THE Committee for Frankston and Mornington Peninsula wasted no time last week in congratulating Jacinta Allan on her new job as state premier.
The lobby group said Allan’s appointment was an opportunity to “collaborate” with the government on a “long list of major advocacy projects” for Frankston and the peninsula.
“The committee seeks a renewed focus and consultative approach by the state government on addressing the major challenges and opportunities within our region, including better connectivity and public transport, more funding for housing on the peninsula, unlocking port-zoned land to create local jobs, better access to health and education opportunities, investment in roads and infrastructure, and the establishment of the Victorian renewable energy terminal in Hastings,” committee CEO Josh Sinclair said.
Most priorities listed by the committee are no different from those raised first by its predecessors, the Committee for Frankston and the Committee for Mornington Peninsula.
The now-amalgamated committees have for years separately lobbied for more state government money, better public transport and improved educational opportunities.
Sinclair said the committee would “continue to advocate in a bipartisan way”, adding that later this month October it was looking forward to “welcoming Opposition leader John Pesutto … for a discussion about the major challenges and opportunities in our region”.
Former MP for Dunkley and Small Business and now family enterprise ombudsman Bruce Billson was a founding member and first president in March 2019 of the Committee for Mornington Peninsula. Last month he “helped relaunch” the merged committees.
In 2019 Billson said: “Our region has the lowest access to public transport facilities within metropolitan Melbourne, and this raises the question again about whether policy makers and transport planners even consider the Mornington Peninsula to be part of the metropolitan Melbourne. This impacts our community by inhibiting access to educational services, jobs and visitor connections to the region.”
With Billson at its head, the committee distributed an information package that included claims that parts of the peninsula were “some of the most disadvantaged in the state” (“Racing launch for business lobby group” The News 9/4/19).
It compared government grants given to Greater Geelong ($2.2 billion) to the “mere $22 million” allocated to the peninsula.
It said the percentage of the peninsula’s population with access to public transport was the lowest in the state.
After his appointment as the committee’s CEO in March this year, Sinclair – a former Labor Party candidate – said the peninsula had been “ignored for so long when it comes to getting government funding, so our focus is to change that and give the peninsula the attention it deserves and the infrastructure it deserves” (“Lobby group aims to be bipartisan” The News 14/3/23).
He said the committee had evolved over the past few months into a more professional and focussed team.
Billson was replaced on the committee in May 2023 by Liberal Zoe McKenzie, who later went on to win the federal seat of Flinders after the retirement of long time MP Greg Hunt (“Changes at the top for lobby group” The News 10/5/21). At that stage, the committee’s executive officer was Briony Hutton, a former Hunt staffer who later went on to contest the state seat of Hastings for the Liberals in the 2021 election which was won by Labor’s Paul Mercurio.
First published in the Mornington News – 3 October 2023
