Damian Drum (Murray, National Party, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I want to applaud Mr Falinski's motives for bringing this motion forward. It's a very important role that local governments play in all of our electorates. I have five in my electorate but, in a previous life as a state member, I had a very strong connection to 48 regional councils around the state of Victoria. We were able to work with each of those councils to assist them at a state level with programs that included a Regional Growth Fund. Inside that $500 million, we allocated $100 million for a fund where local governments could leverage their own projects and take up to $2 million each for the 48 regional councils. They were able to then leverage up it themselves and use that $100 million to build a whole range of infrastructure projects. The local government infrastructure fund was another $100 million shelled out to the 48 regional councils. We had a local Country Roads and Bridges Program where we gave each of our regional councils $4 million, so it was a $160 million program in that regard. Again, we were helping these councils with the funding that they need so they can provide the services that they're expected to provide to their people.

All of those programs were immediately taken off the table when the Labor Party came to govern in Victoria in 2014, saving the then government $360 million in that instance. So it was very, very disappointing. But the Andrews government in Victoria at least positioned itself where it was happy to spend money in Melbourne but it was totally disinterested in spending money for infrastructure projects with local governments or partnering up with local government in regional Victoria.

What we have now is one of the best programs that has operated across all federal parties and governments, and that is the Black Spot Program. It is something that every local government that we talk to praises, whichever side of politics is in government at the federal level. It gives our local councils the opportunity to fix up those roads that are in desperate need of attention. In my electorate alone in the last few years, the Shire of Campaspe has had over $18 million allocated through the Roads to Recovery Program. The City of Greater Shepparton has had $13.5 million allocated, the Shire of Loddon has had $15.5 million, the Moira Shire Council has had $16.3 million and the Shire of Strathbogie has had $9.4 million over the last four to five years, so it's a really important program. It gives the councils the autonomy to make the decisions themselves. It provides the money but lets the councils choose where that money can be best spent.

I applaud the City of Greater Shepparton, which was able to keep pushing forward for additional funding for a significant bypass for the city that needed to be funded. Again, they are waiting for the state to do the work that it needs to do in the feasibility studies and in the preworks phase that have to happen before we can actually start building stage 1 of the bypass. That's going to be a very important project in the next few years. The first stage of the Shepparton bypass is going to cost in the vicinity of $260 million. That's going to be a very, very significant project, and it will require some very serious funding from the federal government to proceed. I'm expecting to have the mayor, Kim O'Keeffe, and the CEO, Peter Harriott, in the parliament this week. We all know that we had a lot of local governments in the parliament last week as they came together for their conference, which they do every year.

Whether the funding comes from the federal government or the state government, one way or another, we need to ensure that we fund local councils properly. Certainly, the big city councils can make a lot of money from their parking fines and so forth. However, in the regions, it's very difficult for councils to actually become financially viable. We need to make sure, between the states and the feds, that we fund local government adequately.

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