Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Over the term of this government we've seen a cutback in funding going into regional Australia. We've seen the cessation of local government programs for community infrastructure and roads, such as Roads of Strategic Importance and the Stronger Communities Program.

The Growing Regions Program, which is this government's flagship funding program for regional Australia, is something that my communities have been hanging out for. I acknowledge that, in the last round, five projects in my electorate were funded, and those organisations were grateful to receive that funding. We've got a problem in New South Wales at the moment, though, in that round 2 closes for applications in two days time, on 10 October. Since 13 September, local government has been in caretaker mode, virtually, because of local government elections. We haven't had councils. In some of the 19 councils in the Parkes electorate, we haven't yet got a mayor elected, because of the timeframe and the complexity of counting in local government elections.

I'm calling on Minister King to please extend that deadline out by another week or so so that councils that have been caught up in the hiatus of local government elections can get their applications in. (Time expired)