Wednesday, 16 October 2024
Motions
Residential planning zones
Motions
Residential planning zones
David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (14:26): I move:
That this house:
(1) notes:
(a) the extraordinary population targets unilaterally announced for Victorian municipalities by the Allan Labor government;
(b) the 10 planned high-rise, high-density zones declared by Labor without consultation, including so-called ‘catchment zones’ over huge swathes of residential and often heritage-listed suburbs, proposed to have six-storey development approval;
(c) the removal of significant planning powers from municipal councils and local communities and the curtailment of third-party appeal rights; and
(2) calls on the Allan Labor government to undertake proper consultation with affected councils and communities, to their satisfaction, on its announced plans for 10 high-rise, high-density zones, namely Hume, Boroondara, Stonnington, Monash, Glen Eira, Whittlesea, Frankston, Kingston, Bayside, Moonee Valley, Darebin, Maroondah and Whitehorse.
I am going to be succinct here, but what has happened in the recent period is the state government has embarked on a frolic of planning changes that will change the shape and nature of our city forever. They are doing this without engaging with communities properly. They are doing this without engaging with councils, and I am going to first of all deal with the issue of the housing and population targets. The government has nominated these. It is starting to consult after the nomination announcements, and we think whatever the view of people about increased population density and increased population numbers in local councils, there are several key principles. Local communities should have a say. They should be engaged. They should know what is happening, and the state government should engage closely with each and every one of these local communities across the city.
I live in Kew. In the City of Boroondara there are 70,000 dwellings currently. So from European settlement to now, 190 years, we have seen 70,000 dwellings built in the city of Boroondara. The state government’s announced plan is in less than 30 years to add another 67,000 dwellings in the City of Boroondara. There has been no consultation about that. There is no plan for health services. There is no plan for education services. There is no plan for extra open space. You would imagine with twice the number of people you would want roughly twice the amount of open space. Open some parks. They are already at a premium in my area. This could be true of each and every one of these areas. I am using where I live as the example here. And the sewerage plan – I am going to tell you that the simple fact is if you double the number of dwellings, you are going to need to have additional capacity in the piping to deal with the consequences. There is no such plan. The state government has not got any of these plans in place. The transport decisions on all of this – where are these decisions? Where are the steps that say, ‘Well, we’re going to need new schools’? My kids went to Kew Primary. That school is already very crowded. It is already on a relatively small footprint. Are they going to double the number of kids in that school? Is that the plan? We do not know. No-one knows. They have not talked to anyone. That is the problem with this government – there is an arrogance and a decision-making process where they simply roll over communities. They punch through, they do not listen, and consequently the outcomes are far from optimal – they are suboptimal. I say that is the wrong approach. Even if you thought that municipalities could bear very significant increases, you would still want to talk about how you are going to service those new dwellings and service the new population.
The second part of the motion deals with the 10 planned high-rise, high-density zones, these so-called activity centres. There are about 120 activity centres around metropolitan Melbourne. The state government have singled out 10 of them – again, no talk, no consultation – and they have announced that they are going to massively increase the size and density and outcomes in terms of population. I have three of them in the Southern Metropolitan Region – three of the 10. They are in Epping, two in the City of Moonee Valley and Ringwood – they call it Ringwood, but it is not really Ringwood; it is Maroondah and a huge sweep down into the City of Whitehorse. Acting President Berger, if you were a person who represented North-Eastern, which is a very important electorate, you would look at so-called Ringwood and you would think about that and you would look and you would see that the actual length of this declared activity centre is huge. It is comprised of two parts. It is comprised of a less controversial – generally supported by the council and generally supported by the community – inner hub near the station in Ringwood, near Eastland, and everyone thinks that you can do more density and change sensibly in that area. But the state government shocked everyone by announcing a catchment zone around this – 800 metres right around it is a huge spread of area – with thousands of houses and thousands of properties and with, as of right, six storeys. Some of these areas are heritage listed, some of them have got significant vegetation and some of them are just normal, everyday, family suburban areas. Is it the decision of people in Whitehorse and Maroondah that they want, as of right, six-storey developments next door to them? Is that what they want? I do not represent that area, but my point is that people have not even been consulted about this. They have not been consulted. These have been announced without discussion.
In my area I come back to the Boroondara one in central Camberwell. It goes way up into Canterbury and down south across into Hawthorn and Hawthorn East. It is a massive area with tens of thousands of houses. About half of it is heritage listed; somewhere between 4000 and 5000 properties are heritage listed. Is it what we want to do? Do we want to tear down those properties and build six-storey, dense outcomes? I am not sure it is. In my area there was a large public meeting the other day, which John Pesutto and I were very active in. Jess Wilson was there, Georgie Crozier was there, James Newbury was there as our Shadow Minister for Planning, and 350 members of the community were there. There was not a single person in that audience who thought it was a good idea to tear down large, established heritage-listed homes to build, as of right, six-storey concrete boxes on these properties without consulting the local community. That is what we are talking about. We are talking about the Minister for Planning using her extraordinary powers to do this, with the sweep of a pen, to change the planning arrangements in these areas. Is this what we want? It is not, I might add, what I want in my area, and I do not think I am alone.
We did talk to a lot of people. I do have a survey and a petition running on this matter. I have had a lot of people email my office. I have had people call. People are saying, ‘Actually we love our area. We’ve moved into our area because that’s where we want to live. We like the ambience of the area.’ If we can find a sensible way to have more density – the council on the central nub near Camberwell there had in March this year agreed to a set of proposals with the state government. So I could be talking about any one of the 10 areas here, but I am picking one to talk through at some length. And my question then is: is that what people want? In some areas it might be what they want, in which case the government should work with the council and work with the community and actually put that in place. But I think people have a right to have some say in the future of their council area, the future of their suburb, the future of their street. Somebody at the public meeting said to me, ‘Well, what about climate change?’ And I said, ‘Well, indeed, what about climate change?’ There is no thought in this. There is no genuine thinking about what it might mean for the city.
But whether you are a huge climate change supporter or believer or whatever you want to call it or not, let me just tell you one thing clear: if you tear down the canopy trees in the street, if you tear down the canopy trees on large, old, established properties and if you tear down a house and you put 40 units made of concrete and brick on there without any canopy, it is going to get hot. This itself will be a heat island. Climate change and global warming will actually make that worse. We need to be planning for that. We need to be thinking about that and protecting canopy, not tearing down canopy. The proposal is about tearing down canopy. People have moved into an area and purchased a property, some of them heritage listed. I have used the example before. A number of people have asked me, ‘What sort of street are you talking about?’ I tell them to have a think about a street a friend of mine spoke to me the other day about, which is Kintore Street in Camberwell. It is a fabulous, wide, beautiful street with canopy and wonderful old Victorian homes on large-ish properties. Do we want to tear down that Victoriana, that history – our history, something that everyone gets benefit from? You go down that street, you visit somebody at one of those houses, and the public good of actually seeing these beautiful old homes and old buildings that are part of our history in itself should not be discounted. But do we seriously want to see every one of those homes torn away? Well, the government’s proposal is in the catchment area, this huge catchment area of Canterbury, East Camberwell in the case of Boroondara, into Hawthorn and Hawthorn East and down further south – all of that sweep, six storeys as of right.
One of the things that the government is doing parallel to this is the residential code changes. These will set up a tick-a-box, a matrix. If you meet the criteria – you tick the boxes – the council will still be giving the permit, but the council will have no choice about the permit because they will be required to give the permit if the conditions listed in the tick-a-box system are met, irrespective of what the context is in the street and irrespective of local council plans beyond that. Irrespective of what arrangements are in place beyond that, if the simple tick-a-box things are met, the council must give the permit. This effectively removes power from councils – council officers and elected councillors – and thereby removes power from the community and puts power in the hands of the minister. And the minister is the one who is said to be declaring all these things. She has not yet acted on it, but she has announced what she intends to do. So I say we are at a point where we need to protect our city and we need to have a proper plan to deal with population growth. That means using some areas on the edge of the city and it means using our regional cities and working with them. It means having proper plans within municipalities – not imposed plans, but plans that are actually talked through and plans that have actually have a proper basis to them.
One of the things that Professor Michael Buxton, previously from RMIT, said to me the other day as he had been in to see the VPA – the Victorian Planning Authority – was that they have modelled the loss of 50 per cent of the heritage-listed properties in each of these 10 areas. That is what they are modelling. Is that where they are finally going to end up? I do not know. Nobody knows, because the government does not discuss that with people. You cannot get anywhere.
The City of Boroondara late Friday was presented with correspondence from the VPA demanding a response on matters by Wednesday close of business. Again, the councils are all in caretaker mode. This is not a world secret. They are in caretaker mode now, so you have got councillors who are not in a position to actually largely respond on this and you have got officers who need direction from councillors. There is no prospect in three days of the council and the council officers convening opportunities for the community to have a say. There is no prospect of that in three business days, so it becomes the planning minister and the Victorian Planning Authority and the department imposing what it wants on local communities, and I say there is a democratic deficit in that. There is a fundamentally undemocratic aspect to this, and I think that that is a problem.
What I also say here in number two is ‘we call on the Allan Labor government to undertake proper consultation with councils and community to their satisfaction’. We nominate the 13 councils that are affected by these 10 high-rise, high-density development zones, and I think that is a very modest minimum requirement. I know Mr Mulholland has already had one large public meeting in North Essendon. I know that concerns are developing in that Niddrie pocket in the City of Moonee Valley and in the North Essendon one, so there are two of these zones in the City of Moonee Valley. I know there is significant concern. I have spoken to the mayor in the City of Maroondah and a number of these other cities are very, very concerned – Stonnington is very concerned, Glen Eira is concerned.
Another area within my electorate of Southern Metro is the area around Chadstone. When you say to people Chadstone they think, ‘Oh, in around that big shopping centre.’ That is what they think when you talk about it. I can see some sense in increased density in certain spots around the shopping centre. But that is not what they have declared. They have declared a huge swathe of East Malvern, across into Oakleigh, through into Hughesdale and Murrumbeena, this massive swathe through three municipalities – Glen Eira, Monash and Stonnington. It sounds and feels very different when you think of a swathe that sweeps through three municipalities than when you think of a pinpoint spot. What they are proposing, again, in these catchment zones is as-of-right development of up to six storeys in height.
I could talk at length about alternative ways that we can get additional capacity through. One of the CEOs said to me, ‘We regularly issue 20 or 30 per cent more planning permits than are actually actioned.’ So there are a lot of planning permits in place. A lot of the problem with the development of property here is the state government taxes. According to the Property Council Australia and the Urban Development Institute of Australia, more than 40 per cent of the cost of a new property is state government taxes. I am actually very simple on this matter. If you want to make things less available, one of the things you do is you put a massive set of taxes on them. It makes the thing more expensive and there is less of it delivered, and that is what we are seeing in this state. We are seeing massive planning pressures on one hand, permits being issued and not being actioned and the state government not bringing forward a lot of its own land. Where is its own land in the process of developing new properties? Where is that new land coming through?
There are a number of points that I want to make in final conclusion here. This is a modest motion. It calls out the state government’s declaration of the 10 zones. It calls out the declaration of these massive catchment areas and the failure to consult on that at all – not at all. The councils were shocked. They looked at this and they went, ‘Oh, my God. Goodness. This huge area. And heritage listed. And where is the park land?’ No, this is failed planning – (Time expired)
Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (14:46): I want to begin my contribution by perhaps correcting the record, really, on some of the wording in the motion here. The motion refers to population targets. That is inaccurate because the Victorian government does not have population targets, but it certainly has housing targets, and more housing equals cheaper housing. So I think it is inaccurate and somewhat misleading to imply in the motion that we actually have population targets when, after all, our strong economy is doing that job anyway.
The other correction I would like to point out is this notion of high rise, high density. Really, I think that is fearmongering. If you clarify the definition of various densities, Plan Melbourne describes low density as 8 to 20 dwellings per hectare, medium density as 21 to 80 dwellings per hectare and high density as 80-plus dwellings per hectare. High density is more commonly associated with significantly high-rise buildings; medium density is more like townhouses; and low density, detached housing. I do want to just correct that and make sure that there is no assumption that the actual basis of the motion is underpinned by any form of accuracy.
On Tuesday 9 January 2024 the Department of Transport and Planning published the Victoria in Future 2023 estimations, covering 2023 to 2051. Unsurprisingly, this data shows Victoria remaining the fastest growing state in the country, with our population expected to reach 10.3 million people by 2051. Again I say: more homes equals cheaper homes. There is no doubt we are working on that challenge. Victoria continues to build thousands more homes than any other state. ABS data released this week shows Victoria built 60,606 homes over the year, a 7.5 per cent increase year on year, while New South Wales built 46,573 homes, a 3.9 per cent increase. Earlier this month the ABS also confirmed that Victoria continues to lead the country for home approvals. You may have seen this in the media – 52,419 approvals in the last 12 months, approving around 10,000 more homes than New South Wales and 18,000 more homes than Queensland.
The Allan Labor government is committed to taking a multifaceted approach to the housing challenge we currently face. The housing statement has already introduced draft housing targets – I say housing targets, not population targets – and what is the problem with that? We have supported thousands of homes through new streamlined approval pathways. We have gotten on with 10 activity centres underway, built thousands of social homes and introduced stronger protections for renters, and more. Since the release of the housing statement the Minister for Planning has also used her powers to intervene or fast-track homes to approve 10,700 homes in the past 12 months, a more than 100 per cent increase on previous years.
However, those opposite continue to object and complain and oppose measures on how to home our growing population. They seem to be happy to expect economic growth as an outcome of population growth, but they resist change. John Pesutto and the Liberals are trying to block more homes being built in their backyards. This is really a form of privileged nimbyism. They do not acknowledge the huge growth across Melbourne over the last 30 years and still have no serious plan to ease housing affordability in our state, nor do they acknowledge that growth has spread unequally, with consequences for many communities.
In relation to that inequality of growth, for example, in the last 30 years we have seen the number of houses grow 404 per cent in the City of Wyndham and 223 per cent in the City of Casey but only 24 per cent in Boroondara. This rapid growth has seen huge disparities in areas of growth and, as a consequence, huge disparities in services available to communities. We cannot fix that overnight, but we can put the right rules in place to make sure growth is guided to the right places in established suburbs close to jobs, close to transport and close to services. Medium-density areas serviced well with transport services, community centres and green spaces often thrive, and it is smart to focus on increasing housing density near existing infrastructure, including public transport, to increase accessibility to essential services and build more homes where people actually want to live.
We do not have to choose between open spaces and heritage to build more homes, and if you do not believe me, I would refer you to the Committee for Melbourne. They have done a piece of work on why Melbourne needs more medium-density housing. The committee’s Benchmarking Melbourne 2023 report goes on to say that urban expansion without a corresponding ability to keep up with appropriate supporting infrastructure investment has the potential to exacerbate social and economic inequalities. BenchmarkingMelbourne highlights a ‘tale of two cities’, with residents living in the outer suburbs facing higher private transport costs and unequal access to amenities, education, health services, work and job opportunities as well as social experiences. This is exactly why we have undertaken the largest consultation in Victoria’s history in our Plan Victoria process, to see how we can accommodate more homes while also ensuring we keep what locals love about their communities.
The Allan Labor government is future focused for Victorians and has a positive plan for Victorians to live well. We are planning proactively to make the most of our resources and provide Victorians with livable communities with schools, services and infrastructure to grow, and I would appeal to those opposite to start moving past the nostalgia of the 1950s and start working towards Victoria’s future in the 2050s. We need to look beyond the nimbyism in well-resourced suburbs and consider the benefits of new residents in well-equipped suburbs. Not only are there financial benefits in the existing infrastructure – water, power and road infrastructure, as well as health and education services; there are savings there – but also it is a joy to have an influx of new community members into a suburb that perhaps may have had no population change for a long period of time. This is the opportunity that we are providing through this process.
David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:56): Being a NIMBY is easy. Most of the parties in this place have done it at some point. For many local governments it is core business. A proposal to build more housing is put forward, and a local group does not want three townhouses on their street, so they organise the locals and lobby the local government to block it. It is the easiest thing in the world, and I am sure it feels good sticking up for the little guy against the forces of big development, but it is a sugar hit. This tendency of restricting development has been a driving force in the housing and homelessness crises occurring around not just Australia, but also in Canada, the United Kingdom and parts of the United States, particularly in cities like San Francisco, a city which resembles the successful implementation of many of the Greens’ policies. Canada is also a good example, with the ‘not in my backyard’ crowd dominating policy for many years, or as many NIMBYs would prefer it, the ‘I support more housing, just not here’ crowd. This has led to Toronto having the worst housing bubble in the world and Vancouver being one of the most unaffordable housing markets on the planet. Rather than putting forward this motion, the Liberal Party should be looking at the Canadian Conservatives, who are polling at nearly 50 per cent support amongst 18- to 35-year-olds mostly on the back of a housing policy that involves radically stripping back planning rules and getting government out of the way.
In the Libertarian Party we take a slightly different approach, focusing heavily on property rights. Too many people in this state and in the country think somehow that it is just and right to have a say over what someone else does with their own property. If you want to paint your house red, the neighbours should not have any right to block it, and you do not have a right to any particular aesthetic. Neighbourhood character rules are the worst kind of busybody central planning socialist nonsense that exists. This leads to rules where somehow the house and land that you buy has restrictions on what colour the roof is, what colour the bricks are and what your fence can look like, and it is all absurd. Followed closely in this absurdity are our ever-expanding heritage rules. These are the crazy rules where some enthusiast of architecture can lobby the local government to list your house in the next heritage review, and then you have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to hire a heritage consultant just so your right to alter your own home – your property – is not hindered simply to pander to the aesthetic preferences of other people.
The government plan is mostly to enhance property rights. Local government should never have had the power to micromanage planning with neighbourhood character requirements and this ever-creeping heritage obsession. Aspiring home owners are increasingly recognising this impact, forcing up the cost of rent and pushing development further and further away from the city. It has taken far too long and caused far too much suffering, but the government are finally realising that the only solution to the housing crisis is to build more homes.
However, I do have some problems with what the government is proposing. Firstly, they should not be restricting these reforms to such a limited number of areas. Radical reform of planning rules across the whole state would jump-start the housing sector. Secondly, taxes are way too high and make up far too much of the cost of a home, in addition to stamp duty just being a crazy tax that distorts the market. Lastly, it is not clear to me yet whether certain restrictions on objection rights will apply to people whose property rights – their real property rights – are directly impacted, for example, overshadowing solar panels. These are reasonable property rights issues. Whether it is by coincidence or design, this significant reform to local government powers overlaps with the local government elections, so councils are currently in the caretaker period for the elections, and we will soon have a whole bunch of new councillors that will be finding their feet. I also suspect that this is as much directed at value capture for the government revenue as it is about good policy, otherwise it would not be so restricted to only these 10 zones. An example of effective housing policy is in Houston, Texas. Houston did something simple: they never imposed the kind of zoning restrictions that exist in many cities around the world and in comparable cities in the United States. They have done something that seems mystifying to the busybody central planners around the world: they have maintained housing affordability with a diversity of housing options.
So I will not be supporting this motion. I would rather the government go much further and enhance property rights, radically remove planning and zoning restrictions, reduce taxes, streamline approvals and do anything else they can to remove barriers to building homes. There is a lot of talk about various policies to improve housing affordability, but the only solution is to build.
Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:01): I rise to speak on motion 619. We were once the Garden State. We cherished our gardens. We cherished the beautification of our suburbs and the correct balance between growth and the key ingredients of a stable, robust society. The slogan was born of a substantial reality that practically every home had a garden – practically every home had a back garden. It was in a very real sense a social technology, because I believe that back gardens, mature tree canopy, nature strips and readily available recreation space are part of a social technology that supports stable families and healthy young lives, reduces domestic violence and encourages outdoor activity and a sense of belonging. These things are not the products of a successful society but the essential ingredients to it. That is why Melbourne has been able to grow over 150 years and absorb all kinds of changes and cultures, ups and downs, because genuine homes with their own space and grassland were the great leveller between all – rich, middle-class and working class.
But we are no longer the Garden State. Indeed for half a generation now we have been actively destroying the legacy we inherited. We now consider tower blocks homes. It seems to me an acute form of insanity that we are consciously and deliberately reordering our society from one in which every family as a birthright had land and a space of their own to a social technology that says we put families in towers in two- and three-room apartments with a small balcony and we do so without any apparent recognition that this is going to create inequality and bad social outcomes in our society. We are deliberately building up layer upon layer of vulnerability in a growing city.
We made similar mistakes in the 1960s when the social vandals came for the architecture of Melbourne’s CBD and tore down our most beautiful buildings and when we built tower blocks for commission homes across the city. By the 1980s and 90s we acknowledged that tower block living produces bad social outcomes and actively sought to undo it. We rethought urban design. We recognised the dignity of home ownership and standalone homes, and we largely stopped building towers in suburbs and developed alternatives. Yet here we are again, making the exact same mistake only on an even larger scale.
It is a mistake born of two fallacies. One is that Melbourne will have a population of 9 million to 10 million people in 30 years. I guarantee you right now Melbourne will never reach that size – never. Cities do not grow like that without entering into a Faustian pact to destroy the quality of life of its citizens to do so. It is only done when you treat people as economic units to be bundled up and allocated space in predetermined sizes to predetermined places. It is only achieved when you remove choice, when you remove local rights and when you plan from the top down and tell people to lower their expectations to the lowest common denominator. It is not a sustainable size, and it is not a thing we should do in a democracy where we get to choose our own future – to make planning and urban design decisions that try to drive that total into what was the world’s most liveable city. The government’s plan is not to address a need, it is to make that need inevitable. And I am here to categorically say it is not inevitable that we are a city of 9 million or 10 million, and nor should we have a government force it upon us.
The second fallacy is that it represents good planning, and we are told this lie over and over again that we must cluster people in density near trains with pocket parks and ideally their workplace in the same building, like so many battery hens. Of course it is not. It is a disaster of urban planning. We are being force-fed the lie that it is better to build high-rise urban ghettos than build appropriate-sized new homes in new suburbs or build up towns in the regions.
And here I will throw the ‘We will be London’ line back at the ghetto-builders. England is roughly the size of Victoria. Over the last 100 years London has shrunk considerably. The size and the quality of life were understood to be incompatible with each other. Practically everything the UK has done in urban planning in the past 30 years has been to address this. They did not go, ‘Oh, in 2050 we’ll be the size of New Delhi, so we’d better make life worse for everyone.’ Cities like Birmingham, Bristol, Brighton, Chelmsford, Oxford, Cambridge and Milton Keynes have all become the default growth centres. The cost of social infrastructure has been shared between cities and, by UK standards, away from density wherever possible – which brings me to Melbourne in 2024 and the urban design and planning spiral this government is driving us down.
We already know what the Suburban Rail Loop will look like in Box Hill. We already know that the government will continue to expand intense-density buildings upwards and outwards in the Suburban Rail Loop’s Box Hill, Burwood and Glen Waverley precincts. We also have SLO9, significant landscape overlay 9, the Whitehorse planning scheme that is the last hold-out to protect urban tree canopy in Whitehorse, which is being removed. On top of this, the state government has demanded that the City of Whitehorse grows by 79,000 dwellings on the exact same footprint – and I say dwellings, not homes; the two should not be conflated. In the frantic effort to produce housing numbers, the government has given up any efforts on the quality of that housing. The lie is perpetrated by using phrasing like ‘providing choice’, as if the new template provides for any choice at all. Not one single new dwelling under these plans will be a traditional home with a front and back yard or a driveway, or anything to scale with historical Melbourne standards of living. There is no choice. There is just what you are being given by an autocratic government that sees numbers and spreadsheets but not human beings. It measures success in press releases, not in quality of life. And this is the drip-feed of radical planning changes, salami-slicing the changes into bite-size pieces to minimise scrutiny and resistance, making it hard for communities to understand the true scale of the whole.
Population targets, residence targets, rezoning changes, removal of objection, removal of heritage – these are things that should be announced as a coherent whole, as an urban planning package, done in full consultation with the communities, backed up with transparent and publicly available analysis and data. But none of these things have happened – quite the opposite. And the consequence: a looming disaster in urban planning design, the creation of urban ghettos with all their associated social problems, overcrowded schools, loss of open space, congestion, lack of recreation and sports, a radical oversupply of one form of apartments and the continued scarcity of genuine homes for families and young people, and the destruction of the quality of life for existing communities and families. The government is deliberately creating urban ghettos in inner suburbs, creating a concrete noose around Melbourne, instead of the classic backyard, front yard and nature strip that our generation – my generation – inherited from our forebears. The formula is clear: a Docklands environment for every suburb.
The motion is the correct manifestation of this concern in this place. How did this come about? What research and consultation was conducted? Why is it being released in salami slices? First came the SRL and Big Build entities with their stunning undemocratic authority and autonomy. Then came the population targets. Then came the resident targets. Then came the suspension of SLO9. Then came the height limits. Then they increased the height limits. Then there was the introduction of ResCode changes and then the activity centres and even more height limits – without a single word to the councils or communities, and without the slightest electoral mandate. I am going to have to cut a lot of this out.
The population targets and activity centres are a fraud being committed upon the people of Melbourne, a smokescreen to cover total financial incompetence with the hope that it can buy the government another day. It is a fraud that can only be perpetuated by minds that do not see the communities of Melbourne as human beings but mere economic units – mere digits in a spreadsheet whose futures are being manipulated by formulas on that spreadsheet. Historic streets do not matter. Local democracy does not matter. The rights to comment, consult or even object do not matter. Local councils and their local knowledge do not matter. Due process does not matter. Social outcomes do not matter. The people of Melbourne do not matter to this government. The future of Melbourne does not matter to this government. There is no vision, no grand design – just property speculation to raise tax to feed the Ponzi scheme of the Victorian State budget.
Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:11): Thank you, Acting President McArthur; it is good to see you back in the chair in all your colourful splendour. I rise to also make a contribution on this motion in Mr Davis’s name in regard to – it seems to say population targets, and I do not think that is quite correct, Mr Davis. I do not know that our government has population targets. I think maybe next we will be having to set procreation targets to make population actually happen, because we do not have population targets. Like I said, it is weird. I do not know, whoever wrote this maybe was not paying attention at the time when they wrote it, but there are no population targets. There are in fact housing targets, though – those we have.
Sonja TERPSTRA: We have housing targets; that is absolutely right. Again I note this motion talks about having population targets, which is wrong, and then talks about the 10 planned high-rise, high-density zones – I think you are referring to activity centres; I note your use of political language and flourish there to try and scare people – and then the removal of significant planning powers et cetera and then it calls on us to undertake proper consultation.
I not only had the opportunity of listening to some of the contributions, but I was also in my office doing a little bit of research, because some of the councils that you talk about are in my electorate and some of them overlap it a little bit. It is interesting because earlier, maybe two weeks ago now, the Maroondah City Council did in fact send me a copy of their submission into the planning process, which they have lodged with the planning authority. I just read, and re-read actually for the sake of it, their submission, because contrary to what you were saying – I will just read the conclusion that the council wrote. This is Maroondah council in regard to the activity centre planned:
Council would once again like to thank the VPA for the opportunity to work with it on changes to the Ringwood MAC Masterplan 2018. Subject to some finetuning, it supports the changes to the Masterplan.
That is just in regard to the Ringwood Metropolitan Activity Centre (MAC).
Sonja TERPSTRA: No, that is what they said – the Ringwood MAC master plan – and they appreciated the opportunity to work with the Victorian Planning Authority (VPA) on it. What the council did then go on to say is that they would like some fine-tuning of particular areas. But of course one of the things about Ringwood, which I know about my electorate – which you would not know because you have never been there – is that it does have a lot of leafy green trees. No-one is proposing to remove tree canopies; that is just not what they are saying. What they are saying is that residents have told the council –
Sonja TERPSTRA: On a point of order, Acting President, I cannot even speak because of the loud interjections from those opposite, and I would like to be able to continue my contribution in silence. I know you are being distracted by two of my colleagues over here, but the level of noise is ridiculous, and I cannot hear myself.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Bev McArthur): Ms Terpstra has a fair point, gentlemen – a bit of decorum, please. And I apologise, Ms Terpstra, I was talking to your colleagues.
Sonja TERPSTRA: Thank you very much, Acting President. I appreciate it. I will just remind the house that I did listen in silence while those two were speaking. I was not here for yours, but for yours I listened in silence.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Bev McArthur): That was very good of you, but maybe you could get on with your speech now.
Sonja TERPSTRA: Yes, thank you, Acting President. And I am just gesticulating; I am not aggressively pointing either.
I return to Maroondah City Council’s submission, and like I said, they appreciated the opportunity to work with the VPA. And the things that the community were telling the council were that the community members in Maroondah, in and around Ringwood, note and appreciate that there is some limited open space at the Ringwood Lake, but also the green leafy tree canopy is something that is highly valued by local residents. And the good thing about that is that we are not going to remove tree canopy. So again, the scare that the Liberals put into communities is absolutely something to be condemned, because again, those opposite do not want to do anything. I mean Melbourne is growing. It is growing to be a very large city, and we need to accommodate people. We have a housing crisis and we have a housing affordability crisis, and the problem is you cannot actively do something about that if you do not introduce more capacity into our housing system. And building more homes and increasing density is part of that.
I take issue with Mr Welch’s contribution, because again, it was a very white 1950s world view about having suburban blocks and the like. I know in my electorate and particularly where my office is in Doncaster, my office is on the ground floor of a five-, six-storey building, and above my office there are actually residential units. People want to live in high-density buildings. They do not want to drive. They want to be able to walk to a bus stop or a bus station or a train station. They want to be able to use public transport to get into the city. That is why it makes perfect sense to increase high-density building development around public transportation, and that is what the Allan Labor government is doing. All those things make perfect sense.
I heard those opposite complain about the fact that government is taking away planning powers – blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I looked at – this is very, very helpful and publicly available information – .id data, which provides demographic information for councils, and one of the things I was able to look at was building approvals by year, by financial year to date. And for the City of Boroondara – it is a comparison year on year – if you look at ‘Houses’ or ‘Other’, the total for the 2022–23 year was 817 approvals – 817. Now, that was down 239 approvals from the year before, and if I look, there is absolutely a downward trajectory in building approvals. So for the financial year to date, 2023–24, there is again another downward trajectory, with less than 118 building approvals. So again, there is a downward trend.
So we look to local government areas that have capacity to do more, and we are going to encourage them to do more. Particularly in the area of Boroondara what we see is lots of catchcries about neighbourhood character and heritage and all the rest of it, but that is really code for, ‘We don’t want affordable housing in our neighbourhood. We don’t want affordable housing, so people who aren’t like us and who aren’t rich and wealthy can’t live and enjoy these sorts of neighbourhoods.’ It is really terrible. It is code for racism really, quite frankly, and that is why the government has had to step in and look across metropolitan Melbourne and ask, ‘Where are the areas that have more capacity to put more housing in those areas and within those networks?’
I return to Maroondah City Council, which again is a council that is in my electorate, and I have got to commend Maroondah City Council. I work with them quite closely on a range of things, and they actually do a really good job, but nevertheless they are needing some help in terms of building approvals. I also look at the types of residential dwellings that are being approved, because you can look at how many bedrooms are being approved. And guess what, the types of dwellings that people want – and they are the types of dwellings that you will generally find in high-density types of developments – are one- and two-bedroom units. That is because not everybody belongs or fits in a nuclear family. It is not 1954, where there is mum and dad and two kids. It is just not like that anymore. And people who have come from overseas actually like to live in units. If you look at people who come from Hong Kong, they are actually used to living in high-density buildings like units. It is something that you see quite frequently.
I look at the number of bedrooms on approval, and if you look at some of these councils, particularly Boroondara, the number of three-bedroom dwellings in the Boroondara municipality is actually less than the Greater Melbourne average. Again you have got this inconsistency in the type of housing that is being offered and the quality of housing that is being offered. What they want in the leafy suburbs of Boroondara is not to share what they have got. You have got this situation where they are trying to hang on to their neighbourhood and say, ‘This is ours. We don’t want to share it with anybody else. We don’t want cheap or affordable housing. We want to maintain this 1950s ideal of the suburban block and the like.’ Well, that is unfair. We have got people who want to come and live and work in Melbourne, and we need to make room. Otherwise, if we listen to those opposite, we have a housing crisis and it will just get worse. It would just absolutely get worse. As I said, I have commented on Boroondara before. Boroondara only grew 24 per cent over the last 30 years, despite being well serviced by jobs, transport and services, while outer suburbs like Wyndham grew by 404 per cent over the last 30 years. It is pretty clear those municipalities need help. That is why we are going to introduce activity centres, as we have proposed.
We are consulting with people. Maroondah City Council, a council that I work with very closely, are thankful for our assistance. We will continue to move on with making sure we introduce more affordable housing into our market.
Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (15:21): In September last year then Premier Andrews announced Labor’s long-promised plan that he said would help solve the housing crisis. In the 12 months since, Labor’s plan has only made the housing crisis worse. This plan had five key planks. It was supposed to create a better planning approvals process, make housing cheaper, protect renters, create more social housing and create a long-term housing plan – they promised. But 12 months on this plan is failing.
House prices are still 15 per cent higher than they were in 2020, rents have risen over 10 per cent in the last year alone and more and more people report being in housing distress. Just today we heard reports that between June and December the number of public houses fell by 446, from 64,993 to 64,547, while overall social housing units dropped from 88,189 to 88,135. The public housing waiting list remains persistently high at over 100,000. Homelessness is rising, with over 30,000 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in Victoria, and Victoria is consistently the state where the greatest number of people seek to access support services for homelessness.
Victoria remains the lowest spending state on the maintenance of public housing per capita. The government have deliberately been running our public housing stock into the ground so they have an excuse to demolish and privatise it all. That is Thatcherism 101. In the midst of this worsening housing crisis this Labor government continues unabated with its plans to demolish all the public housing towers in the state and privatise these estates by handing over two-thirds of the land to private developers, with no promise to build any public housing at the majority of the estates. It is not a housing plan, it is a developers’ picnic.
This motion highlights the continued failure of this Labor government to talk with communities and take communities along. Big reform at the scale which is needed to solve the housing crisis needs communities to be informed, consulted and engaged genuinely and meaningfully. You just have to look at what is happening at the public housing tower sites to know that Labor is treating the community with absolute contempt right now. They are often the last ones to find out about a decision that will alter the course of their lives, while developers are often the ones cooking up the plans, with the government around the table, that maximise the benefits to them.
The Greens welcome an ambitious housing program. We welcome bigger housing targets and reject any scapegoating that migration is causing the housing crisis. This type of lazy excuse-making is wrong and it is racist. The Greens believe that we can increase the number of homes we build and that they can be affordable and sustainable too. What is missing from Labor’s housing plan is a plan for the 100,000 public homes we need over the next decade and the inclusionary zoning that could make this possible.
Supply alone cannot fix the housing crisis. It has to be affordable supply, and the best type of affordable supply is public housing. That responsibility sits squarely with the state government, but in Victoria Labor is running away as fast as it possibly can from that responsibility. It is retreating from public housing, handing over huge swathes of public land to developers and displacing thousands of people. It is failing to introduce inclusionary zoning, including in some of the activity centres cited in this motion, and inclusionary zoning would mandate and require a percentage of these new developments to be set aside for public community and affordable housing. That is how you solve the housing crisis. Labor continues to scapegoat local councils and communities for its own failings and wants to place all the blame and responsibility on councils for the housing crisis. Announcement after announcement, it is writ large. Even with the targets announced in June and the activity centres proposed, the government did not do any of the work to build community support.
We need more housing; we need more affordable housing. We support more housing around transport infrastructure and existing social infrastructure to end the endless sprawl. But there are legitimate concerns with Labor’s plans and the process they are using to achieve these plans. While we might not agree with everything in this motion, this motion does call for much better consultation and regard for the ability of local communities to have a say in matters that impact their lives. I hope the government can at least listen to that important message and start talking to people, not leaving whole communities behind.
Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (15:26): Thank you for the opportunity to join with others in this place and make a contribution to the motion put forward by Mr Davis regarding high-density zones. I am going to take a moment just to reflect on Melbourne and the growth of Melbourne over the last 30 years, and I have got to tell you, it has grown unequally and it has grown unfairly. In the last 30 years we have seen the number of homes grow by 404 per cent in the City of Wyndham and 233 per cent in the City of Casey. When I look closer to town, to the City of Boroondara, there is a growth of 24 per cent. I have got to tell you, you cannot fix that overnight, but we can put rules in place to make sure that growth is guided in the right places, in established suburbs, in places close to jobs, close to transport and close to services, because busy areas with heaps of transport options like Camberwell should not be locked up, they should be opened up.
What we are observing is those opposite trying to block more homes being built in their backyards. We have introduced some of the most ambitious housing reforms in the country to ensure more Victorian families have the opportunity to build a home where they want to live. However, those opposite are, well, trying to block this every step of the way, and if they do not want housing built in established suburbs where services and infrastructure already exist – where? Where do they want them built? Because the truth is that people want to move to Melbourne and they want to have homes here. This is an important point: where is our new housing going to come from?
I would suggest that what we are seeing is a new form of elitism here from the opposition. They cry out for more workers, who are needed to drive business and keep the state running, but they cry even harder when they have to share their suburbs with them. It is akin to making the workers use the back entrance or stay in the service quarters or, to hark back to some other phrases that come to mind – but I am thinking about the great Rosa Parks. I have got to tell you, Mr Davis does not want to see everyday Victorians in Stonnington, Monash, Glen Eira, Kingston, Maroondah and Whitehorse. He wants them pushed out to the ever-expanding suburbs where, really, it is like, ‘I don’t want to look at you.’ There is a failure to understand that resources and facilities in established suburbs are already in place. Those opposite do not understand infrastructure – frankly, because they have never built any. They only try to privatise it when they get in and then privatise what we have delivered.
The high-density zones that this government have highlighted are where new housing is needed. There are existing road and public transport networks. We note last time those opposite were in power they had no plan for Victoria, no infrastructure in the pipeline. They try to pretend that they are better economic managers, but they cannot seem to grasp that the necessary infrastructure and services in outer Melbourne cost far more than in investing in existing suburbs where people need to live.
The suburbs that I represent know all about high-density living. We experience the community and culture that we create. Residents in my suburb are living where they are and contributing to their community. Public transport is already established. It is already utilised. They can shop locally and get appointments close to where they live. Their travel to work is really easily accessible. I just really cannot handle those opposite talking about high-density living in such a demonising way. The fact is, and I have said it more than once, I live in an apartment, and to make out like it is somehow lesser than and my community are less worthy is absolutely abominable. People can make a community in apartments, and that is exactly what is happening in our city. The high-density living in my region has some very strong working-class roots. We hear all about it, and I know that people are worthy of living in our more established suburbs.
When we announced the activity centre program and the introduction of local government housing targets in our landmark housing statement, we were getting on with delivering on those commitments, and from the moment that that announcement was made until this very day we continue, because the truth is that the status quo is not an option. We need to deliver more housing choices where Victorians are telling us they want to live. They want to live close to public transport, jobs and services and close to where they grew up.
As part of the housing statement, we announced we would introduce local government housing targets as part of the new plan for Victoria. In June there was the announcement about the draft housing targets for every local government area in the state as part of the new plan for Victoria. These are draft targets, it is important to note, and we have been consulting with councils to harness their local knowledge. We asked councils to report back on the draft targets and local changes that they have proposed. I really know that that is very, very interesting. There is an opportunity for our state and local governments to work together to respond to local opportunities and address barriers to getting more homes on the ground in the right locations. The targets focus on increasing density near existing infrastructure, including public transport, to increase accessibility to essential services and build more homes where people want to live. We do not have to choose between open spaces or heritage and building more homes. This is exactly why we undertook the largest consultation in Victoria’s history on our new plan for Victoria to see how we can accommodate more homes while also ensuring we keep what locals love about their communities.
I had the good fortune to attend a consultation in the city with the Minister for Planning and a range of representatives where I got to hear directly from community members. It certainly had some very strong contributions from community members about what was going on.
David Davis: Are you coming on Sunday to the rally at North Essendon?
Sheena WATT: I will say that I am sure that the local member there will be very interested to hear what happens. But I have got to tell you I am focused on the delivery of the housing statement, released in September last year. We said we would introduce clear planning controls to deliver an additional 60,000 homes over 30 years around 10 activity centres across Melbourne. These centres were chosen for a range of reasons, including their potential to host more homes close to trains, trams, shopping centres, jobs and services – the things Victorians want linked to housing. Work on these reforms is incredibly important, and it is already underway. I was delighted to hear that Camberwell Junction was one of the pilot activity centres announced more than a year ago, and we have been working closely with every activity centre council since March.
Since September 2023 – so just over a year ago now – there have certainly been frequent meetings with councils involved in activity centre programs, including workshops for council planning directors and monthly meetings since February 2024, so for more than six months now. There have been, as I said, community consultations. The first started in March and phase 2, where communities would comment on the draft plans for the activity centres, was opened in August and September. In the catchment areas surrounding the activity centres – everything that is within a 10-minute walk of shops and transport – there are some new rules in place to encourage more townhouses and apartments ranging from three to six storeys in height. With that being clear, there will be no changes to third-party appeals for this catchment.
As more people call activity centres home, we want to make sure that the local shops, services and infrastructure have the funding they need to grow. We are working on a simplified infrastructure funding mechanism to fund the things these suburbs need into the future. This policy is based on our housing statement and it covers some really key points: good decisions made faster, cheaper housing close to where you work, protecting renters rights, more social housing and a long-term housing plan. And that is the difference between us and those opposite. We have a clear, defined plan for Victoria, a plan that is informed by the communities that will be impacted. So I am delighted to hear that we have these activity plans progressing so well, informed by community every step of the way.
Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (15:36): I rise to speak to motion 619 in Mr Davis’s name in relation to the activity centres that the government is proposing to put right across the city of Melbourne. I have just been listening to a number of government speakers, and if any members of the public were listening to the debate now they would be horrified, because what we got from Ms Terpstra was talk about Shanghai towers. She is backing Shanghai-like towers, as is Ms Watt, who says they are backing high-density towers. But this was not taken to the people. This plan was not taken to the Victorian community in 2022. No voter knew of the government’s plan to put towers of 20 storeys and above in council areas right across metropolitan Melbourne.
Mr Davis’s motion goes to looking at population targets that have been announced by the government without any consultation concerning the 10 planned high-rise, high-density zones declared by Labor. Now, this is only the start of it, I might add, because they have said that there will be more zones. Again, this was declared by Labor without consultation, including so-called catchment zones over huge swathes of residential and often heritage-listed suburbs. They are proposed, as Mr Davis’s motion says, to have six-storey development approval. In the area that Mr Davis and I represent there are very significant concerns from members of the community, and local councils I might add, around the heritage protection that will go. These areas have got heritage protection overlays with very significant buildings that have been part of the city’s history, and this government wants to tear it all up. They want to put huge towers right across areas in Melbourne.
Members interjecting.
Georgie CROZIER: I am getting the interjections from agitated backbenchers who know that they are on the out. They know this is a disastrous decision, and they know they will not be long in this Parliament. They will be out, because this issue is so concerning that there are thousands of Victorians that are actually coming to the community forums, and I want to talk about that.
Georgie CROZIER: On the edge of your and my electorate, Mr Galea, I was down at a forum not long ago and this issue –
Michael Galea: Kingston council are very supportive. Kingston are very keen to have more development.
Georgie CROZIER: No, it was not. There were hundreds of people really concerned about your unilateral decision around the Suburban Rail Loop and the towers that will occur. We were at a forum the other day in our electorate again –
Georgie CROZIER: Acting President, could you please call Mr Galea to order? I cannot hear myself.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Bev McArthur): Mr Galea, could you tone down your interjections, please.
Georgie CROZIER: As I said, Mr Galea might have concerns around what I am saying, but let me tell you, there are thousands of Victorians really concerned about the government’s plans, which were never taken to the people. They were never taken to the people in an election. Mr Galea can interject all he likes, but I listened to question time, and there is a group in Essendon who are equally concerned around their community and what is going to happen. They have a forum on Sunday. Mr Davis, I think, is going; Mr Newbury, the opposition planning spokesperson; Mr Pesutto, the Leader of the Opposition; and others are attending because this is important. Those members of the community will tell you, like other members of the community, that there has been no consultation.
This motion calls on the government to have proper consultation with affected councils and the communities, and I am going to name them. The high-density zones are, namely, Hume, Boroondara, Stonnington, Monash, Glen Eira, Whittlesea, Frankston, Kingston, Bayside, Moonee Valley, Darebin, Maroondah and Whitehorse. These are huge areas of Melbourne. I have raised this issue in the Parliament previously and I have asked the minister to have proper consultation, because I have been speaking to one of my local councils, and this is the letter they have sent me:
Council has been actively engaging with the VPA, submitting officer comments during the discovery phase and more recently on the draft planning content …
This is for an area that is affecting them, around Chadstone, so it goes into Stonnington, Glen Eira, Monash and a whole range of council areas.
We are also deeply concerned about the unwillingness of the VPA to forward background reports and technical reports to Council which we have been advised, informed the current set of draft plans. It has been difficult to provide informed comment on the draft plans without this information.
The government say they have been consulting the councils. Well, I am telling you the councils do not agree that they have been consulted with properly or appropriately. Consultation is currently scheduled to close on 29 September, which is during the caretaker period for the upcoming elections. That is an issue I have raised previously in the house regarding those closure dates and having them extended because of the caretaker period. But the minister conveniently just disregarded any of that.
This letter goes on to say:
The release of the draft plans, particularly the inclusion of the catchment areas has unfortunately caught most councils, including ours, off guard. The lack of information provided to Council combined with the lack of response to our comments, combined with the very short period from submitting comments to the release of the drafts on 22 August, gives us little confidence that there was any intention to genuinely consider stakeholder feedback.
And that is the point: this government did not provide public consultation. They had no intention of doing it. They have rammed this through. As they have said, there is just a backlog of strategic planning work for planning authorisation anyway that the minister is sitting on. It is around a whole range of things in Bentleigh East, in Elsternwick, in Glen Huntly, in McKinnon, in Caulfield South and in Gardenvale. There are just a range of issues that have not been addressed, yet this government has conned Victorians yet again. They conned Victorians on the Commonwealth Games when they ripped up the Commonwealth Games. It has cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Georgie CROZIER: I am saying that you conned Victorians, Mr Galea, and I am coming to the –
Michael Galea: On a point of order, Acting President, I appreciate Ms Crozier’s skill in linking many things into one subject, but this is not a motion about the Commonwealth Games; this is a motion, as ill conceived as it is, about housing, and I ask Ms Crozier to come back to it.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Bev McArthur): Thank you, Mr Galea. Ms Crozier, maybe just return to the motion.
Georgie CROZIER: I am very happy to, thank you, Acting President, because the point I was making is: as the government have conned Victorians on the Commonwealth Games, they have conned Victorians on the activity centres too. That was my point before Mr Galea jumped to his feet, very agitated about the fact that Victorians are being conned by Labor, by Jacinta Allan, who for years was overseeing the Commonwealth Games and now is overseeing the Shanghai towers that are going to pop up all over metropolitan Melbourne. That is what Ms Terpstra said – she was agreeing with the Shanghai towers.
Georgie CROZIER: What did she say, Mr Davis? She called it the Shanghai model. I do not want to verbal her, but there was the reference to that, because I was talking about Shanghai towers across Melbourne. That is the point of this motion. I think Professor Buxton, an expert in this field, was very clear at a forum not long ago talking about the impacts and how these zones will further reach and encroach on many parts of metropolitan Melbourne. I say again the community are not conned by Labor on this issue. They know it is very desperate and a very bad planning decision, where communities have been shut out of any consultation, where councils have been shut out of proper consultation, and that is not a democratic way. This is liberal democracy we live in here, but you would not know it under Labor. It is ‘My way or the highway’, and we have seen it on numerous decision-making processes over the last 10 years in relation to what the government plans to do. This is not the proper way to do a planning decision. We have got an incompetent Minister for Planning, out of her depth, and I suggest that she come along on Sunday. She has refused to in question time, but she should come along and hear from residents in Essendon.
Michael Galea: On a point of order, Acting President, I am just a bit concerned about the remarks Ms Crozier made. I think she was actually verballing Ms Terpstra, and I ask that she withdraw those comments. I do not believe that they were actually said by Ms Terpstra, so I would ask that they be taken back.
David Davis: On the point of order, Acting President, Ms Terpstra clearly referred to Shanghai, and she clearly referred to it favourably as a model.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Bev McArthur): We are happy to look at Hansard and check what Ms Terpstra said.
Georgie CROZIER: On the point of order, Acting President, I was interjecting when Ms Terpstra was on her feet talking about the Shanghai towers, which she referred to. That Shanghai model is what I was referring to. She was talking about high density, so it was in that context.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Bev McArthur): I do not think there is a point of order.
David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (15:48): I will be brief in my summation here. This is a very straightforward motion. It picks up the state government’s attempt to impose targets on municipalities, pushing more housing and more people into municipalities without doing the background work. It picks up the 10 planned high-rise, high-density zones. We have listed the municipalities and the associated massive catchment zones where six storeys as of right is intended by Labor. It picks up the removal of third-party appeal rights and the approach of the government to roll in these planning powers without discussion with councils and without discussion with communities.
One of the Labor contributors tried to say that there is consultation going on now. Well, that is after the zones have been announced. It is after the steps have been taken. It is after the areas have been designated and pulled out of the normal planning approach. Everyone now knows that those large swathes of land, the so-called catchment areas, are actually game for this government to force in new population, new housing, and to do it at the expense of local areas and to do it without a proper plan. There is no plan. There is no plan for open space, there is no plan for schools, there is no plan for sewerage, there is no plan for traffic, there is no plan for health services.
A member interjected.
David DAVIS: I am referring here to what Ms Watt said, and she was very, very direct about the need for these high-rise areas and the fact that they were going to have to suck it up when it came to the additional open space. Where is the open space going to come from? It is not clear from what she said. Nobody knows where that open space is going to come from.
All this motion then does is call on the Allan Labor government to engage in proper consultation with affected councils and communities to their satisfaction, and it names those communities: Hume, Boroondara, Stonnington, Monash, Glen Eira, Whittlesea, Frankston, Kingston, Bayside, Moonee Valley, Darebin, Maroondah and Whitehorse, those 13 councils that are the subject of the 10 new high-rise, high-density regions. And here we go with the state government – they have announced another 10 zones are going to come. They have not announced where they are, but they are going to make another 10 zones, so there will be 20 of these zones, and that is just the start of their approach. As Mr Welch pointed out, there is also the massive density that is being imposed around the Suburban Rail Loop stations. So it is a state government that is not listening, a state government that is arrogant, a state government that is out of touch and a state government that needs to be brought back to the community to listen and engage.
Council divided on motion:
Ayes (12): Melina Bath, Jeff Bourman, Gaelle Broad, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, Wendy Lovell, Bev McArthur, Joe McCracken, Evan Mulholland, Richard Welch
Noes (22): Ryan Batchelor, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Katherine Copsey, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, David Ettershank, Michael Galea, Shaun Leane, David Limbrick, Sarah Mansfield, Tom McIntosh, Rachel Payne, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell, Samantha Ratnam, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Sonja Terpstra, Gayle Tierney
Motion negatived.