Events

Community Wealth Building in the Victorian Goldfields

Posted March 25, 2025

Author(s):

Patrick Fensham, Angus Chapman, Michelle Tjondro

Experts in this area:

Sectors:

Employment

Related Services:

Economic analysis

The Victorian Goldfields are a national treasure. They are the site of one of the most significant goldrushes witnessed globally and were recently recognised on Australia’s Tentative World Heritage List. This milestone provides an opportunity to rethink the region's economic future and set a course for investment and wealth development to capture lasting benefits for local businesses, workers, and communities.

SGS hosted a masterclass to advance ideas and action for a more equitable and prosperous future. On 14 March 2025 in Castlemaine, a small group of local government councillors and economic development practitioners from the Victorian Goldfields region – which covers 15 local government areas – joined Community Wealth Building (CWB) experts Neil McInroy from the Democracy Collaborative, Patrick Fensham from SGS Economics and Planning, along with guest contributor Melina Morrison from the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals.

In this overview, we share more about CWB, some research and evidence on the region's strengths and opportunities, and what it all means for the future.

At the heart of the Masterclass content was the CWB focus on 5 core pillars:

Progressive procurement of goods and services: Procurement decisions and processes work to deepen local supply chains and socially virtuous business development, spending, and investment.
Fair employment and just labour markets: Employment practices and wages are fair and create opportunities for equitable economic participation.
Socially productive use of land and property: Land and property assets create shared wealth for people, businesses, and places.
Making financial power work for local places: Wealth and savings are harnessed and reinvested for the local community.
Plural ownership of the economy: The encouragement of different business ownership models to build responsible and beneficial wealth for local communities. Cooperative and mutually owned businesses are key to broadening plural economic ownership.

The Masterclass began with participants identifying some key economic development issues they are confronting. These included: a critical shortage of affordable and secure housing, a lack of skilled workers, under-/and over-tourism, limited resourcing, uneven social and demographic change, and the need for more robust partnerships with new local economic development actors such as renewable energy providers.

Participants raised some challenges, knowledge and data gaps, including:

addressing barriers to participating in local government procurement for small businesses and suppliers
working with the private sector to unlock physical assets such as property
increasing the understanding of existing cooperative and mutually owned businesses active in local economies
supporting existing cooperatives to grow and support new ones to start (e.g. Council facilitated ‘Cooperatives Day’)
greater awareness of where wealth is held in communities
understanding how councils can take a share in assets for the benefit of the community
more awareness of councils’ role as major players and participants in local economies.

The UNESCO Goldfields bid is a timely opportunity to scale up CWB in the region. The discussions at the masterclass concluded with a suggestion that the Victorian Goldfields World Heritage Master Plan should include ‘build community wealth’ as a key principle.

Community Wealth Building for stronger, more resilient local governments

Despite overall economic progress over the years, many communities and regions face challenges in combating inequalities and addressing gaps in employment, education, wealth, and other outcomes. Economic restructuring has had major impacts on local economies, regions, and workers. Some regions have seen a flight of capital, others receive inward investment that might be superficially beneficial but may not leave a lasting legacy and is at risk of ‘moving on’. Many people and communities feel disengaged from the economy and its impacts.

Based on the 5 pillars, Community Wealth Building is an action agenda for creating a more democratic economy. It is about investment in place-based policy and initiatives that refocus wealth to achieve collective and holistic wellbeing, and catalyse the shift from an extractive to a regenerative economy.

Anchor institutions are central to Community Wealth Building. These are large, fixed, typically public entities with a large spending and hiring footprint and strong attachments to a place by mission, function, identity or history. Because of this embeddedness, anchor institutions have a material impact on the character of local economic activity. By aligning their activity with the 5 pillars, anchor institutions are the ones that drive Community Wealth Building and its associated outcomes. Most Community Wealth Building success stories, such as in Preston, in the UK, revolve around the concerted action of local anchor institutions using their purchasing, hiring and assets in line with the agenda.

Snapshot of Community Wealth Building capacity in the Victorian Goldfields

The Masterclass also previewed economic data on local government areas in the Goldfields region from a Community Wealth Building perspective. The data covered the presence and extent of cooperatives and mutuals in the region, relative employment and spending self-containment, and the depth of local savings based on superannuation data.

Established co-operative and mutual ownership in essential and community services

While the Goldfields region is home to a range of shared ownership enterprises, the prevalence of housing and accommodation, retail, and community services co-operatives is prominent by regional standards. Figure 1 shows the distribution and industry category of cooperatives across the region.

In 2024, Goldfields-based co-operatives and mutuals contributed significantly to the local economy, amassing $124.6 million in health services turnover, $70.9 million in medical services, and $4 million in housing (BCCM, 2024). This is what we might call ‘sticky money’; spending that is sourced, distributed, and recycled through the co-op membership is more likely to remain in the local community and contribute to local economic, social, and community outcomes.

Figure 1: Distribution of co-operatives and mutuals, Goldfields LGAs and surrounds, 2024

Source: SGS Economics and Planning (2024), BCCM (2024). Note: this figure undercounts the total number of co-ops and mutuals, as it shows only those for which the BCCM is able to establish a business address. It also overrepresents central Melbourne, as only one location per organisation is shown, which for regional businesses is often a registered address in the CBD.

The multiplier effects of jobs self-containment

Greater job self-containment—the share of working residents who work within their local government area of residence (see Figure 2)—reduces economic leakage and improves economic resilience. Self-containment patterns differ spatially due to the economic influence of nearby regional centres on some parts of the Goldfields region.

Nevertheless, many LGAs of different population and economic sizes (Greater Bendigo, Ballarat, Ararat, Northern Grampians) have high levels of job self-containment. The effects of local business prosperity multiply in several ways: via local procurement, business fees to local governments, and increased income expenditure in the local economy by the resident workforce.

Figure 2: Proportion of jobs self-containment, Goldfields LGAs, 2021

Source: ABS (2021)

Capturing spending locally

Figure 3 uses a scaled input-output model to show the share of spending in each LGA imported into the LGA. Local businesses and residents purchase more consumables and inputs outside the LGA in areas with high imports, such as Golden Plains and Pyrenees. Alternatively, areas with lower imports would be expected to have denser local supply chains to satisfy more requirements in the local economy.

This local spending is both a source of Community Wealth Building—representing spending that is staying in place, contributing to local incomes and investment— and a symptom, as places with stronger, more dynamic local economies reflective of local needs will have lower requirements to spend elsewhere.

Figure 3: Share of total spending that is imports, 2019-20

Source: SGS Economics and Planning (2025), ABS (2021)

Business diversity as a foundation for economic expansion, resilience and succession

Many Goldfields region businesses are small (non-employing or employing fewer than four employees) and diverse in their industry of operation (see Figure 4). This provides a platform for local business expansion and economic resilience.

Local governments have a ‘connector’ and ‘educator’ role in shaping this trajectory. For example, small businesses can be supported to access capital and other growth supports, benefit from resilient supply chain connections, and be aware of options for business continuity through sound succession planning.

Figure 4: Businesses in the Goldfields region by workforce size and industry, 2024

Source: ABS (2024)

Local savings as a source of local investment

Courtesy of the superannuation system, Australians have amongst the highest savings of any country on earth. Over $4 trillion is invested on our behalf, largely offshore, and with most individuals having a minimal understanding of what exactly their money is being used to achieve. It could be argued that the Australian superannuation system has greater scope to finance more socially, environmentally and economically beneficial activities, while also delivering against the objective for superannuation “to preserve savings to deliver income for a dignified retirement, alongside government support, in an equitable and sustainable way.” [1]

Figure 5 uses ATO data to estimate the average superannuation balance in each LGA, compared to Victoria. Macedon Ranges, Mount Alexander, Hepburn, and Indigo all have average balances exceeding the Victorian average. The other LGAs – Central Goldfields in particular – have average balances below the state average.

Figure 5: Average superannuation balances in the Goldfields region (orange dots, RHS), compared to Victoria (blue bars, LHS), 2021-22

Source: SGS Economics and Planning (2025); ATO (2021)

With such a large superannuation pool in Australia, there is great potential for more active economic ownership. This is particularly so if we take a broader view of what counts in retirement—living in economically and socially vibrant places with healthy environments and communities. The opportunity exists to explore ways to invest our savings in more productive, locally useful, and sustainable activities.

Conclusion: The Victorian goldfields as a laboratory for Community Wealth Building

Some Victorian Goldfield Councils are already positioning for more socially just economic development. For instance, Mount Alexander Shire’s recent Economic Development Strategy strongly emphasises CWB principles and the broader Wellbeing Economy. The City of Greater Bendigo strongly advocates for utilising surplus or state-owned land, including for social and affordable housing. Golden Plains Council is investigating how future large-scale urban development might leverage wellbeing and CWB outcomes, rather than ‘business as usual’ type residential development.

The workshop and the evidence we gathered to inform it identified a clear role for CWB in providing a framework that takes wellbeing economy aspirations and turns them into action, with real outcomes.