REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AUSTRALIA FUND

The Hon. CARMEL ZOLLO (14:37): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Regional Development a question about regional grants.

Leave granted.

The Hon. CARMEL ZOLLO: Infrastructure and job creation are important issues to regional and rural South Australian communities and it is important that funding programs are in place to support this. I ask the minister whether she can inform the chamber of how the South Australian government is determined to advocate for our regions on a national level?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for State/Local Government Relations) (14:38): I thank the honourable member for her most important question. Ensuring that our regions and our regional centres can support economic growth in their districts is obviously critical to a sustainable South Australia, and is one that the Weatherill government has been active in supporting. I have spoken in this place before about the significant developments that many regional and rural communities have been able to progress by utilising the regional grants processes.

One such process was the Regional Development Australia Fund (RDAF) which, until very recently, South Australia did extremely well out of—we had punched way above our weight. RDAF was an Australian government program that supported infrastructure needs of regional Australia. The program has funded capital infrastructure projects identified as priorities by local communities. This work has included vital projects such as upgrading the Port Augusta, Whyalla and Port Lincoln airport terminals, and redevelopment of numerous community sporting grounds and upgrades to things like walking trails. Overall, under the former Labor government, South Australia was successful in obtaining $64 million for 30 projects over four funding rounds.

I am, therefore, disgusted by the shameful decision by the federal Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development not to honour any non-contracted commitments made by the former Labor government for RDAF funding. This is likely to result in a loss of over $20 million of investment in community projects to regional South Australia. I know the Hon. Robert Brokenshire also finds this a disgraceful breach of a commitment.

At this stage it is likely that none of the allocations announced in round 5 to local councils, totalling around $11 million, or round 5b announced projects, including the Port Pirie CBD regeneration project of $5 million, will proceed. In addition, four projects in round 3, totalling just under $1 million in federal funding, and three projects in round 4 totalling $9 million in federal funding, have confirmed that they did not receive signed contracts. They are all going down the gurgler, the whole lot of them. It is extremely disappointing that South Australian regions, which are working towards trying to progress their communities and which are still recovering from difficult and adverse environmental and economic times, are not seeing their efforts supported by this new Coalition government.

Even worse, the federal assistant minister had the audacity to issue a media release on the Leukaemia Foundation Patient Village in Adelaide which was funded under the RDAF round 2 and provides important accommodation for rural and regional Australians during treatment. He did that in a big media release, a big splash, while remaining silent on the $20 million worth of infrastructure that he has ripped out of the hands of regional South Australian communities.

The current federal Liberal government seeks to take credit for the work of others yet avoids responsibility for the damage their reckless cuts will do to local economies and regional job creation. Their spin that the money does not exist is, as we know, a fallacy. The round 5 grants were announced in June 2013 and funded in the 2013-14 budget. It was all funded money.

The Coalition's dismissal of regional South Australian communities is a disgrace. Honourable members opposite should be writing on behalf of all regional South Australians—and we know they have not done that; we know that not one of the opposition has lifted a pen to write or lifted a phone to ring their federal colleagues, their federal mates, to request that that money be returned to our very deserving regions. Those opposite me purport to have strong ties. We hear them wax lyrical all the time. They purport to have strong ties and sympathies with regional communities, but I am completely baffled at their lack of action when it comes time to advocate and stand up to their federal mates and being brave enough to have a go and speak up for our regions.

Where is the outrage? I hear nothing. Are South Australians just expected to roll over and let the Coalition renege on and remove this really important funding? Their silence is screaming and it is obviously damning, as well, because they know, as well as we do, that the opposition leader, Mr Steven Marshall, has plans to do exactly the same thing when he is elected. We know that he plans to rip the guts out of our Public Service; death by a thousand cuts to our regions and industries, and no-one in the Liberal Party has the courage to speak out or speak up.