WHEN is a promise not a promise?

When it's a "non-core" promise to a "non-core" constituency - regional Australia.

That seems to be Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's latest strategy as he fails to deliver on Labor's 2007 election promise to spend $15 million on a dedicated national research program for weeds.

The 2007 promise was made in response to widespread anger at the former Coalition Government's axing of the National Weeds Co-operative Research Centre.

The Weeds CRC was a highly effective body that could nationally co-ordinate and help fund crucial research and extension programs to combat agricultural and environmental weeds, which cost the nation $4 billion annually.

Labor's 2007 policy document pledged to spend $3 million by June 2008, another $4 million in 2008-09 and the same amount again this financial year, with the remainder to be spent next financial year.

Regional Australians have every right to know why the Government has not already allocated $11 million to the national weeds program. So far, Agriculture Minister Tony Burke has announced just $3.6 million of funding.

All Australians should be justifiably angry at Labor's failure to deliver on its promise.

Mr Rudd fails to understand the value the old Weeds CRC delivered.

A 2006 economic analysis showed that $40 million spent on weed science over 10 years returns a net benefit of $2 billion over 25 years.

Without a national weeds program, there are no new national protocols to determine weed risk from species that jump the garden fence, no studies to reveal the true cost of weeds to the national economy, and no grasp of the real impact of weeds on our ecosystems.

Ironically Labor's own policy document warned in 2007 that "climate change will increase the danger that invasive plants pose to established native vegetation, pastures and crops".

It is becoming increasingly evident Mr Rudd and his team are great at making grand promises, but poor on delivery.