President’s Update – 27 March 2023

Thank you for NGA motions

A sincere thank you to everyone who has submitted motions for our 2023 National General Assembly in June.

We’ve had a tremendous response for both motions and registrations for this year’s Conference, which is shaping up to be the biggest on record.  So a reminder to get your early bird registrations in soon.

Federal Budget advocacy

With the Treasurer due to deliver the 2023-24 Federal Budget on 9 May, ALGA is continuing to advocate for more funding for your councils and communities.

We recently partnered with the Australian Airports Association to advocate for a new $250 million per year Regional Infrastructure Recovery Program, that would support disaster-declared regional councils to build back to a more resilient standard.

We’ve also been advocating for $300 million per year that would support councils to improve our national freight networks, and increase the productivity of our cities, towns and regions.

Regional bank closures

Finally, I met this week with the Australian Banking Association (ABA) to discuss regional bank closures.

As the local government representative on the Federal Government’s Regional Banking Taskforce, I expressed disappointment about continued bank closures in regions without considering the impacts on local communities.

I encouraged the ABA to commit to implementing the recommendations from the taskforce to ensure there’s proper consultation with local government about potential branch closures in the future.