Plan to reboot Victoria’s economy revealed
A daring new plan to restart the state’s post-pandemic economy is in the works, including 66 projects designed to create 300,000 jobs. And it has unprecedented bipartisan support. SEE THE PLANS.
Victoria
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A new blueprint to transform Melbourne’s north and west — including a second Metro tunnel and an outer-northern suburbs hospital — is being launched to kickstart the post-pandemic economy.
A total of 66 major projects are detailed in the plan which aims to create 300,000 jobs over the next two decades.
Launched today by former Victorian premiers Steve Bracks and John Brumby and Federal Senate president Scott Ryan, the bipartisan strategy has the unprecedented backing of all 13 councils across an area that will be home to three million people by 2040.
It has been created as part of the Commonwealth’s City Deals scheme — designed to accelerate growth and jobs in specific areas of need.
The biggest new initiative is a second Melbourne Metro tunnel, connecting the Mernda line across the city to Fishermans Bend and under Yarra River to Newport.
An outer-northern suburbs hospital near Beveridge and a food export hub in Epping are among other new projects.
Several other road and rail schemes and community developments already in the pipeline are also proposed to be fast-tracked.
One such major road is a 100km outer metropolitan super highway, linking the Hume Freeway in the north to the Princes Freeway southwest of Werribee, with state and federal governments are already working on the business case.
With tens of thousands of people unemployed in Melbourne’s north and west as a result of the coronavirus, Mr Brumby said the City Deal identified shovel ready “stimulus” projects for prioritisation and a longer-term recovery strategy.
Mr Bracks said the “compelling case” would be submitted to the federal government in order to become the 11th City Deal across the nation and the second in Victoria after Geelong.
“This … is a blueprint for the region to respond to the impacts of the pandemic,” he said.
“It has significant benefits for the whole of the Australian economy”.
As one of Australia’s fastest growing areas, Melbourne’s north and west will house one in 12 Australians – more than the whole of South Australia – within two decades.
The blueprint also details how to attract investment around major infrastructure developments already locked in, including the Airport Rail Link, new A-League stadium in Wyndham, and $16 billion North East Link.
New jobs “hubs” would be created to entice private sector cash to areas such as Sunshine, set to explode due to new airport rail and regional rail upgrades, and Beveridge where massive freight and logistics centres will be built.
With Melbourne Airport, the Port of Melbourne, the national freight rail terminal, and the Hume Freeway all within the region, Senator Ryan said its economic importance was obvious.
“For our nation to succeed, the North and West Melbourne region needs to succeed,” Senator Ryan said.
As part of the strategy a new Melbourne Centre for Civil Construction at Werribee would train high-skilled workers for major projects, which industry groups say currently have shortfalls.
Another key project is La Trobe University’s $5 billion City of the Future, which would drive $3.5 billion in economic activity in just a decade.
The strategy also urges the Andrews Government to start the western sections of its Suburban Rail Loop at the same time as its Cheltenham-Box Hill “stage one” — in 2022.
About 60 per cent of coronavirus cases in Victoria have been within the footprint of the north and west Melbourne region, which already includes eight of the 10 most disadvantaged council areas.
More than 5000 cases have been identified in the past month in five local government areas alone – Whittlesea, Hume, Brimbank, Melton and Wyndham.
Mr Brumby, who was the member for Broadmeadows and is now chancellor of La Trobe University, said “you can’t really begin to think about Australia’s economic recovery until this area, the north and the west, are firing on all cylinders”.
“So far, around 80,000 jobs have been lost in the North, with thousands more employees on reduced hours, and almost half of the businesses in the West have lost more than 25 per cent of their revenue compared to same period last year as a result of COVID-19,” Mr Brumby said.
Many workers struggling to make ends meet during lockdowns in Melbourne have taken on multiple jobs, with movement between workplaces likely to have been a factor in the second wave.
Part of the City Deal plan, which will be submitted to the federal government’s Infrastructure Department and the Andrews Government to be formally endorsed, would be to bring back manufacturing in the traditional working class area.
This would include the development of advanced technology-based work, as well as energy and waste reuse industries.
The City Deal blueprint had input from business, education and health groups, and says that “game-changing infrastructure projects need to be delivered to enable access to employment clusters and key precincts across the entire region”.
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