Local Government News

PM rejects coalition’s claims of regions left behind

Eliza Sayon Oct 18, 2022

2 min read

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has rejected the coalition’s claims of Australia’s regions left behind by the federal government for infrastructure projects ahead of the federal budget.

While coalition members have accused the government of politicising funding for areas outside major cities, the Prime Minister states that work was underway to reform how regional grants and projects were allocated in the future.

“I’ve seen some commentary which is ill-founded about our infrastructure investments… a government that I lead will always deliver on infrastructure,” he said.

“We’ll continue to work with state and territory governments and local government. If you want to know where my government will approach community infrastructure grants, it will be through local government.”

The criticism comes as opposition infrastructure spokeswoman Bridget McKenzie accused the Albanese Government of ripping regional funding out of the budget.

“There are huge concerns that this government has a vendetta against the regions,” she said.

“We’ve got to make sure that the programs and projects that we put in place … out in the regions are funded.”

Nationals leader David Littleproud called for the federal government to sit down with the junior coalition party to ensure the regions were not left behind.

“Don’t rip the guts out of regional Australia – actually sit down and constructively give us a sustainable funding model for infrastructure for the 30 per cent of Australians who live outside of (a) capital city,” he states.

“Let’s make sure we get our fair share so that we don’t have this continual fighting on a political level.”

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher hit back at the coalition’s claims of the regional areas being forgotten.

“We have looked at every department and every line in this first wave of the audit so I do not accept the line that’s been run by the Nationals that this is somehow targeting them,” she said.

“You’ll see a huge spend in the regions – quite rightly and quite appropriately.”

The NSW Government claimed the federal government had “short-changed” it ahead of the budget, with NSW Treasurer Matt Kean saying they were playing favourites with other Labor states.

However, the Prime Minister said large amounts of infrastructure project funding had been set aside for NSW in the federal budget.

With AAP

Eliza Sayon

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Eliza is a content producer and editor at Public Spectrum. She is an experienced writer on topics related to the government and to the public, as well as stories that uplift and improve the community.