Single voice for all

VICTORIA’S Parliament was presented with a plan last year to unify Geelong’s many lobby groups into a single voice called One Geelong.

Presented as part of the Committee for Geelong’s Winning from Second manifesto, the plan argued the region’s disparate lobby groups were sometimes pushing for competing projects, which ended up costing Geelong in the long run. By pooling the different groups’ resources and skills into one shared strategy, the report argued, a unified voice could deliver the best results for the region.

The revelation that Geelong would be sending two delegations to Canberra mere weeks apart — to lobby for two very different projects — reminds us of that vision.

What are our nation’s leaders expected to make of these competing requests? How can they determine which of these projects should be funded when it appears the city itself can’t make up its mind?

It is hard to believe our busy politicians and the country’s top bureaucrats would be delighted to have their time taken up with the same people arguing for different projects a couple of weeks apart, when they could have been scheduled into a single meeting with a single vision.

It’s not as if we haven’t been warned about this before.

In 2014, then Victorian premier Denis Napthine warned mixed messages coming from the region were jeopardising funding, saying “a number of spokespeople from Geelong are championing different projects”.

And the Commission of Inquiry also made note of the lack of a shared vision in its report into Geelong council in 2016, saying: “There is a plethora of planning, advisory and other business or community-based organisations in Greater Geelong all with a view, but not necessarily a shared view, on what is required for the city’s success.”

We hope the day will come when our region’s passionate lobby groups can be less competitive with each other so they can work cohesively to further everyone’s agenda for Geelong.