General News
23 June, 2025
Decade of missed country chances
Investment needed to help rural barometers, writes Peter Walsh THE connection may not be immediately obvious, but regional Victoria’s football and netball clubs are barometers of our economic and social wellbeing. And right now, looking around the...
Investment needed to help ruralbarometers, writes Peter Walsh
THE connection may not be immediately obvious, but regional Victoria’s football and netball clubs are barometers of our economic and social wellbeing.
And right now, looking around the state, things are looking bleak.
Because a total lack of vision and commitment to decentralisation by the Allan Labor government has missed a decade of opportunity which is crippling regional Victoria.
Without more jobs, more housing, more infrastructure and more encouragement, growth in regional areas will continue to be outstripped by the voraciousness of overcrowded Melbourne and all its growing social challenges.
The last Nationals Liberals government established the $1 billion Regional Growth Fund to invest billions of dollars in regional Victoria over many years.
Investments which would have meant more jobs and more housing – and more families. The families who will join local sporting clubs, not just football and netball, but also cricket tennis, hockey, bowls, croquet, all of them and more. Those people also join service clubs such as Rotary and Lions, their children go to local schools – and they all shop locally.
Everyone wins.
But now I hear talk around the traps that too many clubs are struggling, especially for juniors, and that is because the Allan Labor government doesn’t give a toss about supporting the regional community.
Its only focus is more money for Melbourne, more money for its Big Bill projects that never get finished, some barely get started, and more money for its corrupt CFMEU allies. All the Allan Labor government is really delivering is the biggest debt of any state in Australia – ever.
In the past decade there has been no genuine attempt by Labor to consider any form of decentralisation.
Instead, it is working stealthily behind the scenes to strip local powers even further – just look at our hospitals. They are being forced into cluster groups with centralised control from Melbourne or major hubs such as Bendigo. For example, Mildura’s healthcare operations are now under the control of Bendigo. That’s a gap of 400km and I doubt anyone in Bendigo has much of a clue about life in and around the Mallee or Sunraysia.
Give it another year or two of Labor control and it will all be in the hands of faceless Melbourne bureaucrats whose only purpose in life will be a spreadsheet in front of them, not the reality at the coalface in regional communities across the state.
I have read that moves are afoot for the Central Murray Football Netball League to sit down with Golden Rivers and you can only imagine the conversations which will be taking place there about a possible merger/restructure which, in the end, always means fewer teams, fewer opportunities and bigger distances to travel.
Regional Victoria remains an untapped resource for our financially besieged state. At the same time, it is also a solution for the overcrowded and overpriced property sector within greater Melbourne which is seeing the urban sprawl spilling into regional areas, carving up large slabs of productive country as landholders cannot resist the millions on offer from developers looking for ever more land.
This growth has been so fast it has left essential services in its wake.
Just look at the northern growth corridor – go between Wallan and Craigieburn where there are now thousands and thousands of houses with no real infrastructure, from supermarkets to schools to hospitals.
If you directed that growth to centres such as Swan Hill, or Mildura, or Echuca, you already have the community assets you need. They can be easily, and more cheaply, upgraded to suit, instead of starting from the ground up in congested Melbourne.
Not only is it a viable and immediate solution, but it is also an amazing wellbeing alternative. Life in regional areas is hard to beat but people need incentives and opportunities.
Victoria’s Big Bill will cost us around $28 million a day – and that’s just the interest bill.
We can pause or seriously slow down what are already some of the slowest construction projects in human history and divert the money where it will do more good.
And what could be better than seeing men and women, children, families, involved in local sport, enjoying local amenities and loving life way outside the rat race which has become the symbol of Melbourne under Labor.
Peter Walsh is the member for Murray Plains