Hansard debates

Mr McGUIRE (Broadmeadows) (10:34:28) — I refer to the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee inquiry into the budget estimates for 2016–17 and particularly to the contribution by the Minister for Industry and Employment, who referred to how working in collaboration presents an opportunity to drive strategic results. I want to continue my contribution on the need to place critical issues that are in the national interest above partisanship. This is important not only at state level but also for our relations with the Australian government and specifically for the Australian government to deliver on its election promise of jobs and growth.

To put the point succinctly, Melbourne's north must have a city deal to match Sydney's west. I just want to outline how significant this is and the opportunity that we have for economic development. It is simply one of the best opportunities in Australia. Gross regional product in Melbourne's north is $37 billion. Melbourne's north boasts Australia's largest concentration of advanced manufacturing. It also features the highest proportion of undeveloped industrial land in the world's most livable city — about 60 per cent — defining it as the most sustainable and affordable region to cope with population growth. Proximity to the heart of the city, affordable land, blue-chip infrastructure and booming population provides the opportunities capital craves to help create a 21st-century vision.

The need is vital and urgent. One in 20 Australians is expected to live in Melbourne's north within two decades. The increase of almost half a million people means the population — already four times the size of Victoria's second largest city, Geelong — would match the current population of Adelaide within that time. This is the scale that we are talking about. These are the opportunities that we are looking at.

I want to also now address the assets that can be aggregated for us to maximise results. The strategic infrastructure includes the jewel in Victoria's crown — the international, curfew-free Melbourne Airport. I contrast that with the Australian government giving $5 billion to build a new airport in Sydney's west and proposing a rail link to an airport that has not even been built. I am just saying that here is the opportunity we have to actually build on these assets. Melbourne Airport is going to expand and have another runway. This is how you actually maximise the return on the assets that you have: build on them and build the infrastructure and the economic development and cultural development that comes with that. Nearby we have also got Essendon Airport.

We have got the newly expanded Tullamarine Freeway linking to Melbourne's central business district. Of course this was an investment by the Andrews Labor government. The Treasurer and the Minister for Finance are at the table and I give them due acknowledgement. This is very important. This is how you build cities, how you build states. This is the critical infrastructure that Victoria has invested in, and all we have ever asked for is a fair go from the Australian government to stop dudding Victorians — all our families — and to make sure that we get it. We have got the M80 ring-road, we have got Sydney Road, two rail lines into the region and a spur into the Ford site which, at 87 hectares, is the size of a suburb, and Ford has reinvested in innovation.

Here is how we can make this a centre of excellence for the Asia-Pacific, and there are so many other ways if the Australian government will not be so Sydney-centric, will govern in the national interest and will partner with Victoria to deliver jobs and growth where they are needed most.