Planning policy
John PESUTTO (Hawthorn) (16:37): The Allan Labor government needs to come clean on the financial implications of its chaotic housing policy and planning takeover. I refer specifically to the activity centres that are slowly being gazetted, including areas like Camberwell in my electorate. It is important for Victorians to know that with the declaration of these activity centres we are seeing the introduction of planning controls in the form of built-form overlays and housing choice and transport zone planning controls. With those changes come windfall gains tax implications. The government said in its budget papers from May that the windfall gains tax take last year was $90 million. It will go up to $1.35 million, then to $1.4 million, to $1.47 million and to $1.55 million by 2028–29, but that vastly understates the impact of this windfall gains tax across huge swathes of Melbourne that will be affected by these changes. It is the same with the Suburban Rail Loop precincts, which the government is lowballing in relation to the windfall gains tax implications that will affect households, businesses and local councils. We see today more chaos in the government’s financial oversight of this project with the idea of hypothecated taxes, which are being discussed. The government has yet to come clean on how it is going to provide the debt for that – the tax changes and the Commonwealth contribution, which is still forthcoming. Remember that Moody’s has said the cost of the SRL has nearly tripled.