Tuesday, 18 June 2024

 Wayne FARNHAM (Narracan) (19:11): (707) My adjournment this evening is for the Minister for Planning, and the action I seek is that she take immediate action to clarify how the government intend to meet their targets for Baw Baw shire’s housing target and what they have mandated. They have mandated another 24,700 dwellings in Baw Baw shire by 2051. I do not know how they are going to achieve this, when in the last 12 months there has been a total of 316 approvals – that is, 283 ‍houses and 33 townhouses. So how is the Baw Baw shire expected to do a 300 per cent uptick to meet a government target? And this is off the back of the government shifting the responsibility of 80,000 homes a year for the next 10 years, which they have failed at miserably. Within the first two years they are going to be 70,000 houses below where their target is, so how do they expect the Baw Baw shire to achieve this target?

It is totally wrong to shift the responsibility onto local councils, seeing that this was a government promise. It was not a council promise, it was a government promise. So how are they going to do this? What is the plan for these councils to get these out when I have at the moment residential subdivisions taking up to seven years to be approved? How about we look at regulation reform so councils have an opportunity to meet the targets the government is setting? This is a false target. The 80,000 houses a year for the next 10 years was a false claim. The government needs to re-establish its targets and put in targets that are achievable rather than raising the hopes of Victorians for them to get a house. This is wrong. The government are being very misleading in what they are doing, and I want the minister to explain how this target is going to be achieved.