Maryborough's description as "one of the whitest and most disadvantaged towns in Australia" has led the local council to plead directly to the Prime Minister for help.
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Central Goldfields Shire Council has written a letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to seek immediate funding and leadership to address key challenges facing Maryborough.
Council's letter details the problems its towns are facing and reveals some damning statistics, including that 33.3 per cent of Central Goldfields children are living in poverty, and the number of children starting school with language, cognition, emotion, communication and physical health vulnerabilities is twice as high as the Victorian average.
The council's plea for help comes on the back of an SBS documentary Meet the Neighbours, which followed eight ethnic families who spent three months living and working in Maryborough.
The social experiment looked at the changes the culturally-diverse families brought to the town's community and how they dealt with everything from friendly acceptance to racial abuse.
The documentary aired four months after a pair of swastikas were spray painted onto the Dunolly-Maryborough Road attracted widespread media attention.
"Meet the Neighbours has given us a platform to champion for change and advocate for a national conversation," Central Goldfields Shire councillor Chris Meddows-Taylor said.
Lack of skilled workers due to housing, childcare shortfalls
In the letter, shire mayor Liesbeth Long said Meet the Neighbours followed a council study which showed more than two-thirds of employers within the shire had difficulty or serious difficulty in attracting and retaining staff.
"This followed the pandemic and was a particularly challenging time to recruit staff given national border closures and major skill-shortages in major cities," she said.
Difficulties with "red tape" getting migrant visas and a shortage of housing were seen as major barriers to recruiting staff.
Council was working to support housing development in Maryborough, Carisbrook, and Talbot and has completed a business case that shows Talbot could accommodate up to 600 new homes but it needs a $30 million swerage upgrade.
Cr Long said while there was a state government commitment to build a low-cost Early Years Centre in Maryborough, the shire had a waiting list of 100 children.
"This is impacting all our major employers who cannot fill shifts and ongoing positions due to lack of childcare," she said.
Cr Long said while nearby Ballarat and Bendigo both had tertiary education facilities, the public transport to these sites from Central Goldfields Shire was poor.
She wants federal government funding to establish a Regional University Study Hub in Maryborough to keep students there.
Issues around skills training, telecommunications and digital connectivity and medical and rural GP services were also raised in the letter.
Plea for a national conversation
Cr Meddows-Taylor said council wanted the Prime Minister to raise the letter within National Cabinet to start an Australian-wide conversation on regional towns.
"We want to see a comprehensive strategy between the Commonwealth and state governments in partnership with local councils to create a fairer and more equal Australia," he said.
The letter will also be sent to the Premier of Victoria, Jacinta Allan, and member for Rippon, Martha Haylett and federal member for the Maryborough area, Anne Webster.
The letter can be read at www.centralgoldfields.vic.gov.au/pmletter.
