Editorial: Gunnedah benched for priority in government funding

OPINION: Road funding is being fast-tracked to local governments across the state but it appears Gunnedah Shire Council may need to wait a little longer yet.

A new pilot scheme to speed up disaster assistance payments to select local councils has delivered $296 million in funding in just three months, according to the NSW government.

Before the introduction of the new program, councils in the pilot had to spend their own money repairing infrastructure before they could be reimbursed with the disaster funding which has come from the Australian and NSW governments through Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA).

In March, eight councils signed up to the NSW government’s new disaster funding Tripartite Agreement pilot, enabling them to access advance funding at the beginning of each stage of reconstruction works. Additional councils, including Tenterfield, Parkes and Forbes, recently signed up to the tranche two of funding but no sign of Gunnedah.

The fast-tracked road repairs follow pleas from Gunnedah shire mayor Jamie Chaffey about the desperate need for funding assistance. In June, Cr Chaffey said: “We have also been unable to address some of the road damage sustained in the floods – in some cases going back nearly three years. The promised disaster relief is still to come. The recent NSW Budget announcement included an additional $3.3 billion for repairing roads damaged by major floods. We wait with concern to see how and where this money will be spent”.

Once the funding is secured, repairs are often delayed by increasingly tight workforce pressures and a lack of personnel to carry out the work.

Local government currently employs more than 50,000 people across the state’s 128 councils but the NSW government wants to hire an additional 1300 apprentices and trainees.

The ambitious target will come at a cost of a further $252.2 million to the state budget.

It remains to be seen how these new recruits will be incentivised to join the local government ranks given the already high competition for staff across all industries.

Also not known is where the extra staff would be employed as guidelines are still being developed. But given the delay on already promised roading, we’re not holding out much hope.

Perhaps the cheque is in the mail? We wait in anticipation.