that round has been a very good round and some good lessons were learned about the importance of supporting smaller rural communities as part of that. I know members here also had a number of projects in their own electorates that have been important as well.

The member for Maranoa, a good representative of regional Australia, got four projects under round 3 in his electorate—with three projects totalling $1.2 million. I was very disappointed that I did not get, 'Yes, that's fantastic; we got three projects' and all I got, 'Where's my fourth?' I have to say that was very disappointing. I heard him on ABC regional radio bemoaning the fact that the fourth project did not get up. He was saying, 'I don't just want the three projects; I want more and I'm disappointed.' He also said that it was a rort and everything had gone down the eastern seaboard. Frankly, I was disappointed that he called it a rort in the sense that he got three projects and not four.

In terms of the questions asked around RDAF 4, we have made decisions on that round. They will be announced over the course of the next month and I am looking forward to visiting many communities across the country to announce those projects. I was very pleased to announce the project in Werribee, which we discussed briefly before. Another project that we announced was in Sydney. Again, this is a very important arts and cultural precinct, which will be very important for that region. I know that it will make a substantial difference there. Also, a project that was announced in my own electorate, in Ballarat, was a regional soccer facility. Another very important project was announced in the member for Corangamite's electorate, not in my electorate, which I am sure he will have much to say about.

In reference to the sports questions, all of those issues were substantially covered in Senate estimates; they were discussed in quite a lot of detail. There were a number of hours of debate on them. So I say to the member for Cowper that the Senate estimates really did cover all of those questions.

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