The federal program for councils features a general purpose component distributed between the states and territories according to population and a local road component distributed according to fixed historical shares.

Local government grants commissions in each state and the Northern Territory recommend the distribution of the grants to local governing bodies.

Port Macquarie-Hastings mayor Peter Besseling said the infrastructure backlog burden was not made easier by the way the Financial Assistance Grants were distributed, nor by more recent cuts to indexation.

Citizens Electoral Council candidate Michael Gough said councillors were elected community leaders with the authority to demand real solutions. 

“It's time to reject the financial snake oil that has bankrupted the economy, and collectively demand the federal government once again establish a national bank,” he said.

Labor candidate for Cowper Damian Wood said the decision to pause Financial Assistance Grants indexation was wrong.

“All our councils will be worse off as a result of the indexation freeze, and this will hamper councils’ ability to provide good local roads, decent libraries, well­ maintained parks and high quality essential services,” he said.

The Greens’ candidate Carol Vernon said the Commonwealth Financial Assistance Grants delivered more than $700 million in roads to councils. 

“The Greens believe that regional councils need a fairer share of this funding package to deal with their extensive road network,” she said.

Independent candidate Rob Oakeshott said he would support any avenue to get more money into council budgets, whether through Financial Assistance Grants or hunting around for one-off grants.

“I think local government is a really important part of service delivery on the Mid-North Coast,” he said.

Cowper MP and The Nationals’ candidate Luke Hartsuyker said the 2016 budget contained a record $9.7 billion in Financial Assistance Grants.

He said the indexation pause, which was always intended to be temporary, had contributed to the important task of budget repair.

Independent candidate John Arkan said the system of Financial Assistance Grants was obviously not working and required a major overhaul.