Jodie Campbell (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. What is the government doing to build new partnerships with local government and support the important work they do in communities across Australia?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bass for her question, and for hosting the eighth community cabinet that the Rudd government has held. It was held in Launceston just last week. As well as the formal meetings with the community cabinet, cabinet ministers meet with relevant people from their portfolio. Indeed, before the formal proceedings at Launceston City Council, I met with the mayors of Launceston, George Town, Dorset, Flinders Island and Meander Valley. I am also pleased to inform the House that next week the second quarterly instalment from the government’s record $1.9 billion financial assistance grants will be distributed to all local councils and shires around Australia. This is a record amount of financial support that was provided by the government in the budget. Importantly, around two-thirds of this support will go to regional and rural councils, thereby providing them with support. Because they are untied grants, the local communities can decide for themselves how this money is spent.

But of course our support for local government does not stop there. We want a new partnership between the national government and local government. The cornerstone of that new partnership is the Australian Council of Local Government. Next Tuesday this partnership will be put into practice when up to 400 of the nation’s mayors and shire presidents come to Canberra to engage in dialogue with the cabinet and with other members who have chosen to come, including the shadow minister for housing and local government, the member for Cook. They will be discussing building a new cooperative relationship amongst governments, helping to address the particular challenges that the growth regions are experiencing, the implementation of the government’s regional and local community infrastructure program that we announced in the budget in May and the path to constitutional recognition.

But of course they have also been intimately involved in the lead-up to the conference. They have been engaged in setting the agenda. Indeed, on 22 October, when parliament was sitting a couple of weeks ago, I hosted a meeting here which all of the state local government associations attended, along with other invited senior local government representatives including the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Campbell Newman, who is playing a constructive role in the new organisation, and the Lord Mayor of Adelaide, Michael Harbison. They pledged to make the meeting a success. We met again last week, again making sure that local government are very involved in the process itself in the lead-up to next week’s meeting, which will mark a new beginning in cooperative federalism—one that advances the economic interest based upon getting that local input so that everyone benefits regardless of where they live in Australia.