Members of Dandenong's business community will be establishing the Committee for Dandenong (see Committee for Dandenong ready for business), which will lobby government in the interests of supporting Dandenong businesses. The committee will be headed by Jamie Sturgess and will deal with big picture issues, which I imagine might include things like zoning, transport, retail & manufacturing needs and generally any issues that may impact on local businesses on a broad scale. If the Committee for Geelong is any guide, it seems as though most of the committee's work will be achieved through regular meetings with decision makers and what-if style planning.

One of the major focal points for the Committee raised in the Leader article is attracting a university to Dandenong. I agree that this ought to be Dandenong's top priority, and plan to discuss why in a future post. The committee believes that Monash should be that university, but I'm not sure I agree.

Monash has campuses in Clayton, Berwick, Frankston and (importantly) Caulfield. It is very likely that any campus Monash might establish in Dandenong would be of low priority. In terms of transport and surrounding population and amenities, Dandenong provides no particular advantages to Monash over Caulfield, and land is far less abundant than is the case in Clayton. Furthermore, Clayton, Berwick and Frankston are viable destinations for those living in Dandenong anyway. By contrast, other universities (such as Swinburne) are entirely unrepresented in the south east. Dandenong presents an exceptional opportunity for those universities to attract students from the same catchment area as Monash (which needs 3 campuses) at minimal cost, with essentially the same transport and locality advantages as Caulfield.

Ultimately, this means the business case for a university like Swinburne is very strong; but for Monash, it is much weaker.