PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Ms TRISH COOK (Bullwinkel) (18:27): I rise today to oppose this motion. I spent eight years on the ground as a local councillor for the Shire of Mundaring and served proudly as the deputy shire president before coming into this place. Today I'm proud to continue that advocacy right here in federal parliament as the co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Local Government group.

I know firsthand the financial pressures that councils face, the critical reliance on federal funding partnerships and the deep frustration in dealing with a federal government that leaves you behind—and that is exactly what the coalition did for a decade. The reality is quite simple: the Albanese Labor government is delivering for local government, while the coalition spent a decade leaving them behind.

Local councils are the lifeblood of our communities. They build the roads we drive on and the libraries where our kids learn, and they manage waste and a whole lot more besides. They need a federal partner that they can trust, and that's exactly what they have under this Labor government.

We are delivering record Commonwealth investment to the sector. Since coming to office, Labor has delivered more than $16 billion in financial assistance grants directly to local councils. This financial year, those grants have increased by five per cent and they're up a massive 35 per cent since 2021-22.

That means they've grown from $2.6 billion to $3.6 billion. Let's compare the records. In the coalition's last five years in office, the financial assistance grants increased by $368 million.

In Labor's first five years, they have increased by $943 million. That is more than two-and-a-half times the growth that the opposition achieved. We are providing long-term certainty, with funding projected to exceed $4 billion annually by 2029-30.

We hear the coalition complaining bitterly about the conclusion of the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program—the LRCI program—but they're crying crocodile tears, completely ignoring the fact that it was the Liberals and the Nationals who made the decision not to fund future rounds of the LRCI. Under their watch, the program was set to expire completely in 2023-24.

If they wanted to make it ongoing, they could have done so, but they didn't. Instead, it was this Albanese Labor government that stepped up at the 2022 election, committing an additional $250 million to councils in regional and outer urban areas and extending the LRCI until June 2026. Thanks to Labor, 466 of Australia's 550 councils benefited from this extra funding.

If the Liberals and Nationals had their way, regional councils, whom they pretend to represent, would have had $250 million less funding than over the last few years. They are quite literally complaining about the consequences of their own decision. Our support goes far beyond this.

We have given local government a permanent seat at the table by restoring the Australian Council of Local Government. In 2023-24 alone, almost $6 billion flowed from the Commonwealth to local governments—that's equivalent to $16 million every single day, supporting local jobs and infrastructure. We've doubled the funding for the Roads to Recovery Program, committing $4.4 billion nationally, which is a 76 per cent increase.

We have also introduced the landmark $2 billion Local Infrastructure Fund to help councils deliver the enabling infrastructure that they need for new housing. ALGA President Matt Burnett warmly welcomed this, praising the government's trust in local councils. Labor is backing our councils to build stronger communities based on local priorities.

We are restoring the funding, the certainty and the respect that was stripped away during the coalition years. I urge the house to reject this hypocritical motion, and I commend our record to the House.