Fake funding, clawbacks in horror budget for regions

THE Federal Budget looks like being a disaster for regional areas.

Local Federal MPs Russell Broadbent and Darren Chester tend to agree.

“Labor’s Budget axes the Building Better Regions Fund, a blow to regional and rural communities in Monash,” Mr Broadbent said this week.

“The BBRF was a highly popular program which supported projects in rural and regional communities to create jobs, drive economic growth and build stronger regional and remote communities into the future,” he said.

Mr Broadbent listed the Cowes Cultural & Community Centre ($5 million), and the Cape Paterson SLSC Clubhouse rebuild ($1 million) as two local projects that received funding under the program.

Darren Chester lamented the loss of the Building Better Regions Fund too, which contributed $1.5 million to a mountain bike trail at Omeo, which is only now going ahead after an extended planning application process.

But he focused on a crazy re-announcement of railway line funding.

“Last night, the Labor Party released its Federal Budget complete with a press release saying it was investing $447.7 million in the Gippsland Rail Line upgrade,” Mr Chester said last Wednesday.

“Sounds like great news… except I made that announcement five years ago as Transport Minister, and since that time we’ve actually built the new railway bridge in Stratford, and work is progressing on major upgrades to the Traralgon and Morwell railway stations, along with a host of smaller track improvements.”

The Building Better Regions Program has allegedly been replaced by the new ‘Growing Regions Program’ supposed “to deliver investment in regional infrastructure and community projects”.

In fact, this measure will redirect $10.2 billion in funding from the Energy Security and Regional Development Plan, Regional Accelerator Program, Community Development Grants Programme, and Building Better Regions Fund, which were identified as part of the new government’s Spending Audit.

The Government says it will provide $5.4 billion over 7 years from 2022–23 under the Growing Regions Program to support economic growth and development across regional Australia, including:

• $1.0 billion over 5 years from 2022–23 for the Priority Community Infrastructure Program to support community infrastructure projects across Australia, including $120 million to deliver the Central Australia Plan. This includes a closed grants program to deliver the Government’s election commitments

• $1.0 billion over 3 years from 2023–24 for the Growing Regions Program and regional Precincts and Partnerships Program to support community and place-based investment in rural and regional Australia, through both a competitive grants program and collaborative partnerships program

• $349.9 million over 5 years from 2022–23 for the Investing in Our Communities Program to deliver small scale community, sport and infrastructure projects across Australia. This is a closed grants program to deliver the Government’s election commitments

• $22.6 million over 4 years from 2022–23 to provide around 29,000 additional in-training support places to apprentices in regional and remote Australia under the Australian Apprenticeships Incentive System.

The Australian Government announced on October 24, 2022 that the BBRF will be discontinued.

Applications for BBRF Round 6 opened in December 2021 and closed in February 2022 but the government has decided not to proceed with the BBRF program, including Round 6 applications. The government said BBRF Round 6 applicants will be able to apply for the new Growing Regions Program.

The saving grace for Gippsland could be the new $20 billion ‘Rewiring the Nation’ program, designed in part to connect the region’s offshore wind farms to the eastern states’ grid, providing the transmission lines are undergrounded and the turbines are not located near the coast.