Cr Booth said the Prime Minister extended the meeting, organised by Federal representative Catherine King, from 20 minutes to 45 minutes to pursue key regional issues with representatives of Hepburn, Moorabool and Golden Plains shire councils and the City of Ballarat.

"He was very pleased that we were working in a regional capacity and he was genuinely interested in hearing about what was working or what was needed to assist our residents," Cr Booth said.

Cr Booth attended the meeting with Hepburn Shire chief executive officer Kaylene Conrick.

"Health, transport connections, water security, fire preparedness and environmental matters such as the need for national guidelines on wind farms were all raised during out meeting, " Cr Booth said.

"We were able to directly talk about the impact major projects have on our residents, such as the need for improved regional cancer services to help relieve the burden of travel on both patients and their family members.

"The Prime Minister was very interested to hear about the direct impact on local communities such as ours where economic stimulus spending projects such as the Doug Lindsay Multipurpose Centre under the Federal Government's Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program are underway.

"He also wanted our feedback on the government's major broadband roll out and improvements to the telecommunications network.

"We talked about how important improved mobile coverage was for our area particularly with four of our townships being listed among the state's 52 most bushfire-prone areas.

"This was a wonderful opportunity to better position our region and Hepburn Shire's place in it."