Support for regional workers should be wider, Grimley says

THE Victorian Government has announced a pilot scheme to tackle housing shortages and other barriers to regional workforce attraction, but Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party MP Stuart Grimley says the financial help should go to councils across the state.

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in unprecedented numbers of people moving from Melbourne to regional and rural Victoria, bringing forward unexpected demand on the already tight housing market in many areas.

Some areas report a shortage of rental stock availability is exacerbating workforce shortages.

According to the Real Estate Institute of Victoria, the vacancy rate in regional Victoria (as a proportion of vacant properties) was 1.2 per cent in June, compared to 6.1 per cent in metropolitan Melbourne.

The $5 million investment for Regional Workforce Pilots, revealed by Minister for Regional Development Mary-Anne Thomas last week, will provide targeted and localised support in four areas of regional Victoria experiencing high demand for workers and increasing challenges in attracting them.

Pilots will be in the region surrounding Ararat in the Grampians, along the Great South Coast, the High Country, and at Robinvale in northern Victoria.

The Victorian Government says it is also providing more than $3 million in funding to support other immediate interventions identified by regional businesses and councils to support workforce attraction to improve housing.

“We understand that workforce and housing shortages are a real issue in our regional towns – that’s why we are investing in these new pilots to help solve these issues and boost employment across the state,” Ms Thomas said.

Mr Grimley, a Member for Western Victoria, said he had been been calling for more financial help to the four pilot regions for years.

He said the housing crisis had been getting worse every year “while metropolitan infrastructure has been funded and run over budget consistently”.

“I have regularly met with local councils who have struggled to get job vacancies filled in their LGA because there is nowhere to live,” he said.

“Many of these jobs pay more than $100,000 a year.

“It is great that something is finally being developed, however it needs to be completed as a matter of urgency.

“If the government was serious about increasing housing availability in regional Victoria, they would have allocated a Minimum Investment Guarantee to all of the regional councils through the Big Housing Build Program.

“Instead only a select few have been guaranteed funding, while the councils who struggle the most financially are left to battle it out between each other.”