Wednesday, 28 May 2025

Planning policy

John PESUTTO (Hawthorn) (17:21): (1180) I rise tonight to raise a matter for the Minister for Planning. The matter I raise is whether the Minister for Planning can join me to meet with a number of groups in my electorate to discuss the government’s recent planning changes. In particular my constituents and I want to talk about the impact of the government’s planning takeover in areas like the electorate I represent of Hawthorn.

I think we all understand in this place and across the community that we need more housing in this state; in fact we need housing across the country and indeed across the world. We see many parts of the world that are struggling with the provision of housing. No-one is arguing against the proposition that we need more housing, but I have said previously in this chamber and elsewhere in the community that I think one of the challenges the government has is to address what are emerging, and in some cases longstanding, inequities in the way the state’s capital program has been rolled out over a large number of years.

Tonight I do not propose to single any one side of politics out. I think it is a general challenge that we have in this state that we have parts of Melbourne and outer Melbourne in particular that are in desperate need of more infrastructure to support what are growing communities. If I go to a citizenship ceremony in Casey or out in Wyndham or Melton or any other of the areas of our state that are growing at enormous rates with new Australians in particular, who are just excited and aspirational and want the best for their families and their communities, and I look around those areas, for a long time there has been a dearth of public transport and a dearth of other kinds of community infrastructure, not just roads and public transport but all manner of things, community halls and places where people can meet, congregate and engage in normal social activities. They do not have that. One of the concerns I have is not just for my area, the area I represent – because I do not believe you can double the number of dwellings and also make commensurate investments in the infrastructure that will support the populations that go with that. At the same time, if you persist down that policy path, you are also neglecting those growth corridors in particular, but not solely, and the infrastructure they will need.

I looked at the government’s capital program for the next financial year. There is about $21.3 billion or so that is invested in infrastructure. Most of it is in large projects. The new projects that are coming online do not appear to be addressing a lot of the choke points right around the growth corridors of Melbourne and in the regions that want more growth but need that infrastructure investment. There is a balanced way to deliver the housing that our state needs, but if done wrongly, concentrating it in places where you cannot meet it with new infrastructure while also neglecting those growth corridors that miss out, it means that we all lose out, and we can do better.