Southern Metropolitan Partnership

Tracey Cooper is the CEO of Dokio. She is also the Chair and Non-Executive Director on boards, including Audit & Risk, Asset & Infrastructure, and Nomination/Remuneration Committees. Tracey has a Bachelor of Commerce, a Masters in Business Administration and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Andrew is CEO of South East Local Learning and Employment Network, where he works to improve outcomes for young people in the education, training and employment sectors through the development of strategic sustainable partnerships. He also sits on a broad range of committees, task forces, networks and boards.

Jackie is CEO of Peninsula Community Legal Centre (PCLC), an independent not-for-profit organisation that provides free legal services to Melbourne’s south-eastern communities. She has worked at the Centre since 1998 holding various roles including caseworker, program management and executive positions, prior to her role at PCLC she has worked in the welfare sector.

Vonda has more than 25 years working in senior management roles in manufacturing, substantial consulting and training/adult education experience as well as recent volunteering and work experience across diverse sectors. She is currently serving as Chief Executive Officer of South East Melbourne Manufacturers’ Alliance, a not-for-profit advocacy body for Manufacturers in the South-east of Melbourne.

Simon is a devoted community member both on a commercial and personal basis. He is currently the Managing Director & CEO of Corex Plastics Australia and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Monash University. Mr Whiteley has been an active community member for more than 26 years, on both a commercial and personal basis. His recent charity project, “This is IT!”, aims to equalise education through repurposing corporate laptops for secondary school students.

Kathy has 20 years of experience working in senior management roles across four higher education institutions. Kathy has been involved in extensive community engagement as part of her university leadership positions, all of which facilitated critical connections for the provision of education and impactful research in the community that spans health, business, and sustainability. Kathy holds a Bachelor of Arts and post graduate qualifications in Business and Education. She is currently a senior executive at Federation University.

Deborah Mellett is a Gurindji woman with ties to the Jawoyn people in the Northern Territory. She has more than 25 years’ experience of providing specialist advice on the education, training and employment of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory and Victoria. Deb has been a partner in a business, supported the establishment of Willum Warrain Aboriginal Association on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula and is currently responsible for improving the outcomes of Aboriginal families by focusing on the early years. Deb is currently General Manager of Nairm Marr Djambana in Frankston. Deb is also an Ambassador for BreastScreen Australia and is active on numerous committees and networks, including the Local Aboriginal Network.

The Chief Executive Officers of Casey, Cardinia, Kingston, Frankston, Greater Dandenong and Mornington Peninsula local governments are ex officio members of the Southern Metropolitan Partnership.

Argiri Alisandratos, Deputy Secretary, Children, Families, Communities and Disability at the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing

Argiri has held a number of senior leadership roles within the department including: Deputy Secretary South Division, Chief Operations Transformation Officer; Director, Southern Melbourne Area; Director, Inner Gippsland Area; Assistant Director, Placement and Family Services in the Children, Youth and Families Division; and Manager Community Services, Loddon Mallee Region. Argiri holds an Executive Masters in Public Administration from ANZSOG - Monash University.

A series of three online engagements were held across November and December to address issues facing all Melburnians. These explored the recovery and future of inner Melbourne and how the suburbs interact with it; emerging economies and the jobs of the future and social cohesion in Melbourne's suburbs.

You can read more about these engagements, and watch recordings of the panel discussions, by visiting the 2021 Flagship Engagements webpage.

In the context of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the partnership moved engagements online to ensure community voices from Melbourne’s south continued to be safely heard by government.

In October a roundtable was held to bring together community and industry leaders, government and MPs to discuss a recovery vision for the region from the impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Participants explored what the regions priorities in economic recovery were, the role of the Partnership in recovery and what support is required, and challenges need to be addressed, in order to pursue a path to recovery.

The partnership also continued its engagement work to further explore the issues of:

• transport connectivity
• jobs and skills
• housing

The Partnership explored these issues in a Community Forum in September and was complemented by interviews, surveys and online mapping exercises.

Youth Engagement – Festival of Learning

The Partnerships held a two-day online engagement with diverse young people from across metropolitan Melbourne. The engagement sought to understand the impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic upon young people and to seek their ideas on what the road to recovery might look like.

We formed a co-design committee of young Melbournians to ensure the event was structured in a format that appealed to young people.

We heard that the pandemic had worsened the existing issues that young people already faced – especially employment and mental health.

Participants shared recommendations to address these issues, some of which included:

• A Youth Mental Health Strategy
• A Statewide Youth Jobs Strategy
• An increased focus on International Students
• Connected services for young people

You can read a summary of the engagement by downloading the summary report.

The information surfaced in these engagements informed the partnership’s advice to government in 2020.

Community Forum

The Southern Metropolitan Partnership chose to dive deeper into community connectivity. The Partnership held three well-attended community forums, focusing on jobs and skills, transport and social isolation. The targeted forums were held in Mornington, Cardinia and Dandenong and attended by 159 community representatives. The smaller groups, rather than a whole-region assembly, allowed for more focused and targeted place-based discussions.

The forums provided an update from the Partnership on the priority issues and the MPDF projects endorsed by the Partnership. The Minister for Training and Skills and Higher Education the Hon Gayle Tierney MP attended the Dandenong forum.

Key priorities discussed in the sessions included:

1. Housing
   Ensuring that people in the Southern Region have timely access to crisis accommodation.
2. Jobs and Skills
   Linking young people and other community members to pathways that lead to jobs and training opportunities.
3. Transport Connectivity
   Providing timely and reliable public transport connections across the region to enable people to access employment, education and community infrastructure.

Southern Metropolitan Assembly

The Partnership held its second annual Assembly on Wednesday 1 August 2018 at Patterson River Secondary College, Seaford, where it heard directly from the community about how to further progress the region’s priorities. Participants represented a mixture of community members, business owners, service providers and various levels of government.

In reviewing the 2017 outcomes, participants generally agreed they were still relevant, but added two additional priorities:

1. Community Safety
2. Celebrating Indigenous culture and sense of place.

Participants were then asked to identify the top four priorities of 2018 by considering the 2017 priorities, the additional priorities raised in the engagement, and those raised by young people in the Youth Assembly . Participants arrived at:

• Transport
• Youth (life skills, engagement, jobs)
• Housing and affordability
• Mental Health

You can read the discussions on priority issues in greater depth by downloading the Summary Report.

Youth Assembly

Young people aged 15-19 years from school and youth organisations across Melbourne’s six regions, including the south, came together in a Youth Forum hosted by the Metropolitan Partnerships at the State Library of Victoria in May 2018.

The full-day engagement included small group discussions, a panel seminar and region-specific breakouts to discuss life in their regions. The three top priorities nominated by young people from Melbourne’s south were:

• Mental health
• Life skills
• Housing

These priorities informed the Southern Metropolitan Assembly  and the Partnership’s advice to Government.

You can read the issues discussed by the young people from Melbourne’s south, and other young Melburnians, by downloading and reading the 2018 Metropolitan Partnerships Youth Forum report.

How the Victorian Government responded

Our community engagement work informs our annual advice to government. You can read how the Victorian Government responded to our advice on the priorities for the Southern Metropolitan Region by downloading How Government is responding: The 2019 Report Back.

The inaugural assembly of the Eastern Partnership, held 11 October 2017, brought together more than 130 representatives of community, business, service providers and local and state government to determine the key priorities for the Southern Metropolitan Region.

The top priority statement discussed during the engagement was:

‘Our neighbourhoods will be better connected to employment, education, recreation and services with upgraded roads and higher frequency public transport’

The top priority outcomes from the engagement were:

1. Housing
2. Transport
3. Education and youth engagement
4. Water
5. Family and community
6. Environment
7. Access to local jobs

You read about the 2017 Assembly in greater detail by downloading the summary report in PDF or Word formats.

This project seeks to influence and inform government policy and investment in the southern region and lead to improved regional level coordination.

It will deliver a range of benefits including aligned or integrated investment in new infrastructure projects between Southern councils and other levels of governments and the private sector. It will facilitate more strategic and evidence-based decision making in designing flexible and innovative solutions, and ensure greater transparency, community voice and support for decision making in planning for the future of the region.

Outputs of project will comprise:

• A needs assessment and gap analysis of the region informed by data and existing work
• A set of evidence based, shared regional priorities
• An investment framework for the Southern region to inform government and non-government investment decisions in the region

This project seeks to influence and inform government policy and investment in the southern region by providing an evidence base.

Delivery of this project is being led by the City of Kingston with the support of Frankston City Council; City of Casey; Cardinia Shire Council; City of Dandenong; Mornington Peninsula Shire Council, and the Victorian government.

This project responds to the challenges of higher-than-average unemployment rates in the Southern metropolitan region and difficulties faced by employers in finding and retaining skilled staff.

It builds on the highly successful Changing Perceptions in Employment pilot. It will use established behaviour change frameworks in an audit of the Changing Perceptions in Employment pilot and undertake an assessment of its scalability.

The project will then develop a prototype toolkit and trial scaling human-centred, place-based employment programs for lasting outcomes to the needs of the region.

Delivery of this project is being led by BehaviourWorks Australia (Monash University) with input from the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions (Jobs Victoria programs) and Department of Education.

As a result of the program, 53 local job seekers found employment within the City of Casey. Vimal, interviewed in the above video, was connected to employment at Amstel Golf Club in Cranbourne through the program.

Completed in 2021, the Southern Integrated Transport Framework (SITF) aims to improve public transport and reduce social isolation in the southern region by making short-term, practical proposals which contribute to long-term aspirations of efficiency, road space allocation, new active transport networks and station upgrades.

Read the SITF here.

The project conducted research to develop a consolidated regional view on social isolation in Melbourne’s south and proposed interventions for governments to take to address it.

The research focused upon:

• Regional transport constraints and their impact upon access to employment, education and services
• Other barriers that impeded the effectiveness of regional services in supporting socially isolated people

The principal barriers to addressing social isolation in the region were identified as:

• Lack of transport services and the vast distances involved in physically accessing services and communities.
• Lack of coordination of available services meaning a holistic approach to client servicing is elusive.
• Income and time constraints for socially isolated people, along with their difficulties in engaging with services due to low awareness of available services and issues linked with self-confidence, proficiency with English language, access to technology, and/or cultural barriers.