August 28, 2014
The Australian Local Government Association has welcomed the passing of legislation in the Senate to extend Roads to Recovery funding to 2019, but has called for the program be made permanent to avoid a repeat of this year’s political impasse in the Senate.
The Roads to Recovery funding legislation has been caught up in debate of the Land Transport Infrastructure Amendment Bill 2014 which originally passed the House of Representatives on March 27 this year.
ALGA president Felicity-Ann Lewis said that since March, the ALGA has been given a number of assurances from both the Government and the Opposition that the R2R funds would not be impacted by the actions of either party.
The Greens and the Palmer United Party also publicly supported the continuation of the program in recent days.
However, politics surrounding the Land Transport Infrastructure Amendment Bill 2014 had prevented the legislation from passing the Senate until today, five months after it was first considered in Parliament.
The legislation for the program expired on June 30, leaving councils not knowing if these road funds would be forthcoming.
A total of $350 million was committed to R2R per year until 2019 in the May 2014 Budget, with a doubling of funds for 2015-16.
The ALGA said his funding was “held hostage while issues completely unrelated to the R2R program” were debated.
“Councils and their communities across Australia have been left in a state of uncertainty for months as the major political parties failed to resolve their differences on matters unrelated to R2R,” Mayor Lewis said.
“The only way to avoid a repeat of this situation is to make the program permanent and give local government a guaranteed Roads to Recovery program.”
The South Burnett receives about $1.1 million each year in Roads To Recovery funding.
