Royalties for Regions money to continue for country local governments, Grylls
Author: Brendon Grylls
Published on: 09-February-2010
Regional Development and Lands Minister Brendon Grylls has confirmed his commitment to the Country Local Government Fund (CLGF) as a key element in the State Government’s Royalties for Regions program.
Mr Grylls has written to all country local governments reaffirming his support for the program and outlining his intention for the distribution of the fund money this financial year and in 2010-11.
The Minister said the Government was committed to seeing an increasing proportion of money from the fund allocated each year to region-building initiatives driven by partnerships of local governments.
“Under the proposals, 65 per cent of the total available funds allocated in the 2010-11 financial year to the Country Local Government Fund would be available for individual local governments for infrastructure in their particular areas,” he said.
“The other 35 per cent of the total available funds would be available to help co-operative groups of local governments work on larger scale infrastructure projects that would reach people in wider communities across their region.
“The money would be available to develop the projects or assist local government to leverage more money to make the projects happen. For example, the money might be used for infrastructure developments to attract industry, as well as upgrades to ports, roads, rail, communications and power.”
Mr Grylls said it was proposed to provide up to $7.5million over the rest of this financial year for non-metropolitan local governmentsfor assistance in developing individual strategic plans, asset management plans and forward capital works plans.
This would help ensure that individual local governments were in a strong position to meet the guidelinesfor funding through the CLGF available in 2010-11.
Regional groups of local governments would also have access to this assistance to identify, scope and plan regional priorities.
The changes to the CLGF follow the decision in the State Government’s Mid-Year Review to defer $90million from the fund this financial year.
The Minister said the decision to defer payments had become necessary when the estimate of the State’s total royalty revenue for the full 2009-10 year was significantly downgraded due to the strong Australian dollar and other economic factors.
“The Royalties for Regions Fund is linked intrinsically to royalty collections and any rise or fall of total royalty receipts invariably affects the fund,” he said.
“While the local government recurrent funding program took the brunt of the total deferment of the Mid-Year Review, I reaffirm my commitment to the Country Local Government Fund as a cornerstone of the Royalties for Regions program.”
Mr Grylls said the fund had been initiated to help local government redress a backlog of infrastructure issues and invest in community infrastructure.
In the first year of Royalties for Regions, $100million had been allocated for distribution across the 109 non-metropolitan local authorities. A total of 595 local government community projects were now under way or completed.
