Thursday, 18 May 2023

Population policy

Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (15:59): (240) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Planning, and it relates to population policy in Victoria. Almost 20 years ago the 2004 publication Beyond Five Million: The Victorian Government’s Population Policy outlined a vision for population in Victoria until the year 2025. There was an aspirational target set for regional Victoria for the population to be 1.75 million. At this current point in time regional Victoria’s population is 1.58 million. More recently the Victorian government prepared the Victoria in Future publication, which was released in 2019 and which outlined future population projections. On page 11 of that report it looks as though Victoria may reach a population of 1.75 million around the year 2030 or thereabouts. I am a big believer in regional Victoria, and I am a believer that regional Victoria should have the opportunity to share in the state’s growth. According to that same report, by 2056 there are projected to be an extra 4.286 million people in Melbourne but in regional Victoria only 746,000 additional residents. Why is that the case? Should we be a state of cities or a city state?

My idea is that we should be a state of cities. So the action that I seek is this: will the government establish a multiparty population task force or similar body with the view of coming up with a suite of measures to increase regional and rural populations? I do not necessarily mean the larger regional centres like Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong; they are growing okay. I am talking about the smaller centres – centres with populations below 50,000. There could be significant incentives around stamp duty and other taxation measures along with improvements to the provision of services and transport infrastructure to support population growth and ensure country areas have the same opportunity to take advantage of growth that city areas do. This would be a transformational policy that would have effects for literally years and years to come. So the action that I seek, as I said, is that I encourage the government to consider this as an option for thinking about population policy into the future.