Newly re-elected Parkes MP Mark Coulton has expressed his elation at the official announcement of the declaration of the seat of Parkes and announced his focus of his new collection of policy portfolios.
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Mr Coulton was selected as the Minister for Regional Services, Decentralisation and Local Government in the new-look Morrison government after being elected for a fifth consecutive time.
"I'm very pleased that late last week the electoral commission declared the poll for the seat of Parkes and I've been declared the member for the fifth term," Mr Coulton said.
Mr Coulton also retained his role as assistant Trade, Tourism and Investment minister to Simon Birmingham MP.
In his new role, Mr Coulton highlighted issues in local government and decentralisation that would draw his focus and form the basis for his policy goals.
"I'm certainly looking at policies around the relationship between federal government and local government, I'm a firm believer that keeping local goverment, particularly in regional communities is essential, I have never been a great supporter of the amalgamation process, having been a mayor of a small regional council," Mr Coulton said.
Mr Coulton said he would be working to ensure that local governments and councils were 'adequately resourced'.
"In smaller towns, local government has to get involved in aged care, early childcare and a whole range of other services that would be done by private enterprise or government departments in larger centres, I understand that if you take the council out of a small town quite often that can be the end of the town."
"Some of the larger metropolitan councils get more money from their parking metres than they do from their federal assistance grants, whereas if you're a small regional council in my electorate probably 60 - 70 per cent of your budget comes from federal assistance grants."
Mr Coulton acknowledged that decentralisation was a 'very broad' policy area for consideration.
"Obviously, the most public decentralisation move by the government was when Barnaby Joyce moved the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority to Armidale, and despite all the great predictions of disaster and doom, that's worked very well."
"I'm a great believer of placing government employees in the community that they serve, so I'll be looking at, wherever we can, moving government positions to regional and rural areas, as well as private enterprise, as well as individuals."