Wednesday, 5 March 2025

Planning policy

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (10:34): I move:

That this house:

(1) notes that the Allan Labor government published in the Victoria Government Gazette that the Minister for Planning had approved the following amendments to the Victoria Planning Provisions (VPP):

(a) VC257 on Tuesday 25 February 2025 and tabled on Tuesday 4 March 2025;

(b) VC274 on Friday 28 February 2025 and tabled on Tuesday 4 March 2025;

(2) requires the Leader of the Government, in accordance with standing order 10.01, to table in the Council within three weeks of the house agreeing to this resolution:

(a) briefings and documents presented to or relied upon by the Minister for Planning in the gazettal of VPP amendments VC257 and VC274;

(b) the impact assessments on transport infrastructure, community infrastructure and drainage for the 10 pilot activity centres;

(c) the 2019 ministerial advisory committee’s planning mechanisms for social and affordable housing report;

(d) the 2021 Ten-Year Strategy for Social and Affordable Housing;

(e) the 2020 ministerial advisory committee infrastructure contributions report;

(f) the agendas, including attachments, and minutes of all meetings of the infrastructure contributions working group; and

(g) the activity centres standing advisory committee referral letters.

VC257 and VC274 are part of the government’s agenda to force high-density, high-rise development into parts of our city. This is now well known and well discussed in this chamber, and there will be further discussions, no doubt. The Minister for Planning under the planning and environment act has enormous power to make decisions – to make planning scheme amendments that actually give firm legal directions to a planning scheme and to those who put in applications for a planning scheme and give clear legal direction to local government and to VCAT and others as well. Those force-of-law planning scheme amendments are made by the minister, and in this case the minister has that power alone under the planning and environment act. There is capacity for disallowance by either chamber, but overwhelmingly the Minister for Planning makes amendments to the planning scheme and they become the force of law and control planning in our city.

Now, when the minister makes these decisions, the department and relevant officials will put material before the minister which she has to agree with or indeed modify in some circumstances potentially, but the basis on which the minister has made these particular decisions is important for the community to understand. It is important for the chamber to understand, because any potential disallowance could be informed by the material that the minister has relied upon when she has made those particular decisions. Equally if we want to see clear community involvement and council understanding of these, that will be improved by putting this material in the public domain. The minister has taken a formal legal decision to gazette these planning scheme amendments, and the reasons are published in part but not the full material that sits behind the decisions, not the full material on which the minister has relied. It may be that that material is extensive, or it may be that that material is not extensive. Either of those is important information for those seeking to examine these planning scheme amendments and understand these planning scheme amendments in full. So it is clearly in the public interest that we see what the minister has used – what has been in front of her when she has made those particular decisions.

The other matters, from (2)(b) to (2)(g), are matters around the pilot activity centres, the ministerial advisory committee, the 10-year strategy for social and affordable housing, the ministerial advisory committee infrastructure contributions report, the meetings of that committee and the referral letters of the Activity Centres Standing Advisory Committee. All these are matters that inform and explain to the community and the chamber the basis of some government and ministerial decisions on a wide front with a lot of the planning decisions that are being made at the moment. We think, again, it is clearly in the public interest for these to be available. It is not clear why some of them have not been made available. If some of them can be made available – I think the government could informally do this with a number of these, and it would not necessarily even require a documents motion. There is no reason why, for example, the strategy should not be out in full, and the impact assessments on transport infrastructure, community infrastructure and drainage for the 10 pilot activity centres. If you are going to put tens of thousands more people into a particular activity centre – three of the 10 pilot activity centres are in my electorate – in Boroondara, Stonnington, Glen Eira and Monash or in Bayside, Glen Eira and Kingston, it is right and proper that people should see what infrastructure is going to be matched and what assessments government has done on those matters.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (10:40): I am pleased to rise to speak on Mr Davis’s short-form documents motion seeking quite a lot, to be honest, of documents to be tabled – briefings presented to the minister to make two of these decisions with respect to planning decisions, huge amounts of information about transport infrastructure and community infrastructure and a ministerial advisory committee for sort of social and affordable housing and the like. Obviously the government, as is our custom, does not oppose documents motions, but I think in the context of some of the debates that we have had in this chamber previously about documents motions requesting extensive amounts of material it is worth commenting on the scope and breadth of the motion that is being presented today so that members of the chamber are not under any illusion about just how wide a net yet again is being cast to seek this and the work that will obviously need to go into assessing the extent to which these documents can be produced in this chamber, taking account of the necessary exercise of the range of executive privileges which the government may or may not wish to rely upon. I think that is the first point to make.

The second and I think more substantive point is that what Mr Davis is trying to get to is, I think, in a political sense to continue his campaign against more homes being built in metropolitan Melbourne – Mr Davis, the Liberal Party more broadly, attempting to block more homes being built in metropolitan Melbourne. He is railing against this government’s attempts to build more homes in the suburbs that have good quality infrastructure, access to school, close to jobs and public transport – places where the government has been investing in infrastructure and services. We can confidently say that these are places where people want to live. We are confident that these are places that people want to live in, and Labor wants to give them the opportunity to do it. Labor wants to give more Victorians the opportunity to own a home in communities where they grew up. Labor wants to give more Victorians the opportunity to own a home in communities where their families live so they are not travelling 30 or 40 minutes on the weekend just to go and have lunch with their mum and dad, so grandparents are not travelling 30 or 40 minutes just so they can see their kids play sport on the weekends. We want to give more Victorians the opportunity to live in the communities that they want to call home. The Liberal Party wants to block that from happening.

Mr Davis clearly is interested in impact assessments on local infrastructure, he says the infrastructure is not keeping up. Let us go directly to this point about education infrastructure in, I do not know, let us pick one – Moorabbin, one of the activity centres. What is happening right now at Moorabbin Primary School? They have just opened 12 new classrooms that have been built by this state government. The new gymnasium, which will double as a community infrastructure facility, is currently under construction. This is just one example of the investments that this Labor government has been making to upgrade local schools right across this state and particularly schools close to these activity centres – Moorabbin Primary School, just near the Moorabbin activity centre after extensive consultation for the last 15, 16 months since the pilot activity centres were first announced in late 2023.

This Labor government is engaging with councils and engaging with local communities about the plans that we have to enable more Victorians to own homes in the communities that they want to live in. We are not going to stop our endeavours to try and make sure that Victorians have got the homes they need despite all of the efforts of the Liberal Party to block us.

Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (10:45): I rise to speak on Mr Davis’s motion 855. It is a pretty simple request for some pretty simple background documents on what is clearly a very big policy, and a very big policy needs a very good and clear explanation as to how we arrived at it and what its implications are. What did the minister rely on in making their decision to bring this policy to bear on the community? It has significant effects on the communities that this policy roams across. They are pretty basic considerations: what consideration has gone into infrastructure, what consideration has gone into things like sewerage and power and school catchments and things like that? This is a pretty normal sort of thing where you would want to understand what the implications are going to be, because there is precious little in the public utterances about how these things are going to be addressed. There is a massive vacuum of information, and that leads you to two conclusions: either there is no information, there is no planning, or the planning is such that they would prefer not to have scrutiny of it.

This is a government that does not like accountability. It certainly does not like people asking questions, especially locals. Every time we hear the word ‘consultation’ from this government a wry smile springs to my face. They will have to go to the Oxford dictionary and change the definition of that word, because the way this government habitually performs consultation is a farce; it is a sham. Everybody in the community knows it. It is a pretence. Even with the recent announcement of these activity centres, people received letters saying they may or would be affected at their address, but to find out how they had to go to this website, a website that has no less than 40 documents of about 40 pages each which they are meant to somehow navigate to find out how it affects their house. There are no directions about which one may affect them.

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

Richard WELCH: Maybe that is fine for you, but it does not work in the real world. People do not take this as consultation; this is being consultold. If you go and look hard enough, buried down in some website you might find out what is about to happen to you, not ‘Here’s your opportunity’, because if you did consult, you would know that people have legitimate concerns about what is happening to their neighbourhoods, what is going to happen to their quality of life, what is going to happen to the education of their children in schools that are already understaffed and overcapacity and what is going to happen to the open spaces. None of these things get answered. It is quite straightforward: let us look at what you have considered when putting this out. I think it is quite fair and reasonable. If it is a big policy, as you like to claim, then let us see the big advice that went with it. It is pretty sensible in my book.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (10:48): Well, well, well, where to begin with that? We are here today debating a short-form documents motion put forward by the Liberal Party, and the Liberal Party is complaining about the number of documents already available. They are saying there are too many documents available, too many documents on the website. The first speaker, Mr Davis, demanded this broadbrush range of documents and the second speaker wants less. He mentioned 40 documents on this website, and he is complaining about it. What do we want? This is an extraordinary situation where the Liberal Party have come into this place ostensibly to call for more documents, and yet they are speaking against having documents available. I do not know if Mr Welch read the documents motion before making his contribution. I am not sure if Mr Davis is happy with Mr Welch’s comments, who knows?

Unlike the waffle that has come across from both speakers on either side, this is a government that actually believes in genuine consultation, which is why there are, in that particular instance Mr Welch referred to, so many documents already available on that site and why we have engaged and reached out to well over 200,000 people as part of this process already who are living in these activity centres, these designated areas. It is why we have listened to look at what came out last week in some of these earlier activity centres – we have actually listened. We have worked with councils, with communities, with other user groups and we have made changes. There are some cases where the high-density zone was brought back, where that was tapered off from a much closer point to the heart of the activity centre. That is all in direct response to genuine consultation, and if we were doing phoney consultation – like Mr Welch seems to say – how would this have come about? We are listening and we are citing the things that people have told us when we make these sensible changes, because – as Mr Batchelor outlined – this is a very critical policy. We have week after week after week in this place members coming in from opposite attacking the rights of young people, of gen Zs and millennials, to live anywhere near the centre of the city. That is what they are doing when they are coming in with these ridiculous motions and their petitions.

We have a plan for inner-city Melbourne, as Mr Batchelor referred to as just one example in his electorate. We are also investing in the outer suburbs. Just this morning Mr Tarlamis gave an extensive members statement outlining all the new schools that have opened this year in one of our growing suburbs of Clyde North. We are investing in growing communities in the centre of the city, in the middle suburbs, in the outer suburbs and across the state. But what we see from those opposite is no plan, no vision, just NIMBY attacks on aspiration. It is an attack on aspiration, and it is saying to those young people that you should not have the choice to live in a terrific outer suburb or a wonderful inner-city suburb. You should have no choice; you should just have to live, in some cases, miles away from your friends, from your family, from your work opportunities. They are saying, ‘No choice.’

There was a time in this country’s history when the Liberal Party stood for individual freedoms and individual choices and the aspirations of everyday Australians. With these motions that is dead, buried and cremated. They clearly do not stand for that anymore, because they are saying to people, ‘We do not care about your aspirations. If you don’t like it, you can go off and live wherever else you want to. Not in my sleepy streets in Brighton, in Hawthorn, in Kew.’ That is what the Liberal Party is saying to young people right across this state today.

We have a serious housing issue in this state, in this country, and this is a government that is taking genuine action to respond to that. Of course when we do, we have once again the Liberal Party saying, ‘No. Not on my street. Not in my backyard.’ We have seen it time and time again. I am sure Mr Mulholland cringes every time he hears Mr Davis come up and speak about it, because he might understand the challenges that young people face, but it is clear that he is never going to get a fair run in that party. He has been outvoted – between Mrs McArthur on one side and Mr Davis on the other, and chief NIMBY of course over there, as well as Mr Newbury protesting outside hotels, protesting against the idea that young people should be able to have a place to live.

Now, as is the case with short documents motions, the government will not be opposing this motion today, despite the fact that Mr Welch is apparently complaining that there are too many documents in the public space already. But we will not be opposing this. I note as well that it is a very, very broad request for documents and this goes to the issue of what has been discussed many times about appropriate timeframes and things that we have tried to get looked at. I note that the whip of the government was very generous to the opposition in even letting them do this today, because Mr Davis apparently did not want short documents motions to be even considered under general business last week. We will see that is changing again today, I am sure. We will not be opposing this motion.

Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (10:54): We need more homes for Victorians. We need to ensure that families, young and old, are able to live near each other, able to live in affordable housing – housing near schools, near health infrastructure, near jobs. It is not easy to get on with this task, but the state government is up for this work, unlike the opposition who have competing claims with each other in this motion –

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jacinta Ermacora): Pursuant to sessional order 6, the time for this debate has elapsed.

Motion agreed to.