Mrs PHILLIPS (Gilmore) (14:24): My question is to the Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories. What support is the Albanese Labor government providing to local government, including in my home state of New South Wales? How does this compare to other approaches to local government?
Ms McBAIN (Eden-Monaro—Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) (14:25): I thank the member for Gilmore for her question. Not only is she a great advocate for her electorate but she knows how important it is to support local councils to deliver priority projects across her electorate.
On this side of the House, we value the work that our councils are doing and we know how important it is to deliver funds to help them do their work. It's why we are progressively doubling Roads to Recovery, and in the member for Gilmore's electorate that will mean an extra $13.3 million over the next five years, bringing her total Roads to Recovery budget for councils to $30.8 million. It's a program that automatically goes out to councils every year, with no need for a colour coded spreadsheet.
Local government is in every town, every village and every city across the country. When those opposite had the ability to help local councils, did they? No. They froze indexation on financial assistance grants, which has led to a funding shortfall across the country. As for the 440 local people who wanted to run for council, did the New South Wales Liberal Party support them? No. Only 281 of those candidates are actually going to be nominated. Many of those people had already started campaigning. John Dorahy, a Wollongong mayoral hopeful, shared his disappointment that his party couldn't get a form in on time. He said:
A few of my colleagues … are just beside themselves … the rug has been pulled from under them. It's mind-boggling to be honest.
But wait; there's more, and Utopia could not have scripted this—the irony of the New South Wales Liberals demanding that the Electoral Commission adhere to a deadline imposed by them when they couldn't adhere to a deadline that's been posted on a publicly available website for close to a year. 'But hey! Let us have a crack at building and running nuclear energy power plants!' Yeah-nah.
Now they're attacking each other. Over the weekend, we saw former New South Wales premier Mike Baird say:
For me, when I think of administrative challenges or stuff-ups, this is right at the top of the list.
The current New South Wales opposition leader, Mark Speakman, said, 'It's a basic matter of competence and administration.' In fact, it is incompetence and maladministration, but it is hardly surprising from a group of people who look to blame other people all the time. This is the party that gave us robodebt. It gave us multiple ministries. It gave us doctored paperwork rolled out by the member for Hume, purporting to be from a council. And who can forget, 'I don't hold a hose, mate'? If you're buying this pattern of chaos and mismanagement from those opposite I'll throw in a free set of steak knives. If you are putting yourselves out there to run a country, try to get the basics right—and a form should be pretty basic.
