The organisation draws together regional councils from across the country to help nut out policies to help grow population, productivity and ‘liveability’ for “regional capitals” such as Tamworth.

Cr Murray was appointed to the role just over a week ago, and he said Tamworth would see a benefit from from his ascension to the role.

“One third of the population lives in, or is serviced by, regional Australia,” Cr Murray said.

“But, we believe a lot of capital investment goes into the nation's capital cities at the expense of regional Australia.”

The body was only formed three years ago, but Cr Murray said it had played a key role in advocating for the federal government “city deals” policy and the Senate inquiry into regional capitals.

“We have strong engagement with The Nationals, and Barnaby Joyce in particular has been very receptive to our policies and our cause,” Cr Murray said.

While the aim is to grow populations outside of the major cities, Cr Murray said Regional Capitals Australia is a different organisation to NSW based program, Evocities.

Cr Murray said Regional Capitals Australia has a “very modest” membership fee of about $5500, but was certain Tamworth would see a return on the investment.

“It's very modest, a lot of our communication is done by video conferencing and we'll have a meeting attached to the Annual Local Government Association conference in Melbourne,” Cr Murray said,.

“There's a lot of potential benefit from this group when compared to the cost, it's very strong.”

The council will pay $65,000 for its Evocities membership, this financial year, and Cr Murray remained certain of benefit being returned for the output.

“Council is very conscious about the community's concerns when it comes to those things,” he said.

“We're very careful of what we spend.”