Details of the 2009 Budget confirm that the government has broken almost all of its regional development election promises.

Labor had committed to expanding the role of Area Consultative Committees (ACC), re-branding them as Regional Development Australia (RDA).

ACC’s were to play a leading role in facilitating development in the regions.

However, the government will no longer have any direct or specific responsibility for regional development - the ACC network is to be closed and absorbed into state government agencies.

“Regional Australia obviously is not a priority for Labor,” Mr Truss said.

“The government’s long developed ties to the regions are to be severed. Local communities will have to wade through layers of state government bureaucracy to have their voices heard at the national level.

“It is incredible that in a Budget that predicts that 1,000,000 Australians will lose their jobs and saddles every man, woman and child with $9,000 debt, the government has failed to establish a regional development program that supports economic and social opportunities that create jobs in local communities.”

In addition, Labor has chosen to move billions of dollars of funding away from roads and rail and into urban public transport projects. The Regional Strategic Roads Program is to be abolished and money made available to the cities.

Rural research funding has been cut and drought aid is to end in 2011.

“On one hand, the government was assuring the ACC network of its future by asking them to engage their communities and develop work plans and regional strategies, but on the other was preparing for the elimination of those ACCs," he said.

“About 150 people will lose their jobs. Another 500 volunteers will be made redundant as of June 30 when the transition from ACCs to the RDA is expected to be completed.