Regions should be guaranteed their share

WE heard during the week that regional Victoria has been seriously short-changed in the State Government’s budget.

The Opposition has claimed that despite the fact that new data has confirmed more people are leaving Melbourne in favour of regional centres, the government continues to underfund infrastructure and services beyond the metropolitan boundary.

It seems they’ve over committed on Melbourne’s major projects and, out of sight, out of mind, the regions miss out.

“The Regional Movers Index highlights Geelong and Ballarat as growing destinations for city movers in a shift that is now significantly more than a COVID trend,” said Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Peter Walsh.

“It comes at a time when the government allocated just two per cent of its $98 billion budget to regional areas,” said Mr Walsh, describing the difference between the two as an “alarming gulf”.

In effect, the government is spending just two per cent of infrastructure funding on regional Victorians even though it is home to 25 per cent of the state’s population – which is increasing given the new Regional Movers Index data.

Anedotally, we see that locally in many areas; not enough health professionals in our hospitals, delayed and underfunded roadworks, too few teachers in our schools, poor public transport, not enough progress being made on the community housing crisis, underfunding of tourism promotion, poor land management and a lack of sporting and community facilities.

Two cases in point include the inadequate swimming centre for a growing population in Wonthaggi and the almost complete lack of recreation facilities on Phillip Island, especially an aquatic centre and more sports ovals.

And there’s also the promised funding for Stage II of the Wonthaggi Hospital and the San Remo Primary School rebuild, to name a few more.

There are signs that Melbourne’s growth plan is bringing benefits to the regions but there needs to be a set amount of budget funding quarantined for the regions, 25 per cent for 25 per cent of the population so that we don’t have to go though this argument again every few years or so.