Wednesday, 8 June 2022

Public Accounts and Estimates Committee

Inquiry into the 2021–22 Budget Estimates

Mr McGUIRE (Broadmeadows) (10:18): 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 continue my contribution on reimagining Broadmeadows from rust belt to brain belt. Broadmeadows is being reimagined despite the catastrophes of our times. Breaking the cycle of disadvantage requires collaboration and constancy of purpose. For 23 years I have pursued creative responses to addressing the compounding complexities of place-based disadvantage and failures of globalisation now exposed by broken supply chains and a toxic mix of rising prices, interest rates and weak growth.

The world is undergoing a major transition underscored by instability and increasing geopolitical risk after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s assertiveness. Globalisation is over. That is the message from the World Economic Forum in Davos. The chain reaction from threats I have predicted continues to be realised and must not be ignored. The pandemic exposed the imperative for Australia to secure independent supply chains, national sovereignty and local jobs for local people, as I have long pursued. Defining the vision, plan and priorities in reimagining Broadmeadows has been vital, establishing a prototype for economic recovery and social development. This turnaround addresses the convergence of inequality and deindustrialisation and has been achieved while battling the worst global pandemic in more than a century, triggering the world’s worst recession since the Great Depression.

News reports of a political backlash based on federal election results citing Broadmeadows as a seat being targeted in the forthcoming election are disturbing. Now is not the time to deny democracy and parachute in a candidate, risking a backlash like the one that ended Senator and former New South Wales Premier Kristina Keneally’s career. Backroom deals preferencing cronyism and nepotism must not be allowed to stand over democracy and performance, particularly under the factional rule 5.4—‘I’ve got five votes, you’ve got four. Goodbye and good luck’. The people of Broadmeadows delivered the highest primary vote at the last state election to me, a boy off the boat who grew up in Broadmeadows when it was the end of the line and became the first person raised in this tough, resilient community to represent it as a Labor MP in this Parliament as the member for Broadmeadows. I want to thank members of the Broadmeadows Revitalisation Board for unanimously endorsing my Comeback strategy during this insane period. Successes include coordinating the three tiers of government, business and civil society when too often Broadmeadows has been abandoned like an orphan.

Priority one defined Broadmeadows as a prototype for economic and social development. Proposing big-picture ideas has proved successful and could not have come at a more significant time. Combining these big-picture projects with grassroots programs was designed to help accelerate through deindustrialisation from the rust belt to the brain belt. Importantly, a small number of countries have the capability to make vaccines. Broadmeadows is now an epicentre for Australia’s vaccine manufacturing. My advocacy extends back to 2016 on this matter to help CSL’s life-saving manufacturing expand, and that was done through Creating Opportunity: Postcodes of Hope. When COVID spread globally, CSL began manufacturing more than 50 million vaccine doses, saving lives and livelihoods at home and abroad. A new advanced niche manufacturing ecosystem has been established and is expanding. A $1.8 billion deal to make vaccines against influenza will save more lives and livelihoods, creating this new lucrative export industry. Promoting this strategy is attracting more investors for jobs and growth in Melbourne’s north.

The investment attraction strategy I launched as a local MP succeeded in inspiring a defining $1 billion in investments into the derelict Ford sites for new, cleaner, greener industries after the iconic assembly lines fell silent in October 2016, marking the demise of our once-proud passenger car making industry, Australia’s loss of manufacturing scale, and devastating Broadmeadows. New businesses are projected to deliver 5000 local jobs at no cost to taxpayers in the next five years. The billion-dollar pipeline of projects has been inspired against adversity and wilful neglect. We know about the Abbott government’s ‘lifters and leaners’ budget, the managed decline they had and their approach to Melbourne’s north—and the one-term coalition and what they did with the reverse Robin Hood strategy. This is why it is important to make these Comeback strategies work, and we have got a whole range of different projects that are going and being built. I want to thank the people who have been involved in the Broadmeadows Revitalisation Board, particularly during this period of adversity, and thank them for all their cooperation in delivering where this is needed most. This is what we need to reimagine this community as a prototype for others, and now, at a time that is perilous, we are making the cultural, generational and systemic change.