"Victorian industry across a wide range of sectors will benefit from the increased infrastructure spending announced in today's state budget," Tim Piper, the Victorian Head of the peak employer association Ai Group, said today.
"The $21 billion funding for infrastructure is huge and will continue to support the economy and many industry sectors focused on infrastructure, while investments in rolling stock are also positive. In addition to the infrastructure investment, Victorian manufacturers will need additional government programs to facilitate the growth of manufacturing capacity including to address supply chain disruption and attracting investments into the state," Mr Piper said.
"The program for delivering this infrastructure will also need to take into account and address industry's overall capacity to meet the additional demands.
"We know that industry is concerned at the lack of labour and particularly skilled workers. This effectively constrains capacity. We hope government will be recognising these constraints and actively pursuing an agenda to develop industry capabilities and particularly workforce capabilities," Mr Piper said.
"This is a budget with the Government's eyes firmly set on November and ensuring its social agenda is pursued. It is a "health-led recovery" budget with considerable spending on health infrastructure matched by increased training and opportunities for people to join the health sector.
"The Government projections are for the State to have a lower growth rate than the rest of the country as a whole over the next two years. We expect the Government's ambition would be to at least meet, if not do better than, the rest of the Australian economy," Mr Piper said.
