Chris Crewther (Dunkley, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am here today to talk about Dunkley and Dunkley's economic growth. Dunkley has the highest economic growth out of all federal electorates in Victoria, at 3.6 per cent, and also an unemployment rate which has dropped from 8.3 per cent last year to 6.1 per cent this year. We have three major sectors: health, retail and manufacturing. Manufacturing, in and of itself, is employing over 4,000 people in Frankston alone. The Carrum Downs-Seaford industrial precinct is now worth $2.8 billion. This is up 40 per cent since 2011. We also are a health hub, which is why I was proud to announce during the recent election campaign investment in both MRI services and the Peninsula Home Hospice. In addition, we have a growing agricultural sector, with three wineries in Dunkley, including Morning Star Estate, a berry farm at Bramble Farm and dairy at Blue Bay Cheese, which produces cheeses, yoghurts and other milk varieties. It is run by a couple of people who originally emigrated from the Ukraine are now supplying Woolworths, Coles and many other places and are looking to export all around the world. We also have great breweries like the Mornington Peninsula Brewery. In addition, tourism is booming. Dunkley is a natural, beautiful place with the best of the city, the country and the coast. Tourists do enjoy visiting places like our McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park in Langwarrin, our wineries and our beaches.

We have a colourful mix of businesses, from small retail outlets such as Miss Velvet and the Cake Cottage to larger manufacturing facilities such as Nutech Paint in Seaford, which recently secured a large contract with Dreamworld in Queensland, beating Dulux, which is a great achievement for a local paint manufacturer. We also have, in the last week, set up a new digital innovation hub with start-up organisations, the Frankston foundry innovation hub, which is our first dedicated co-working space and business hub in the heart of the city centre. This will provide opportunities for a range of start-ups and small businesses locally, on both a full-time and a casual basis. We currently have interest from over 30 businesses, including software development firms, architects, design agencies and even a wakeboard manufacturer. It is interest from groups like these and entrepreneurs locally in Dunkley which will transform our economy and continue to see Dunkley grow and Dunkley being a hotspot and a hub in the region.