Kristy McBain (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Hansard source

Coming back to the answer, if you would care to listen, I'm telling you that we are consulting with local governments. You failed to do it. We are doing it. We are talking directly to them, and we will continue to do that because local governments are a trusted delivery partner. We brought them back to the table of National Cabinet. We're listening to them. We are implementing the Australian Council of Local Government after you got rid of it, after a decade where you failed to understand they are the critical delivery partner across the nation—546 of them. And perhaps if you took any care at all in your communities and backed their local ideas and understood how they deliver for us you would be interested in engaging with them too.

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