Wednesday, 11 May 2022

Public Accounts and Estimates Committee

Inquiry into the 2021–22 Budget Estimates

Mr McGUIRE (Broadmeadows) (15:22): I refer to the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee inquiry into the budget estimates for 2021–22 and the contribution from the Minister for Economic Development on how Victoria is trying to strengthen economic performance through a range of mechanisms. I want to continue to add to my advocacy for establishing opportunity zones. The strategy is to turn rust belts into brain belts. The aim is to drive economic and social development to spread opportunity and prosperity. This is a value-based economic and social development policy, and it builds on the prototype established in Broadmeadows by leveraging the Broadmeadows Revitalisation Board, adding 4.0 to its name and trying to fast-track through deindustrialisation to new industries, new jobs and new ways to create opportunity.

In this contribution I specifically want to go to Victoria’s leadership in medical research. I really want to point out that it is too little known that if you look at medical research around the world, there is Boston with Harvard and MIT, there is London with Imperial College and nearby Oxbridge, and then there is Melbourne with the University of Melbourne and the elegance of the Parkville precinct and then what I call the great southern hub, with Monash University connected to CSIRO by Innovation Walk. This should be our billion-dollar boulevard. I think that is where you keep your brains trust, but your manufacturing arm can be where we need it in Melbourne’s north.

Particularly I want to acknowledge the Premier, the Treasurer and the minister for Victoria’s leadership again. We have won the bid to manufacture mRNA vaccines, the next generation. This is an outstanding piece of economic involvement and it creates huge opportunities for breakthroughs and discoveries at home and a lucrative export industry as well. I have received a response from Hume City Council to this. They want to write to Moderna, to the Victorian Minister for Innovation, Medical Research and the Digital Economy, the Honourable Jaala Pulford in the other place, and to the federal government on behalf of Hume City Council and Melbourne Airport to champion them being chosen as the location for the home of the proposed mRNA vaccine manufacturing facility. They have come together to put forward a proposal. There are a number of different sites. One is the Broadmeadows logistics estate; that is a 25-hectare former Woolworths distribution centre. Another is at the Melbourne Airport business park. This is of interest because it has received a $1.8 million deal with Seqirus, which is a subsidiary to CSL, to manufacture vaccines against influenza.

This will provide another lucrative export industry to save lives at home and abroad. This will be added to what CSL already manufactures at Camp Road in Broadmeadows, and that is more than 50 million AstraZeneca doses against COVID. So you can see how you can bring a manufacturing arm to bear and create a broader ecosystem of production. And then Hume City Council has also put forward the Merrifield business park and the Amaroo business park up in Craigieburn, which is outside the Broadmeadows state district, but it just goes to show how you can coordinate and deliver on this. They make the point that this is a 28-hectare estate, and it is the new home to a major Amazon centre as well, which will be the size of the MCG.

I just want to bring these strategic views together to keep advocating for the new industries and jobs. Remember, I have been delighted to inspire $1 billion in shovel-ready and pipeline projects into the old Ford site, so that is 5000 new jobs at no cost to taxpayers—so that is that epicentre. You have got nearby another company that is going to have a hydrogen hub, so there is your energy source. We need to look at how we bring back these communities and how we set them up for the future, and medical research is one of the great gifts that we have that has been developed over generations. And remember, vaccines are one of the most elegant gifts of science to save lives and livelihoods and create lucrative export industries. That is why Melbourne is the beating heart of our medical research industry.