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The Government squandered the opportunity to properly prepare for COVID-19 in the community, leaving regional health services under pressure, businesses struggling to operate and vulnerable people without support.

Applications for the program opened on December 10 and will close on January 6, giving just three weeks for applications, much of which is over the Christmas and New Year shutdown period.

The long-running campaign to redevelop the Bright Hospital and build a new aged care facility is closer to reality, after the state opposition backed the project and the federal government also laid out pathways to provide funding.

Three years since Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the government would implement a federal integrity commission, yet Australians are still waiting for a watchdog to clean up federal politics.

The campaign to build a new residential aged care facility in Bright will take a step up on Tuesday as Helen Haines hosts a roundtable with two federal ministers in a bid to secure federal funding for the project.

These grants range from $1,000 to $5,000, and will assist organisations to better support their volunteers to purchase small equipment, pay fuel, transport and training costs.

Dr Haines said the report’s focus on culture and leadership, as well as structural and systemic changes, was important to create long-lasting change.

The majority of MPs in the House of Representatives voted in favour of debating a federal integrity commission, but the motion was only lost on a technicality in the standing orders