Reacting to the establishment of a new Provincial Growth Fund, Feminist Initiative has published the following statement on its blog:

Feminist Initiative is currently concerned about the establishment of a new Provincial Growth Fund as it is currently envisioned. The recent Cabinet paper lacks any clear proposals for the accountable and sustainable management of the fund. There is no independent oversight of funding for projects, instead being at full ministerial discretion.

With this fund replacing the Regional Investment Corporation, there are legitimate concerns over its accountability. The Regional Investment Corporation currently is managed in an arms-length manner, has a duty to report financial information like other Crown-held bodies, and has a clear statutory mandate. While the Regional Investment Corporation may not be structured perfectly, we believe that these features should be retained in any replacement. It is of vital importance that regional development funds are used in a way which brings long-term benefit to communities and it would be disappointing if these funds were diverted to politically-connected individuals purely at the discretion of a minister.

Our party stands for principles of accountability and transparency in politics, and indeed these are principles we hope to find across parties. A Feminist Government would immediately implement the arms-length accountability mechanisms for regional development funding to ensure that there is a level of oversight, and we will work in Parliament with the goal of ensuring that the current coalition Government's Provincial Growth Fund implements such standards.