ALGA welcomes additional South Australia local road funding
16 March 2004
The Prime Minister's announcement of additional local road funding for South Australian councils has today been welcomed by the President of the Australian Local Government Association, Councillor Mike Montgomery.
"This addresses a discrepancy which has seen South Australian councils short changed for some time in their allocation of the identified roads component of Federal financial assistance grants," Cr Montgomery said.
The Prime Minister has announced that an additional $26.25m over three years will be provided to the 73 local government authorities in SA to align the state's share of road funding under the local government financial assistance grants with the state's share of the Roads to Recovery program.
The Prime Minister has said that this assistance is an interim response to SA's shortfall, with a long term solution to be announced with the Australian Government's formal response to the Fair Share report on cost shifting and local government financing, expected later this year.
"Importantly, the Prime Minister has allocated additional funding to address the problem and has not sought to redistribute the existing pool of funds," Cr Montgomery said.
"He has rightly recognised the financial pressure facing local government across the country and the large backlog of road maintenance work they face. No where is this more evident than in the renewal of the Roads to Recovery program, announced in January. This will see an additional $1.2 billion over four years provided to local government to help address the maintenance backlog.
"As the SA Local Government Association has said, this decision by the Howard Government reduces the funding inequities that have existed for more than 10 years."
There are 680,000km of local roads in Australia, nearly 85% of the entire road network.
- Contacts
- Cr Mike Montgomery, ALGA President: 0427 542 051
- Rohan Greenland, Director Public Affairs: 02 6122 9434 or 0412 85 9434
