Victorian State Budget

The Victorian state budget was delivered on May 27, and Committee for Greater Shepparton CEO, Sam Birrell, attended the budget lock-up with the premier and senior ministers. Whilst there was not much in terms of major infrastructure for Greater Shepparton, the budget papers show that significant amounts of the funding allocated to Shepparton over the last three budgets is still to be spent – and given the government’s write-down of revenue due to the slowing housing market, the lack of new allocation is not surprising. What will be critical is next year’s budget – projects such as the Greater Shepparton College (which has enough allocated to start works), Goulburn Valley Health stage 2 and the Shepparton bypass – will all need funding to continue the momentum. Strong, focused and constructive advocacy is therefore essential between now and the early part of 2020.