High unemployment rate key Broadmeadows state election issue

CREATING jobs and taming the region’s high unemployment rate are the key focus for candidates in Broadmeadows ahead of this month’s state election.

Generic image of a job seeker looking at postings for jobs at the Verdugo Jobs Center, which includes a California Employment Development satellite office, in Glendale, California, U.S., on Friday, Aug. 6, 2010. U.S. companies hired fewer workers than forecast in July, evidence of what Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has called an &uncertain& economic environment that may keep him focused on reviving growth. Overall employment fell by 131,000 and the jobless rate held at 9.5 percent. Photographer: Jonathan Alcorn/Bloomberg

CREATING jobs and taming the region’s high unemployment rate are the key focus for candidates in Broadmeadows ahead of this month’s state election.

In Broadmeadows, it was clear job creation and the skyrocketing unemployment rate, which sits at 26.4 per cent, were the top priorities for candidates.

State Labor MP Frank McGuire said he had been campaigning strongly to have almost $100 million reallocated that was earmarked for, but not used, on projects including the Broadmeadows Railway Station redevelopment, a government services building and a central activities district.

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“This was a shovel-ready project that would have delivered jobs and economic benefits to the Broadmeadows community when it needed it most and that type of politics — that was a wrong decision, an unfair decision,” Mr McGuire said.

Liberal candidate Enver Onder identified jobs, unemployment and family violence as key issues, and said he would “definitely look into” upgrading the train station if elected.

Greens candidate Jaime de Loma-Osorio Ricon said Broadmeadows needed to look to the future and become a manufacturing hub for what the world needed, namely renewable energy sources.