HAINES: My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development. Round 1 of the Growing Regions Program opened for applications in July last year. Successful projects weren’t announced until May this year. We’re now in August, and successful applicants are still waiting for their funding so they can get shovels in the ground. Why are regional communities waiting this long for much-needed funding under your government?

MINISTER KING: I thank the member for Indi for her question and, of course, her ongoing advocacy for integrity in government. The member for Indi and I both care deeply about regional communities. I know we share in common our mobile office caravans that we take out into towns big and large. Mine is a 1970s Franklin. I’m not sure what the member for Indi’s is, but I don’t think it’s much younger than that.

Can I be very clear that, when we came to office, we made it very clear that we were wanting to build in better transparency and integrity into our grants program. Of course, you mentioned round 1 of the Growing Regions Program. Through that, we are delivering 40 community infrastructure projects across regional Australia, including the Seymour Community Wellbeing Hub, the Mission Beach town upgrade, the Kununurra runway extension and, of course, the Swan Hill Reinvigorating Our Riverfront project. It includes two projects in the member for Indi’s electorate: $1.4 million for the Mansfield Shire Council Lords Around the Ground package and $2.97 million for the Benalla Art Gallery redevelopment.

Projects, of course, were carefully selected in accordance with the grant guidelines and underwent a rigorous process designed to enhance integrity and transparency—clear guidelines that didn’t include secret ministerial panels or other factors as a reason to award funding. The process, of course, included a multiparty disciplinary panel of which you were a member.

We are now working closely with state and territory governments to establish a partnership arrangement to deliver the Growing Regions Program as we are now required to do. Under this arrangement, the Australian government will fund state and territory governments to work with approved applicants to prepare and execute a funding agreement and make payments based on agreed milestones. It is normal practice for the Australian government programs to require a funding agreement to be in place with agreed payment milestones before payments are made, as this is a prudent financial management system and helps ensure delivery success.

For the first time, of course, all communities, whether they be in our regions or our suburbs, will have access to an open and competitive community infrastructure program. We’ve done away with what those opposite did, having a community development grants program where no-one was able to apply for funding and the coalition simply decided where they were going to actually deliver. I don’t make any apologies for cleaning up the mess of what those opposite left.

Opposition members interjecting—

MINISTER KING: I take that interjection where they say, ‘Just let the bureaucrats decide.’ We know absolutely what happened on that side of the House when it came to community grants, when it came to sports rorts and when it came to colour coded spreadsheets. We are putting integrity back into the grant system and cleaning up, frankly, a mess that was left by all of you.