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Letter to the Editor (Liberal Nationals working to grow Victoria's regional communities)

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows in just 12 months Greater Melbourne grew by more than 126,000 people while regional Victoria grew by just 20,106.

By Portal Admin - 16th October 2017 - Back to News

Dear Editor,

Only a Government with little interest in our country communities would describe massive population growth in Melbourne as a win for regional Victoria.

Most of our state’s new residents move to Melbourne each year, but the Andrews Labor Government appears to think this is part of a trend of "strong growth in Victoria’s regional centres".

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows in just 12 months Greater Melbourne grew by more than 126,000 people while regional Victoria grew by just 20,106.

The ABS data also found 29 of our state’s 32 slowest growing LGAs are in regional Victoria, growing by less than one per cent in the 12 months to 30 June 2016.

This isn’t good enough and the Liberal Nationals understand it’s time to do something different.

With the Liberal Nationals’ Population Policy Taskforce, I have been speaking to our country communities about their ideas to grow our whole state – not just Melbourne.

To make sure all parts of government work together towards the same goal of growing all of Victoria, in Government we would have a Minister for Decentralisation.

The Andrews Labor Government has ignored the needs of our country communities for too long, remember this is the Government that wasted more than $1.3 billion not building a road in Melbourne.

The Premier for Melbourne has no plan to manage Victoria’s population growth. Only the Liberal Nationals are working on a plan for the future of our whole state.

Danny O’Brien

Chair of the Victorian Population Policy Taskforce

Member for Gippsland South

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: support@gippsland.com