New alliance calls for emergency funding for rural roads

The newly-formed Rural Road Alliance is calling for an emergency funding package totalling nearly $5.5 billion in the upcoming Federal Budget.

The alliance – which represents diverse stakeholders from across regional Australia including farmers, transporters and local councils – has been formed in response to the critical challenges facing Australia’s rural road network in the wake of recent flooding and high rainfall.

The Alliance includes GrainGrowers, the National Farmers Federation (NFF), Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) and Australian Livestock and Rural Transporters Association (ALRTA).

Since January 2022, there have been 23 flood events, with 429 declarations across 277 local government areas (LGAs). In the last two months, the ongoing east coast flooding event has seen more than 82,000 kms impacted by flood-related closures across New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, and South Australia, while Western Australia has experienced the devastation of Cyclone Seroja.

The Alliance said recent flooding had taken a wrecking ball to regional roads, including the nationally significant Hume, Newell, Calder, and Western highways. Natural disasters and extreme weather events have already cost the Australian economy $5 billion in 2022, according to Treasury estimates, as a result of widespread disruption to key industries such as agriculture.

In the lead up to the 2023-24 Federal Budget, the Rural Road Alliance is calling for an emergency funding package totalling nearly $5.5 billion, including:

• A one-off injection of $1 billion over four years directed at regional road and infrastructure reconstruction for councils impacted by flooding and other natural disasters to ensure the rebuild is to a standard more resilient to future disaster events;

• $800 million a year over four years for the Roads to Recovery Program;

• $300 million a year over four years to address first and last mile freight productivity; and

• targeted funding through the Roads of Strategic Importance program to improve the long-term climate resilience of freight networks.

The Alliance said its proposed funding package was an opportunity for the Federal Government to stem the rapid deterioration of Australia’s rural road network, and to reduce the cost to the budget of future climate events.

This was an increase of almost nine per cent on the previous year and was spent with more than 6,200 businesses, including Australian owned and operated businesses and locally owned and managed branches of global companies. The spend helped support tens of thousands of Australian jobs and delivered a significant economic contribution to communities across the country.

As part of this spend, more than A$565 million was spent with Indigenous businesses across Australia – an increase of 40 per cent on the year before.

Rio Tinto Chief Executive, Australia, Kellie Parker said, “Supporting local businesses in the communities where we operate is a key priority for Rio Tinto.

We strive to employ local people, buy local products and engage local services – especially from Indigenous, small and regional businesses.

We are working hard to improve our approach to Indigenous business development and engagement in Australia, and while there is still more work to do, last year we significantly increased our spend with Indigenous suppliers.

We couldn’t do what we do without our local supplier partners and having good relationships with them helps us find better ways to provide the materials the world needs and innovate to decarbonise our operations.”

Rio Tinto engages with more than 20,000 suppliers globally.