By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
Casey is on the threshold of a potential economic boom, according to speakers at a Narre Warren Region Business Group AGM on 13 July.
Guest speaker Neville Waterman spoke fervently of his goal for Waterman Business Centre to help 5000 Casey businesses thrive.
Mr Waterman has plans to replicate his Narre Warren-based centre across Melbourne to provide a “healthy environment” to support small businesses.
Businesspeople needed to have a “healthy vision” with a “compelling why” – beyond making money, he said.
His was to support small businesses, many which floundered without an effective support network.
Mr Waterman said a cluster of thriving businesses would profoundly boost wellbeing in the City of Casey.
“I believe the real key to the success of our nation is the prosperity of small businesses.
“We could profoundly affect the lives of so many people.”
Mr Waterman said most business people started out unsure of how to build a healthy business, worked harder than they had to and had an unbalanced lifestyle.
He hoped to facilitate business leaders that were well-connected, inspired, working smarter not harder and learning from other successful entrepreneurs.
“What if we could create this environment that this small business person who is failing and struggling … that they could have all the supports.”
He invited business people to an open day at Waterman Business Centre at Victor Crescent on 29 July.
Also at the meeting, Mayor Sam Aziz said Mr Waterman was an “amazing man” and that he and his business incubator were “critical” to Casey council’s economic strategy.
He outlined the council’s plans for a Narre Warren CBD structure plan to help guide $10 billion of expected development in one of Victoria’s 10 legislated major activity centres.
“Casey is at an amazing threshold. There’s great opportunities coming along,” he said.
Cr Aziz said the council was in talks with the State Government to re-develop the suburb’s railway station, with high-density housing nearby.
He spoke of the need to create local employment with improved transport.
He said it was unacceptable that 70 per cent of Casey residents travelled outside the municipality for work.
The State Government’s $154 million promise to duplicate Thompsons Road would unlock a potential employment precinct and in turn create 100,000 jobs, Cr Aziz said.
In the next five years, Casey could be home to defence-industry firms and the state’s biggest car mega-mart, he said.
Cr Aziz defended the under-construction civic-arts precinct Bunjil Place, expected to drive 1 million visitors into Narre Warren each year.
He said “years of prudent financial planning” meant the $125 million project could be funded without raising rates “by a cent”.
With an expected 100-year shelf-life, Bunjil Place would be paid off within 16 years, Cr Aziz said.
He took aim at the “group of six people” Casey Residents and Ratepayers Association for wanting to “cancel the contract and stop building”.
At the dinner at Kilgerron Homestead restaurant, Beehive Foundation chairman Michael Spiteri received $1000 from the Narre Warren Region Group.
Mr Spiteri said the donation would help save up to 100 children’s lives.
The foundation was formed in 2012 to build resilience in young people. Around the same time there was a well-publicised youth suicide cluster in Casey.
“Kids from normal families were struggling to cope with what life throws at them.”
Mr Spiteri relayed the high rates of bullying, depression, self-harm and suicide among young people.
Suicide was the largest cause of death in the 17-19 year old age group in Australia, he said.
Beehive pitched itself as a way to help young people “maximise what they achieve in life” – while teaching coping skills such as ‘facing fear’ and ‘digging deep’ in school, sport and life.
Since then, the foundation has reached 10,000 children, helped in a ‘Spirit of Football’ round in South East Juniors football and in Casey schools.
“We know we have saved lives,” Mr Spiteri said.
