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Federal budget paves the way for housing, yet concerns arise among Regional Cities Victoria
Regional Cities Victoria has both welcomed and expressed concern about the federal budget’s billion-dollar investment in housing.
An additional $1 billion will be provided to states and territories to develop new housing — including connecting essential services such as water, power, sewerage and roads — to ease the housing shortage in regional Victoria.
This investment expands on the $500 million already committed through the Housing Support Program to support enabling infrastructure to unlock more homes.
RCV chair Shane Sali said the budget delivered an important victory for the representative body.
However, the group remained concerned about the lack of investment in community infrastructure needed to meet the growing number of people who wanted to live and work in regional Victoria.
“In the lead-up to both the state and federal budgets, RCV advocated for greater investment in enabling infrastructure to unlock new housing stock in regional cities,” Cr Sali said.
“The expanded Housing Support Program will help local government make it quicker, easier and more affordable for people to build new homes in Victoria’s regions.
“These announcements of buckets of money were welcome, but it’s time to tip that money into regional Victoria.”
Since the Albanese Government was elected two years ago, Cr Sali said RCV had “lost some big projects”.
RCV comprises the 10 largest regional cities in Victoria: Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong, Horsham, Latrobe, Mildura, Shepparton, Wangaratta, Warrnambool and Wodonga.
Collectively, these cities are home to more than 800,000 Victorians and account for roughly 10 per cent of Victoria’s economy.
“Local infrastructure projects are a vital part of any regional community,” Cr Sali said.
“We (RCV) want to help build a prosperous regional Victoria by investing in infrastructure and services that grow our cities’ economies and communities.
“To do that, we considered an investment that would underpin long-term economic prosperity, keep the cost of living down and improve liveability in the regions.
“Challenges such as a lack of housing supply and workforce shortages need to be addressed in the short term to unlock regional Victoria’s growth potential.”
RCV acknowledged the Albanese Government’s continued support of regional Australia through ongoing investment in programs such as Growing Regions, Roads to Recovery and Housing Support.
Given the pace of growth across regional Victoria, RCV said it would continue to work with and advocate to the Federal Government to ensure regional Victorians were included.