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

As I was saying, round 1 has been announced. We have been working with those councils, states and territories to put in place those contracts now. Round 2 is now open, and round 2 is just about to close this week. What we've done on this side of the House is make sure our regional grants programs are transparent. We've heard from over 250 councils across the country that I've met with. They have spent time and money putting in applications, when there were colour-coded spreadsheets available previously. That meant the time and money they spent putting in grants were not treated fairly. We've heard from councils that they wanted a transparent process, so we've given them one, including a multiparty panel, which members from those opposite and on the crossbench are on, to make sure that our grants process is treated with integrity. We've seen the ANAO do a report concurrently with Growing Regions to say that it is done with transparency and integrity, which I know is a new concept to some of those opposite. But on this side of the House we want to treat local councils with dignity and respect. It's one of the reasons that we doubled Roads to Recovery funding. For a decade, those opposite didn't take their local councils seriously when they were asking for additional help with maintenance. They didn't take them seriously when they said they needed additional help with maintenance. On this side of the House, we're delivering not only a doubling of Roads to Recovery; we're delivering them back to the table of National Cabinet, and we're taking their voices seriously, because they serve every community across the country.

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