00:00Thank you and it is a great pleasure to be back here in Leeton today and back
00:04here with the Sunrise crew. We are investing as part of the $160 million
00:11allocated to New South Wales through the Sustainable Communities Fund from the
00:16federal government. We are investing in communities across this region for
00:21setting them up for the future post-water buyback. The New South Wales government has
00:25been clear we don't support buybacks from a policy perspective but the
00:29federal government are pursuing that policy as we can't stop it so I'm not going to say no to $160 million
00:36to invest in communities across the region to set them up for the future with
00:43shovel-ready projects that are going to create jobs, protect jobs in the region and the
00:49first round of funds from that $160 million for New South Wales is being allocated today.
00:56So today it is a great pleasure to announce $16.3 million of funding, the first amount of funding for this region which includes a $1 million investment here at Sunrise to make sure that we can assist Sunrise to invest in their facilities here which will keep jobs in Leeton, keep Sunrise operating here in this community.
01:20What oversight measures are in place to make sure that the money works in the long term?
01:26Well we've got a really robust process through my department who are opening rounds up for application, assessing applications to make sure that they are going to deliver for the future, that they will be shovel ready, that they will deliver jobs and more than just investment in an individual business, keeping jobs better for investments in the local economy as well.
01:50We've been assessing applications to make sure that the announcement of the $15 million today from the total of a one-off $160 million is really I think a slap in the face for all of us that produce food, all those intergenerational families that come here.
02:05And this really is a decline in our yearly economic profitability too with a cost of I think $2 billion annually that we are losing with water buybacks.
02:20And this is the reason why Tarramosh.
02:22So what specifically would you like to see happen?
02:26I'd like to see the State Government look at all their water that they own and they've got a lot of water, some of which they've taken off us, off communities.
02:36I'd like them to account for that water and I'd like some of that water to be sold as our commitment to the buybacks to the Federal Government.
02:45at this point thanks to her existence.
02:52Yea, it's important to find the Strains from Straso.
