Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

It is a rigorous process. The ANAO report in its entirety actually makes some helpful suggestions, which the department has taken on board. Rather than cherry-picking certain sections, the conclusion of the report was there was no bias 'evident in the assessment and decision-making process' concerning funding of projects in RJIP regions over others. That is what the report found. Now, could processes improve? The department's looking at that, and I'm getting more information handed to me. In selecting each of the 10 regions, the government considered a range of factors, including recent structural changes in the local economy, and whether or not the regions were under pressure from falling commodity prices and the downturn in the mining and manufacturing sectors. In each region we had local planning committees develop local investment plans that provided economic—