Education and training will be a big build priority

By Tate Papworth

Brimbank council has a bold plan to link major stakeholders together in a bid to create learning pathways for jobs in the area.

Mayor Lucinda Congreve said it was imperative all major stakeholders worked together to maximise the benefits of new jobs coming in.

“We want to bring all levels of government, corporates – there’s likely to be a big consortium or someone who gets the contract for the rail network – small businesses in the area, Victoria University, any other education providers, into a room around a table,” she said.

“We want to work out how we get these people from places like VU directly into jobs.

“We envisage Melbourne Airport will also be involved with this, so how do we get them involved?

“Can we create a pathway that brings people through VU or another educational institute straight into the airport and into a job?

“We’re trying to create clear pathways so people can look at them and see that if they do these programs, through free TAFE or whatever it may be, that they have a job at the end of it.”

It’s a massive undertaking, but Cr Congreve said the ball is already rolling in the right direction.

“I’ve already had many, many discussions and we’ve already got in-principle agreements from the state government.

“We’ve got an MOU with the airport, we’re in the process of doing one with VU at the moment to bring them in – this is all about us agreeing to engage with each other around this.

“We see this as potentially the biggest ever social procurement activity ever in Australia – bringing all these people in and getting them into jobs.”