MEMBER for Mallee Anne Webster has denied claims The Nationals used grants programs to pork-barrel in the electorate.
Regional Development Minister Catherine King announced before Tuesday’s Budget the government was not proceeding with two funding programs she said “favoured” Nationals electorates.
Ms King said the Building Better Regions Fund round 6 would not proceed and the Community Development Grants program would close, with both to be replaced by new programs.
Dr Webster said the Coalition would not “accept the language of rorts or pork-barreling” coming from the government.
“It is offensive for regions like Mallee to have the Labor Government choose to frame any spending or investment in our communities as politicisation,” Dr Webster said.
“Councils across my electorate consider funding to them as necessary, not rorts.”
An Australian National Audit Office review of $1.15 billion in grants during the first five rounds of the BBRF resulted in Nationals electorates receiving $104 million – or 29 per cent – more funding than would have been awarded to recipients on a merit basis.
While it noted the BBRF was “partly effective and consistent” with grant guidelines, the July report concluded there was an “increasing disconnect” between the published merit criteria and applications approved by the ministerial panel.
Ms King said that despite the evidence, Coalition MPs defended the fund and attempted to “claim election promises as funded projects” while also ignoring “anything resembling proper process”.
Dr Webster this week blasted the government for scrapping of the grants, providing a list of projects she said were “committed to be funded” before the decision.
The Nationals announced an election promise in April to fund $13.5 million for a walking and cycling track along the Murray River, which Dr Webster said this week was part of the CDG program.
Dr Webster also announced $3.3 million before the election in May for new wet labs at La Trobe University in Mildura, which were also this week attributed to the CDG program.
No funding for the track or the labs was specifically detailed in the Coalition’s April 2022-23 Budget, handed down weeks before the election announcements.
Dr Webster moved to dismiss any notion of false promises, saying the Coalition had “committed to funding under the provision of good governance”.
The immediate future of the $5.8 million wet labs project, which La Trobe university committed $2.5 million toward, hung in the balance ahead of Labor’s first Budget.
A spokesperson for La Trobe University said the organisation was looking forward to finding out more about the new government’s plans following the Budget.
The labs would allow the university to introduce a biomedical science course at Mildura in 2024.
But Dr Webster said she had been informed that funding for the labs would not be approved in Tuesday’s Budget, but “potentially” in next May’s Budget.
Aside from Murray River Trails, other CDG projects included a $2.5 million Karinie Street Reconstruction project at Swan Hill and $290,000 for upgrades Castle Crossing Road in Nangiloc.
Ms King said $1 billion would be committed in the Budget over three years for the Growing Regions Program, for regional local councils and not-for-profit organisations, and the Precincts and Partnership Program, for larger scale projects.
She said CDG projects “properly accounted for up to the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook” would be funded through two new programs.
