By Tanya Steele
Ahead of the 2025 Election, trackless rapid transport from Caulfield to Rowville, an international airport, affordable housing, jobs, strategy and more made up a region-wide approach proposed by the Greater South East Melbourne (GESM) board.
GSEM launched its federal election platform for 2025 on Wednesday 4 December and with it plans for 12 major projects, including equal growth opportunities for women and youth unemployment.
Chancellor of Monash University Simon McKeon AO said that the platform launch was a blueprint for how GSEM can continue to grow, enhance and enrich the southeast of Melbourne, putting big wishes into a digestible format.
“Few other parts of Australia can boast the richness, the diversity, the productivity, the shared potential of this region,” he said.
“We know there are challenges as well.”
GSEM identified in its platform that the region has higher long-term unemployment than the Melbourne average and ‘concerning rates’ of women’s and youth employment.
“Many of the people who have come to call the region home are not able to access the training, education or jobs they need,” read the document.
Represented by the shires of Cardinia and Mornington Peninsula, the cities of Casey, Frankston, Greater Dandenong, Kingston, Knox and Monash, the eight councils that make up GSEM are focusing on long-ranging issues for the southeast of Melbourne.
Several region-wide projects were brought to the platform focusing on four areas – jobs and skills, infrastructure and transport, housing affordability and availability and liveability and community resilience.
Hosted by Knox City Council at the Civic Centre in Wantirna South the GSEM platform launch saw attendance by independent directors James Merlino, Margaret Fitzherbert and Simon McKeon AO, along with Frankston City Council Director Shweta Babbar, Cardinia Shire Council CEO Carol Jeffs, City of Greater Dandenong CEO Jacqui Weatherill, City of Kingston CEO, Peter Bean and Knox City Council CEO Bruce Dobson.
A call to put into direct play a road map for jobs and skills, a young mothers transition program and an expansion for a Dandenong-based employment hub headed the projects GSEM wants federal assistance to invest in.
Knox City Council CEO Bruce Dobson said the communities issues and interests don’t stop at boundaries.
“Some of the less glamorous items are actually really important,” he said.
“Roads and transport, rewiring, housing affordability, like livability of areas, particularly with a growing population,” he said.
The Caulfield to Rowville trackless rapid transport project proposed a different type of transport mode from Caulfield, through Monash and Clayton and down to Rowville.
Known colloquially as the ‘trackless tram’, Mr Dobson said GSEM councils have supported and continue to strongly support the project and that Knox is excited to get it funded.
“It’s a large electric-powered transport option that runs down a dedicated lane on the road,” he said.
“It could move up to 1800 passengers an hour in each direction.”
The rapid transit has the potential to deliver travel times of 20 minutes between Caulfield and Monash Clayton, and then a further 11 minutes from Monash Clayton to Rowville and Mr Dobson said it will take a whole lot of cars off the road, removing some congestion at the same time.
“It will go past major shopping precincts and education areas like Chadstone and Monash,” he said.
The federal government has undertaken a $6 million business case looking at the viability of transport options along that corridor of Melbourne and Mr Dobson said Knox City Council is excited and is keen for it to be progressed.
“We suffer from, suffer from a lack of transport options in the south of Knox…this is really needed,” said Mr Dobson.
“A transport project isn’t just a transport project – It connects people to work opportunities, to social opportunities and it connects people to shopping, which is really important for the broader economy,” he said.
Cardinia Shire CEO Carol Jeffs said projects like a working group to develop a master plan for the South East Melbourne Airport, which would be located in Cardinia Shire is a really, really important thing for the whole region and the state of Victoria.
“It’s been talked about for a long time,” she said.
“It’s proposed to be a privately funded airport – we just need government to do their bit in terms of the planning for to make it attractive for private investors to come in.”
“We’ve been working together with the other eight councils through the GSEM, to make sure that other levels of government know about it.”
There is no cost set as yet for the Thompsons Road upgrade and extension project planned for Casey and Cardinia.
“Thompsons Road is a key, huge arterial road that will eventually be built, and we’re asking for some funding to bring that, the building of that forward, so that businesses can benefit,” said Ms Jeffs.
“The main thing about that is that in Casey and Cardinia, more than 70 per cent of people commute outside of our municipalities to work. So something like this would really encourage more local business and have jobs closer to home,” she said.
GSEM have also included plans for the electrification of all homes with a government-backed electrification loan scheme for $5 million and a future-proofing industry project that would activate net zero precincts across all the council locations.
CEO of the South East Councils Climate Change (SECA) Helen Steel said her ambition is that the southeast becomes a net zero precinct.
“We are a globally significant region, but really aspire to become a net zero precinct and become the first net zero precinct in the world – we have the capacity to do that,” she said.
SECA is a collaboration of a number of the councils in the South East, including some of the majority of the GSEM councils as well.
“Our remit is to support the local government as it embarks on its climate adaptation and resilience work,” said Ms Steel.
“We support them in coordinating projects across councils, so to really have a kind of provide that efficiency of an economy of scale in their approach to climate adaptation and resilience work,” she said.
“Often when we talk about climate change, there’s a real negative connotation, and rightly so – there’s a lot of challenges associated with the different climate events that we’re experiencing.”
“All of these things are happening and continue to happen, storms that were one in 100-year events are now becoming much more common – so there’s so many different challenges.”
Ms Steel said that very often that conversation gets focused on those challenges, but climate adaptation would be when the transition to becoming a net zero economy could occur.
“There are already a lot of things happening in our region – there’s a big focus on carbon sinks and tree planting and canopy tree canopies, getting more electric vehicles on the road, and electrifying our homes and workplaces,” she said.
“I think that there’d be more prosperity.”
Mr McKeon said the platform had been developed thanks to the input and passion of literally hundreds of local leaders and stakeholders.
“It’s our job to as best we can get that into Canberra so that ultimately decisions can be made on what our knowledge is of these communities,” he said.
“Between now and Election Day, we will be engaging with ministers, other MPs, and candidates across the political divide… continuing to make the case for a great southeast. Our message will be consistent with this platform.”
