While floating the idea of reviving its own former Regional Partnerships policy, the opposition said the process for awarding grants from the government's $1 billion regional infrastructure fund was "too bureaucratic".

Latrobe City Council hopes to secure funding for its proposed Latrobe Valley Airport upgrade from this fund.

Council's airport proposal lost out in the first round of RDAF funding, announced late last year, amid opposition claims the government had favoured projects from ALP electorates. Criticism of the RDAF application process also prompted guideline changes.

Last week Federal Member for Gippsland Darren Chester agreed with his colleague, Opposition Regional Development Spokesperson Senator Barnaby Joyce, who questioned whether a competitive grants process was the best option for distributing funds to needy regional communities.

The opposition has already written to local governments and RDAF committees asking whether it would be "better for us just to give the money directly to the regions or local governments".

Mr Chester said there was "alot of merit in a direct funding model where all of the regions share in the funding pool, rather than a competitive process which inevitably results in winners and losers".

"My concern about the last round was that it turned into a funding application writing competition rather than a process of good projects receiving support," he said.

"It seemed that if you had the resources to write the best application then you were in a stronger position than a smaller (applicant) without the same expertise.

"The end result was that alot of good projects missed out, including the LV airfield development," Mr Chester said.

"My other concern is that we have some very good people working on the Gippsland board for Gippsland Regional Development Australia who are giving up their time to do this job and if they feel like they can't deliver results for the community they might not stay on," he said.