Melbourne’s future should be “polycentric” – a metropolis of multiple cities – to address the booming west’s brain drain and arduous commutes that resident workers are forced to contend with as they leave the region for their jobs.

Speakers at the West of Melbourne Summit on Thursday have supported the West of Melbourne Economic Development Alliance’s (WoMEDA) strategy that Sunshine should become Melbourne’s second CBD, along with satellite cities located in Werribee and Cobblebank and a priority precinct in Footscray.

Almost 200 business, government and academic leaders converged on The Refectory at the Werribee Mansion for the forum, moderated by Age reporters, where WoMEDA presented its strategic report, Western Growth: Unlocking Melbourne’s Economic Engine. The report outlines what’s needed for a thriving region and calls on the Victorian government to commit to fostering infrastructure and job hubs in Australia’s fastest-growing area.

Premier Jacinta Allan declared the west was not something to be fixed, while acknowledging there were “growing pains” that needed to be addressed. She named government projects that were under way such as the West Gate Tunnel, Sunshine Superhub and hospitals in Footscray and Melton.

“I do recognise there are challenges. Growth does bring pressure,” Allan said. “That’s exactly why we are investing so heavily in them. And that growth isn’t a failure. It shows that people see a future here.”

Opposition Leader Brad Battin said that winning seats in Melbourne’s west was an important step towards the Coalition forming government as growth areas would have a stronger influence on politics in the future.

Labor retained all western suburbs seats at the 2022 state election, but all swung against the party. Margins in most remain large, and there were few substantial primary vote swings to the Liberals, while independent candidates and community-backed parties are seeking to break the red wall at next year’s state election.

Battin, who lives in the growth south-eastern suburb of Berwick, said that a key difference between his area and the west was uneven distribution of investment and funding.

“The infrastructure in the east has increased faster with population than it has here in the west … there has been a lot more money spent on the east,” he said.

Battin said a Coalition government would look to “turbocharge the west with infrastructure”.

Peter Seamer, who led the Victorian Planning Authority for a decade, said there was major employment inequality, with Melbourne’s CBD having 3 per cent of the city’s population, but 20 per cent of jobs.

“The inner city has the railway lines and the best public transport … it needs to be balanced out,” Seamer said.

“There are a whole lot of government employees who don’t have to be in the city.”

Former Victorian premier Steve Bracks was previously a strong advocate for the south-eastern suburb of Dandenong to become Melbourne’s second city. In 2006, his Labor government’s Revitalising Central Dandenong project promised more jobs, homes and investment in the area.

Speaking at the summit, Bracks said that the future of Melbourne’s growth now lies in its western suburbs.

“Sunshine can be the Parramatta [Sydney’s second CBD] of Melbourne,” he said.

With major road links, a planned train “superhub” and a future direct rail link to Melbourne Airport, Bracks said that Sunshine was filled with promise.

“[The west] will become the hub, the centre … it is the centre of what is happening around Melbourne, but also around Victoria. That’s its future,” Bracks said.

Brimbank Council and community advocates have been anxiously awaiting the government’s timeline and final designs for the Sunshine masterplan, which would connect the “superhub” station with a revitalised centre, supporting it to become a jobs centre.

Allan said the government wanted to first identify parcels of land for housing and other private investment.

“I get the impatience, but it is important that we get it right because this is really setting up not just the Sunshine precinct, but indeed what it means for a much wider radius.”

She accepted that greenfield suburbs too often suffered an infrastructure lag and said her government was creating a more statewide approach to infrastructure contribution for growth areas. Densifying middle suburbs around Melbourne would also help share the housing load, she said.

“We recognise that you can’t just build more homes. You’ve got to build communities.”

The population of Melbourne’s west is predicted to almost double to 1.8 million by 2050, but demographer Simon Kuestenmacher believes the forecasts are an underestimate.

He warns it’s likely that the development of greenfield homes – which are cheaper to build than high-density housing – will grow faster than expected.

“If we want to become a multi-modal city where we have job clusters … we need to make sure they’re really well-connected,” he said.

Asked about increasing jobs in the west, Kuestenmacher said past Victorian government planning blueprints had promoted the creation of employment hubs across Melbourne, while simultaneously allowing the development of more office towers in the CBD and Docklands.

Kuestenmacher said that as low-grade commercial buildings empty out, they could be replaced further out of the CBD.

Matt Carrick, secretary of the Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions, said much of the growth in jobs would come from small business operators in transport, logistics, professional services, science and construction.

“Over the last five years, the top two municipalities in the country for small business growth are Wyndham and Melton. It’s going to be a phenomenal advantage that will help balance things.”

In eight short years, the size of the western suburbs’ professional workforce – those in fields including finance, insurance, sciences and IT – almost doubled, rising from about 70,000 to 130,000.

“The associated positive is that professional roles typically employ highly educated people and pay above-average salaries. One downside … is that these roles tend not to be local,” WoMEDA argues in its report.

By last year, 47.9 per cent of western suburbs workers commuted outside the region for work, a figure that is projected to exceed 50 per cent within the next decade.

Already, workers in Wyndham, in the outer south-west, face an average morning commute time of 56 minutes.

The alliance says Melbourne should follow the lead of Sydney and develop a second CBD in Sunshine, and two “satellite cities” in East Werribee and Cobblebank.

“There are many parallels between the western regions of Australia’s two largest metropolises. However, Greater Western Sydney is further into its journey than the west of Melbourne and is reaping the rewards,” the report argues.

It finds similarities between Melbourne and Sydney’s western suburbs. Both have a young, diverse and ambitious population, and are expected to absorb more population growth over the next two decades than other parts of the city.

But both also have higher-than-average unemployment and lower-than-average salary levels, as well as high levels of mortgage and rental stress.

In 2017, the Greater Sydney Commission released a 40-year plan to turn Sydney into a metropolis with three CBDs.

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