Federal Member for Hume Angus Taylor said greater co-operation between all levels of government was essential to delivering investment, jobs, services and infrastructure to the region.

Mr Taylor was today hosting the annual Centroc summit at Parliament House in Canberra, bringing together representatives from 16 Central West NSW councils.

He extended a special welcome to Hume electorate member councils from Boorowa, Cowra, Upper Lachlan, Weddin and Young.

Mr Taylor said one of the major talking points was communication infrastructure.

“Certainly in my electorate it is getting to the point where people will make a decision about where they move to and where they live, based on the availability of good telecommunications. There was much talk today about recent mobile blackspot funding, and I was pleased to report that 18 new mobile towers have been announced for the Hume electorate which is a huge boost to mobile coverage in our region.

“The NBN rollout is gaining momentum and the co-operation from councils will be critical to making the rollout of the NBN a success.”

Other key items on the Centroc agenda were the Melbourne to Brisbane Inland Rail project, and growing agricultural exports from the region.

“People don’t want to know whether an issue is state, federal or local,” Mr Taylor said. “They want to know that the issue is being dealt with by their local representatives, and by having close relationships between all three levels of government we can really make sure we can deliver for our regions what they want – more investment, more jobs, better infrastructure and better services.

“We are on your side pushing hard on these issues,” Mr Taylor said.

He said Centroc represented more than 243,000 people covering an area of more than 72,500 sq kms. 

Caption: Angus Taylor, Bill West (Chair of Centroc, Mayor of Cowra), Alan McCormack (RDA Central West Committee Chair) and Clr Gary Rush, (Mayor of Bathurst council and Centroc Deputy Chair).