Federal Member for Parkes Mark Coulton says his electorate is being short-changed when it comes to an increase in funding allocations under the Australian Government’s Roads to Recovery program.
Mr Coulton says city councils are receiving an increase of 76 % in the next five-year funding period, in comparison to the 46.7 % rise in funding that their rural and regional councils will receive.
The outgoing MP says while any increase is welcome news, it’s extremely disappointing that it is not being distributed fairly, especially when many of his rural councils have much larger networks of roads to maintain compared to their more prosperous city counterparts.
He says this again highlights the Labor Government’s disregard for the regions, further exacerbating the disadvantage his councils face when it comes to keeping on top of road maintenance and upgrades.
