In addition to the more than 40,000 emails of support, there are plenty of other developments for the campaign.

The Parties:

• Two Green candidates, in the Victorian seats of Gorton and Lalor, have publicly backed the Fund our Future campaign for a dedicated national fund for outer suburbs.

As part of the campaign, we are highlighting the sort of projects that could be supported through a dedicated fund. We welcome any commitments to these – and will be keeping track of them – but maintain that a piecemeal approach is inadequate and communities are demanding a long-term approach, that is a dedicated fund.

The ALP has backed three of the projects our campaign has highlighted. They are:

• South Australia’s Gawler rail electrification
• Western Sydney rail though Badgerys Creek in the north-south corridor
• In Perth, the North Lake Bridge over the Kwinana Freeway, linking North Lake Road with Armadale Road.

In media about the Federal Budget response, the Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Cities, Anthony Albanese said communities “deserve a government that takes action to improve the liveability of our outer suburbs”. The Assistant Minister for Cities Angus Taylor said “Outer suburban areas are as big a focus of the Smart Cities Plan as are inner suburbs and regional cities. I am excited about the potential of suburban areas to crack open the jobs clustering in our inner CBDs, which has been a feature of the development of our cities in recent decades. We need more job clusters in the suburbs.”
  

Media:

We’ve had another page one story. This one “Australian cities are booming; how can we ensure outer suburbs don’t get left behind?” is in the national publication, Local Government Focus.

Read the full story

So far, there have been around 124 stories about the Fund our Future campaign. There have been 102 stories in the local media, 18 state-wide stories and four national stories.

Community:

• Fund our Future petition: Thousands of emails are being sent each week to politicians in Canberra, demanding a dedicated national infrastructure fund for outer growth suburbs. We have now reached more than 40,000 emails to Canberra.
• Social media: The Fund our Future Facebook account has almost 1900 likes and over the last month we have had almost 24,000 impressions, which is up 88% on the previous month.