John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Local Government and Territories, and Minister for Regional Communications—just to mention a few—Senator Nash. Can the minister inform the Senate how the coalition government is delivering improved infrastructure and community investment for regional Australia?

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for his question and for his very longstanding hard work for the people of regional Australia. I am delighted to advise the chamber that this morning I announced and launched the coalition government's Building Better Regions Fund. This is a fund that is going to continue to strengthen our rural and regional, and remote communities. As many would know, prior to this we had the National Stronger Regions Fund. I believe moving to the new structure of the Building Better Regions Fund will be a positive step forward and a great opportunity to deliver even more.

What we see is investment in our regions. We have to change the narrative from propping up the regions and talk about negativity into a positive language about investment, because there is an economic case to invest in the regions, which are absolutely the driver of this nation and they underpin this nation's economy. That is why we have made the changes and included not just an infrastructure stream, as we saw under National Stronger Regions Fund, but also a community investment stream, which will allow local communities to expand and identify ways to strengthen their communities. We know that when we invest in the regions it gives those regions confidence. Investing in partnerships with regional communities ensures that confidence builds and that the local people and local businesses with an eye to their future have that confidence to invest. So we will now see applications come forward from the beginning of next year, and out there right now the guidelines are available for communities to start doing their planning.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Williams, a supplementary question.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for that good news. Can the minister outline how the new Building Better Regions Fund will better support regional communities, the people who live in them and their future?

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the new additions to this program has been the Community Investment Fund. What that will do is across three areas: local events and activities, strategic planning and leadership capability. It will allow local communities to determine those activities or projects that will allow them to strengthen and build; it will allow them to, in a very positive way, add to the ability to provide infrastructure projects. Those are things that I know our local communities need flexibility in providing. We see that local leaders drive our local communities, and this particular community investment stream is going to give those local leaders in those communities the ability to identify things in areas such as tourism expansion, which was not available before, to look at how they can drive their future to be stronger in the regions.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Williams, a final supplementary.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can the minister further advise the Senate how the Building Better Regions Fund will be targeted to ensure that investment is delivered to areas where it will be most effective?

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Under the new Building Better Regions Fund, compared to the previous National Stronger Regions Fund, major capital cities will no longer be able to apply for funding. This is going to be a regional program for regional communities. In the knowledge that many of our rural regional and remote communities occasionally face hardship and challenges, for the first time, there is going to be capacity for exemption for the requirement for co-funding. This is very important for our local rural, regional and remote communities who do on occasion not have the ability to have that co-funding. While I expect this will be very rare, there will be, for the first time, opportunity for those communities to access in partnership funding with government to drive their futures in their regions for a stronger regional Australia.