Budget tips $1b into regional grant revamp

Tess Ikonomou | October 24, 2022

Regional and remote communities will be offered new ways of securing government funding after one controversial scheme was scrapped.

The Building Better Regions fund will be axed in favour of two new programs.

One of the schemes will be a competitive grants round for councils and not for profits, and the other for precincts in regional cities and larger-scale rural projects.

“We want our investments to be of value to people and to taxpayers, and to improve the liveability of the regions,” Infrastructure Minister Catherine King said.

The budget will set out $1 billion over three years for the schemes.

A scathing audit found the Building Better Regions fund, which was set up in 2016 for infrastructure and community projects in areas outside of capital cities, heavily favoured Nationals-held electorates.

Ms King said the government was trying to sort through election promises made by the coalition.

“If it wasn’t an election commitment of ours, it won’t be in the budget,” she said.

Opposition infrastructure spokeswoman Bridget McKenzie said the government had a vendetta against regional Australia and the Nationals had their worst fears confirmed.

Senator McKenzie said Labor’s approach to the budget was disappointing and offensive.

“The way the Labor Party has framed up this budget as any spending out in rural and regional communities being waste,” she told reporters.

“That’s simply not the case.”

Nationals senator Matt Canavan raised concerns about the Rockhampton ring road, to which Labor committed in 2019.

“I don’t quite think the Labor Party understands the hornets’ nest they have poked,” he said.

“This goes to his integrity, he said it would be a certainty and now he’s scrapping it for the people of central Queensland.”

The Nationals fear other projects that could be scrapped include the $600 million Paradise dam at Bundaberg, $400m for beef roads, and $483m for the Urannah dam west of Mackay.

Liberal frontbencher Sussan Ley labelled Anthony Albanese a “hypocrite” after he agreed to open the Griffith Regional Sports Centre, which had been built through the now-dumped fund.