Tuesday, 8 February 2022

Regional rates reform

Ms CUPPER (Mildura) (19:14): (6192) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Local Government, and the action I seek is for him to write to his interstate counterparts to seek their support for the campaign to increase the quantum of the financial assistance grants and help address the economic injustice facing rural and regional ratepayers. Achieving fairer council rates in regional Victoria will require change at both state and federal levels. To the minister: you have so far been receptive to the RateGate campaign and agreed that work needs to be done to address the financial burdens placed upon our regional and rural councils, who have low sustainable capacities through no fault of their own. The current system has Canberra delivering annual untied grants to the state governments to distribute to councils, which is good, but the amount is increasingly inadequate.

The financial assistance grants have been declining as a percentage of GDP for decades and were subject to a debilitating indexation freeze by the federal coalition government between 2014 and 2017. These grants are badly in need of an uplift. The Australian Local Government Association is calling for the quantum to be restored to 1 per cent of commonwealth annual revenue, which I believe is entirely reasonable and appropriate. The inadequacy of the current funding pool is made worse by the requirement that 30 per cent must be allocated on the basis of population before any other consideration, such as need. The upshot is that ratepayers in my electorate are paying up to six times the rates that metropolitan ratepayers are paying for properties of the same value.

As we know, the federal election is coming up, and I have been pleading our case with both major parties. Unfortunately neither major party has committed to making any structural changes ahead of the federal election, so it is clear for our regional and rural ratepayers that more pressure and more voices are needed in this fight. A new independent candidate for the seat of Mallee, Sophie Baldwin, has committed to taking the RateGate campaign to Canberra if elected in May. I ask the minister if he can identify potential allies at the state ministerial level who agree that an increase to the financial assistance grant is a critical precursor to meaningful regional rate reform.