The Federal Government will commit $1 billion to regional infrastructure programs in the 2022-23 Federal Budget, and has announced an end to Round 6 of the Building Better Regions Fund introduced by the former Coalition Government.
The commitment will fund two major programs for a period of three years; including the Growing Regions Program and the Regional Precincts and Partnerships Program.
The new programs will replace the previous government’s Building Better Regions Fund (BBRF).
In a statement, Federal Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Catherine King, said, “The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) found the BBRF grants favoured National Party electorates and were not awarded on the basis of merit, but on the basis of rules that were not made clear to all applicants.”
Coalition MPs have denied these allegations.
The Federal Government claims the Growing Regions Program will provide new opportunities for regional local councils and not-for-profit organisations through an annual open, competitive grants process.
The regional Precincts and Partnerships Program promises a strategic, nationally consistent mechanism for funding and coordinating larger-scale projects that transform a place, to benefit communities in regional cities and wider rural and regional Australia.
Ms King said the Government would also terminate the previous government’s Community Development Grants (CDG) program.
“In a similar way, the previous Government’s Community Development Grants program started out as a closed fund for 2013 election commitments, but then the Coalition kept it around year after year. It was a ‘grants’ program that community organisations had no ability to apply for,” Ms King said.
“We will close down the CDG program and no new projects will be funded from it.
“The Australian Government will provide a pathway for those CDG projects properly accounted for up to the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook to be funded through our new election commitment programs.
“All contracted projects will be honoured, and a further 82 projects that date back to 2016 and that are yet to be contracted will have six months to finalise negotiations before the program ends.”
