Its given us deep insights into the challenges facing Regional Victoria. The result is our State Election Platform, Powering Victoria’s Future, as we look ahead to the Victorian Election.

The platform has four key pillars: Strengthening Victoria’s Jobs and Skills, Building Victoria as the best state to operate a business, Driving Victoria’s Economy and Growing Regional Victoria

Regional Victoria is critical to Victoria’s economy, generating $72 billion annually and contributing 20 per cent to our economy. It is home to one in four Victorians, accounts for 700,000 jobs and is Australia’s largest food producer.

There are 20 primary recommendations that address Regional Victoria. These include developing a housing development scheme to expand housing supply and planning and funding a targeted, industry-led ‘Work in the Regions’ initiative to encourage people to relocate and work in industries with labour shortages.

We’re also advocating for an Agriculture Passport to allow seasonal employees to work across growers and farms rather than being restricted to just one employer, an idea generated at our roundtable in Mildura.

We need to make our regions more attractive for business investment and growth and to achieve this we are recommending that the payroll tax rate should be decreased from 1.21 per cent to zero in Regional Victoria. 

Our regions also need targeted industry investment to ensure development and growth. We're advocating for a regional Victorian manufacturing strategy to boost our local manufacturing industry and capabilities.

We want regional Victoria develop further as the place to start and grow a business by improving infrastructure, streamlining planning and regulatory approvals, boosting connectivity and addressing skills shortages.

Regional Victoria is the heart of our tourism sector and it’s time for a dedicated tourism strategy that will leverage our food, drink and nature-based tourism offerings. It needs adequate funding to bring it to life and sit separately from an events strategy and the investment being made into the 2026 Commonwealth Games which will be an opportunity to showcase Regional Victoria to the world.

This op-ed was originally published in The Weekly Times on Wednesday 5 October 2022.