By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
MP says there is hope despite suburb’s poor reputation…
THE people of Doveton have finally been given a say.
About 50 residents and volunteers gathered at the Doveton Football Club rooms on Wednesday night to take part in a community forum convened by Dandenong MP Gabrielle Williams.
Ms Williams called the meeting after Doveton was listed in July as one of the state’s seven most disadvantaged postcodes in the Dropping off the Edge 2015 report, compiled by Jesuit Social Services and Catholic Social Services Australia.
It came as author Dennis Glover, a Labor speechwriter who grew up in Doveton, released his book An Economy Is Not a Society, in which he writes about the suburb’s factory closures severely impacting on the once efficient manufacturing region.
“There was a lot of talk about Doveton, but there wasn’t a lot of talking to people living in Doveton,” Ms Williams said at the 23 September forum.
“And I always think that’s a problem when you’ve got a running commentary about our community without necessarily taking into account the voices of that community.”
Last week Doveton was also found to be part of just 6 per cent of Victorian postcodes which make up half of the state’s 6506 prison population, according to the Ombudsman’s latest report.
But Salvation Army Captain Stuart McGifford, who spends much of his time at the Doveton facility and attended the forum, said people just needed an “opportunity”.
“We see a bit of that, people that come to breakfast and then we don’t see them for two months and its turns out they’ve been in jail and they come back and we see them again. Some are for very minor offences, some for some more serious stuff,” he said.
“Some of the people we see we know it’s not just… a food parcel will not fix it, it’s years , if they get the right opportunity they could make something of it.”
Doveton’s unemployment rate currently sits around 21 per cent, more than three times the national average.
At their height Doveton’s three big factories – General Motors Holden, International Harvester and Heinz – collectively employed almost 7500 people.
In his book Mr Glover said only 500 of those jobs remained.
Mr Glover has previously compared current-day Doveton to Detroit in the USA, where a mass shutdown of auto-plants saw 90 per cent of manufacturing jobs in the American city dry up, but Ms Williams refuted suggestions manufacturing was dead.
“I get very downhearted about is when I hear in mainstream conversation and mainstream media, lines to the effect that manufacturing is dead,” she said.
“It’s not dead, it is changing no doubt, but with that change comes a lot of opportunity.”
“We don’t have any more is three large manufacturers that service an entire community.
“What we’ve got is a lot more of them but they’re smaller businesses.
“And rather than being unskilled assembly line work, often what we’ve got is a situation where there are a range of different trades and skills on a floor and I think that’s not a bad thing.”
For the story on the State Ombudsman’s prison report, turn to page 7.
To have your say on Doveton, contact Gabrielle Williams’ office at gabrielle.williams@parliament.vic.gov.au.
