Federation Chamber
15 September 2026
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Federation Chamber Australian Parliament
10:01 - 10:06
Speaker 1
Are there any constituency statements by honorable members? And I give the call to the member for Fowler.
10:06 - 11:38
Speaker 2
Thank you, Deputy Speaker. On September the 4th, the chair of the New South Wales Local Government Grants Commission wrote to Fairfield Council with a number. Under the commission's proposed new methodology, Fairfield's financial assistance grant falls from 10.16 million to 6.73 million. A cut of 3.43 million. A third of the grant gone.
The local roads component halved. Fairfield is the most disadvantaged local government area in New South Wales. Not one of the most, the most. On the SEIFA index, which measures relative socioeconomic disadvantage, Fairfield ranks first in the state and 35th out of every council in Australia. My electorate of Fowler has the lowest median personal income of all the 150 electorates in this country, $520 a week.
So the Grants Commission has looked at the poorest community in the state and decided it needs 34% less. How does that happen? It comes down to what the model measures and what it ignores. It prices remoteness, it prices in population, it strips out the disability allowance that used to recognize structural disadvantage.
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