Loyal lieutenant Tony Windsor royally rewarded

THERE'S a golden glow in New England, enhanced by the crisp cutting of ribbons right across the House of Tony Windsor.

THERE'S a golden glow in New England, enhanced by frequent bursts of cargo from Canberra, the occasional vroooom of RAAF jets and the crisp cutting of ribbons right across the House of Tony Windsor.

Like many others, Col Murray, the Mayor of Tamworth in the independent MP's northeastern NSW seat of power, feels that lovely warmth, too.

"Tony Windsor has got his little piece of sunshine, and I guess that he got the PM up here shows she recognises that he's got the sunshine, too," Murray told The Weekend Australian.

In a season of supposedly "tough" budgets, Labor ministers have been making pilgrimages to this already bountiful region to deliver dams, roads, health facilities, training centres and more.

Julia Gillard made a two-day visit to New England this week - an eternity compared with the usual prime ministerial drop-ins of a few hours - and she didn't come empty-handed or to boot-scoot.

The trip's indelible image was the Prime Minister and local MP descending the stairs of the RAAF VIP plane in Tamworth in the bush regal manner of Liz and Phil, those other much-loved Windsors in these parts.

Planes are a fixture in the skies here, with BAE Flying Systems winning a six-year, $120 million, Australian Defence Force contract the other day to continue basic flying training at Tamworth.

On Tuesday, Ms Gillard announced $20m in new funding for medical training facilities in Windsor's home town and in nearby Armidale.

Mobbed by schoolchildren, the Prime Minister opened a $10m sports dome in Tamworth, half of which was paid for by Labor's economic stimulus dollars.

She and Windsor also visited Tamworth Hospital to promote a $120m allocation for a redevelopment and a $31.6m grant for a regional cancer centre, both projects financed by the $5 billion Health and Hospitals Fund.

So far, NSW has been allocated $1.115bn from the HHF. Although New England is one of 48 federal seats in the state, its $151.6m represents 13.5 per cent of all NSW HHF grants.

The following day, the House of Representatives partners travelled the 110km northeast to Armidale, where they flicked the switch on the first mainland section of Labor's $36bn National Broadband Network - a project Windsor has fervently supported and which he cited as crucial to winning his support for Labor after last August's federal election stalemate.

The launch was attended by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley, although only seven of the more than 4000 homes connected in Armidale were using the fibre-optic network.

This month, Health Minister Nicola Roxon was on hand with Windsor to turn the first sod on the site of a proposed GP Super Clinic at Gunnedah.

New England has received a number of health grants from Labor's "nation-building" HHF, $1.8bn of which has been earmarked for a regional priority round, secured by Mr Windsor and his fellow NSW independent, the member for Lyne, Rob Oakeshott.

Tamworth hospital's director of nursing and acting general manager, Chris Coombs, said the development would take the hospital from dispersed 1950s building stock into the 21st century.

"The building will be state of the art," she said.

"It's just wonderful."

Coombs said that in the 13 years she has worked at the hospital, the number of emergency patients had grown from 18,000 a year to more than 50,000.

Tamworth's mayor said he was delighted by the healthcare funding boost, but detected a subtle force at play.

"We've been seeking funding for the base hospital for many years and it has been going around and around for a lot of years, but now there's been a flood of commitments delivered in the first year," Murray said.

He also points to the Chaffey Dam upgrade, announced in February with $17m in federal funds. As well, Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese visited Tenterfield last Friday to promote with Windsor a $6m grant for a feasibility study for a realignment and bypass of the New England Highway.

During her visit, Gillard was repeatedly asked about her special relationship with the New England MP and what locals saw as Windsor's uncanny ability to secure funding for a long "wish list" of projects.

"Tony Windsor is a very important part of our Australian parliament, and of course his support for the government is important to me and to the government," the Prime Minister told ABC regional radio listeners on Wednesday.

"Tony Windsor, I think, is a very determined person, a very methodical person, so he works constructively with the government, raising the issues of concern to the region and that's good to see.

"It's what we want local members to be doing."

Asked by The Weekend Australian if his position as a kingmaker had allow him to secure an unfair amount of funding, Windsor replied: "If that's the interpretation, I don't apologise . . . because I think country members have sold their electorates out in the past because of the need for the marginal city seats to receive the funding to buy the votes. I think it's rectifying inequities rather than some sort of pork barrel."

In any case, Labor had laid the ground work for its wooing of the rural independents over the course of its tumultuous first term under Kevin Rudd.

As this newspaper has previously reported, New England received above-average stimulus funds for the primary school building program and road "black spots". Grants for social housing ($81m) and community infrastructure ($9m) ran at twice the national average.

Allocations from the Trade Training Centres in Schools program are running at almost $23m at five locations in New England. Labor has so far allocated $1.028bn over three funding rounds on these training centres.

Given this program extends to every electorate, an average allocation would be $6.9m, so Windsor's seat has done extremely well from a measure Tony Abbott vows to cut in government.

When Gillard was trying to woo Windsor after last year's election, she was able to present a dossier of local projects that would be lost under Coalition rule.

Windsor said the substantive issues contained in the agreement he struck with Labor had benefited regional Australia generally, rather than one particular electorate.

"I've been arguing for those things for a number of years," the independent said.

"If you can put a bit more pressure on, well good luck."

Asked if that extended to pressuring government for the benefit of his electorate, Windsor replied that that was his job.