Mr COULTON (Parkes—Chief Nationals Whip) (13:51): 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 that were for community infrastructure for roads, Roads of Strategic Importance, the Stronger Communities Program.
So, the Growing Regions Program, which is the, I guess the flagship funding program for regional Australia by this government, has been something that my communities have been hanging out for. And I will acknowledge that, in the last round, five projects in my electorate were funded, and the community-
those organisations were grateful to receive that funding. Although we’ve got a problem at the moment now in New South Wales, because round 2 closes, the applications close in two days’ time, on the 10th of October. And in New South Wales we’ve just gone, since the 13th of September, local government has been in virtually a caretaker mode, because of local government elections. We haven’t had councils. In some cases in my 19 councils in the Parkes electorate, we haven’t got a mayor elected yet, because of the timeframe and the complexity of counting in local government.
So I’m calling on Minister King to please extend that deadline out for another week or so, so that those councils that have been caught up in the hiatus of local government elections can get that application in. (Time expired)