It is also one of Melbourne's principal places of employment outside the CBD with many industrial companies situated in the area, and is an important public transport hub with both V/Line and Metro services at Sunshine railway station and its adjacent major bus interchange.

He also secured 400 acres (160 ha) of land at Braybrook Junction with the aim of establishing housing to allow his future workers to live in the area, along the lines of a company town.

[4] In 1906 McKay moved his agricultural machinery manufacturing business from Ballarat to his newly acquired factory in Braybrook Junction.

The factory was renamed the Sunshine Harvester Works and it became the largest manufacturing plant in Australia.

[5][6][2] Also in 1907 an industrial dispute between owner H. V. McKay and his workers at the Sunshine Harvester Works led to the Harvester Judgement, the benchmark industrial decision which led to the creation of a minimum living wage for Australian workers.

[8] Prue McGoldrick's My Paddock: An Early Twentieth Century Childhood is a memoir of growing up in Sunshine.

The town of Sunshine (not a suburb of Melbourne at this point) became regarded as a model industry-centred community.

[13] Housing for the McKay's employees swelled the local population and the town of Sunshine was touted as the "Birmingham of Australia".

[17] Sunshine is now both a low-density residential suburb and one of Melbourne's principal places of employment outside the CBD.

Many heavy and light industrial companies are situated in and around the area and it is an important retail centre in Melbourne's west.

It is also the main centre for Melbourne's Maltese community:[20] indeed, the only branch of Malta's Bank of Valletta in the whole of Oceania is situated on Watt Street, Sunshine.

The Vietnamese have opened small businesses such as groceries and restaurants throughout the Sunshine town centre.

[21] Sunshine railway station was completely redeveloped as part of the Regional Rail Link.

Sunshine also has one of Melbourne's major suburban bus interchanges, which was upgraded as part of the Regional Rail Link works in 2014.