TIM PALLAS (Werribee – Treasurer, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Economic Growth) (14:29):

I recently had the great privilege and honour of attending the official opening of Metcash’s new distribution centre in Truganina, with the member for Kororoit – a $90 million facility that will service independent grocers and retailers, liquor retailing as well, right across Victoria. It will see something like 800 new jobs created in this community. Not too much earlier, about a month earlier, I also attended the opening of a Coles centre that is going to employ 1000 people at full production. So there we have, in the freight and logistics capital of this nation, a new capital of the freight and logistics capital of the nation: it is Truganina. But that is really only the start of the story.

Our startup community is thriving. We have got over 3500 startups, scale-ups and unicorns calling Victoria home, with the Victorian startup community employing 64,000 people globally and about half of those people here in Victoria. These startups have an estimated value of $129.3 billion, and to put that into some context, it has grown effectively 20-fold since 2016. Our startup ecosystem has grown by 600 per cent just in terms of raw numbers of startups since 2017. Of course interstate folk may well look at Victoria and see the best coffee, the best events, the best live art, the best music scene and the best Premier, and they would be right. But we do have hidden gems as well. Our startups, our higher education, our business investment and our advanced manufacturing are setting the pace. Why is it that this state is seen as the investment location of the nation? It is because of jobs.