Australia’s biggest paint manufacturer will build a new $165 million paint factory in Mickleham.
Dulux announced last Tuesday the company would scale back its operations in Brisbane and relocate a large portion of its manufacturing to a 17-hectare site in the Merrifields Estate.
Managing director of DuluxGroup Patrick Houlihan said the new factory would produce nearly all the company’s water-based decorative paints.
The state government declined to reveal how much it had cost to lure Dulux to invest in Melbourne’s north.
The new paint factory will be the largest of its kind in Australia and New Zealand.
Construction is due to start later this year and scheduled for completion in 2017.
Employment Minister Jacinta Allan said the new facility would create 200 indirect jobs during the construction stage and 64 ongoing full-time-equivalent jobs involving 53 operational and 11 management roles.
But good news for Victorians will come at a cost. The company will axe about 60 jobs from its paint factory in Rocklea, in Brisbane’s south.
Mr Houlihan said Victoria was always the company’s strategic preference for a new factory.
He said it made sense to have the factory not far from Dulux’s head office and research and development arm in Clayton.
According to the federal government’s recently released 2015 Intergenerational Report, there are eight million existing dwellings in Australia and another nine million are needed over the next 40 years.
“So this is exactly the right time for companies like ours to be investing in our future,” Mr Houlihan said.
The announcement comes after weeks of planning and discussion with the state government, which secured Dulux’s investment through financial support from the Department of Economic Development.
The annual production capacity of the new factory will be 100 million litres, double the company’s present capacity.
