Premier and Deputy Premier visit Narromine to meet with western mayors and general managers

The NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Deputy Premier John Barilaro along with Minister for Local Government Shelley Hancock were in Narromine on Sunday to meet with mayors and general managers from the western region.

Ms Berejiklian said after meeting with community leaders from as far as Brewarrina, Cobar, and Gilgandra, they were open to looking at addressing drought-relief solutions such as rate relief for local governments and payroll tax for small business and farmers.

"As you know we're already providing a lot of relief in terms of Local Land Service rates in relation to rego for farm vehicles, there's a whole list of things we're already supporting our communities on," she said.

"We're always up to listen to what communities tell us will provide them with relief, but we also know that every community has different challenges and different opportunities so we'll take on board all the suggestions that were made and we'll consider all of them."

Deputy premier Mr Barilaro also said it was important that councils still appllied for small grants through the major infrastructure program.

He also acknowledged more needed to be done to their guidelines surrounding the program.

"Yeah there are some issues we've seen recently,where local government has missed out on direct contracts, but they've still got the opportunity to gain and get into those projects and we're having workshops with those councils," he said.

"The first thing you've got to do is grow the pie, so if you look at the infrastructure and the dollars that are being spent in regional and rural NSW is the largest in history, so when there's more projects and more infrastructure being built it means everyone's got an opportunity to tap into that.

"But we're always open to have a look at guidelines, but the biggest thing we've got to do in the bush is spend more money, everyone gets a bigger share."

Both Ms Berejiklian and Mr Barilaro said it was fantastic to have the mayors and general managers west of the Newell Highway together in one meeting place.

"Narromine here has become a little bit of a meeting place and today was exactly that," Ms Berejiklian said.

"We will take on board a lot of the issues that were raised.

"But it was also great to get some feedback on things that councils felt we really supported them on, and areas where there should be further cooperation.

"I felt the discussions were really frank and upfront, and both the deputy premier and myself will take back what we've heard and make sure we keep supporting our communities."

"So I felt it was really constructive and positive, and we'll be back again."