Bendigo East candidates forum 2018: Decentralisation, Bendigo GovHub, climate change impacts

How do you all feel about decentralising Victoria and developing and investing into regional cities? It seems like everything over the last few years is all about making Melbourne bigger.

Ian Ellis (Liberal)

The Liberal policy is to decentralise as much as possible, to actually take some of the strain off of Melbourne which is going to require a lot of infrastructure in regional areas that will create jobs and so on.

The policy for the Liberal Nationals is to decentralise.

Small business is the main employer, so with the payroll tax reduction it will encourage small business to move to regional areas, which will mean there will be more jobs, which will stimulate more infrastructure, which will require more services, teachers, nurses, police.

Gaelle Broad (Nationals)

It’s really important for the whole of Victoria that we become a state that has cities, not a city-state.

There’s a big difference in that approach, and that’s what the Nationals want to see. We do want to see regional Victoria thriving and it should be.

You can look at government jobs as part of that, but we need business to be growing in our regions. We need industry to be developing in our regions because that is what pays for our public transport, that is what pays for our universities to exist, it’s what pays for social security.

A lot of that is driven by people being able to be employed, pay their taxes, and that’s how we get these other services and benefits.

When we look at the GovHub, that’s another example of how Bendigo has been left behind.

When you look at the state government and what they have given to Ballarat - it was over $48 million for the GovHub to be built on Crown Land.

Now for Bendigo, all that’s been given is $16 million for the planning. It looks as though, at this stage, the council is going to have to sell our public land to fund this project. That is going to cause issues as we go into debt in order to pay for this.

I’m not sure if there’s any new jobs that have been promised with this project. When you look up the project, this is where I would like to know a lot more detail. I would like to have a lot of these questions answered.

There’s no idea about exactly how much it’s going to cost. There’s no clarity on the number of jobs that it’s meant to be bringing to our region.

If we can get some answers about that - that’s another project that’s been announced just before an election. We’ve had Labor in government now for 15 out of 19 years.

To start looking back and referring to the Kennett era, that is a long time ago. I studied politics many years ago, and I think that predates that.

Jacinta Allan (Labor)

This was announced in the budget, so it’s not before an election. This was announced way back at the start of May that we would be investing in a GovHub model in Bendigo that suited the needs of Bendigo, that involved consolidating a number of government offices onto one location and adding another 100 jobs to that - 100 new government jobs for Bendigo.

We’re working through the details of that within government - not at the moment, we’re in caretaker - with the council as well to bring over 1000 people into the CBD of Bendigo and really help revitalise the CBD of Bendigo.

Gaelle touched on this, and it’s been talked about a bit recently - that Bendigo has been left behind.

If we’re really worried about Bendigo being left behind, there’s no way at this election you would support the Liberal or National parties here in Bendigo because they have made next to no commitments for the Bendigo community.

Only Labor is committing to the day rehabilitation centre at the hospital, only Labor is committed to the $152 million for the Bendigo Law Courts.

The GovHub proposition - there’s one going into the La Trobe Valley, there’s one going into Ballarat and there’s one going into Bendigo - and they’re all very different, reflecting the needs of the local community.

It’s not a one-size-fits-all model.

This notion that Labor has been in power for 15 of the last 19 years - I say to that, ‘thank goodness’. It’s only Labor that brought government jobs to the regions, it’s only Labor that brought the Rural Finance Corporation to Bendigo - 100 State Trustees to Bendigo.

Helen Leach (DLP)

I did see plans (as a City of Greater Bendigo councillor), and I noticed there were only about 12 car parks. So I wonder where all of these 1000 people are going to put their cars, that’s a bit of a worry.

There’s been no transparency for the ratepayers of Bendigo. They have been completely left out of this whole thing. The council - they tried this when I was there - what they want to do is for the ratepayers to lease back the space.

It’s already been said here that in Ballarat, the government purchased Crown Land. But in Bendigo, the council - the ratepayers - own the land that it’s going on. The government invests in a building there, they say there’s 1000 jobs, I don’t believe it.

Even so, the ratepayers have to rent back their own space after the government has taken it over.

About decentralisation - I’d like to see more water security because if you’re to bring hundreds of thousands of people out to the country, the north of Victoria is fairly dry as you might notice, what are we planning to do? Take the water all from the Goulburn because they do need it to grow food.

I believe a lower immigration rate would assist in the overcrowding of Melbourne, and the need to send them all up to the country.

One - you need the jobs to follow, you need water, you need support services which we don’t have enough yet.

Nakita Thomson (Greens)

I was at a regional and rural planning conference the other day, and one of the issues with trying to get businesses to invest in regional communities is that there is not enough people to fill the jobs.

I think that immigration might help regional areas. I’ve seen it in my town of Shepparton, a lot of migrant communities that I grew up with work very very hard and contribute to the economy greatly and benefit rural and regional communities.

About water security, it’s interesting that Helen mentions that, as I don’t think she would be one that accepts the science of climate change.

She wants to burn all the coal but she’s worried about water security. Well we’ll have more droughts if we keep burning the coal, so I think that’s an interesting comment from Helen.

Helen Leach

Obviously I don’t agree. I do believe that the climate changes, of course I do. But anthropogenic change - there’s a very small amount. And Australia contributes 1.2 per cent to the world’s emissions.

Having us destroy ourselves is not going to help the world at all.

Michael Belardinelli (Independent)

I’d just like to say, Helen, that it’s more than 1.2 per cent because how much coal are we exporting? How much do we contribute to China? Who gives us the right to use so much power while people in the rest of the world use bugger all?