Thursday, 13 November 2025

 Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (10:48): I rise today to give the opposition’s lead contribution on the Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025. This should be a bill that the opposition could support, because we are in a housing crisis. We are in a desperate, desperate housing crisis here in Victoria and one the opposition absolutely contends is of this government’s making. It is of this government’s making because people, parents, families, developers and home builders are simply finding themselves unable to get up and going and providing the houses that we need here in Victoria in an affordable way. This government has prioritised many things in bringing this bill to the Parliament, none of which has been the affordability and the responsiveness of the minister for making better decisions more quickly.

This bill, sadly, has been rushed. In the contribution just before debate on this bill started, we heard about justice bills that this government is rushing through Parliament with minimal consultation and without talking to key stakeholders and making sure that the legislation is the best it can be. This bill in a sense is exactly the same. It was frightening, actually, to hear that the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV), the Housing Industry Association, Master Builders Victoria, the Urban Development Institute of Australia – all key stakeholders in the solutions to a housing crisis, the key components of how we get homes built more quickly and affordably in Victoria – were all ignored. Can you believe that?

Can you believe that a government who say they are serious about a housing crisis would ignore and not discuss, display or show their legislation, their solutions? What sense does it make that you would completely ignore these key stakeholders?

The opposition has no choice but to oppose this bill, not because we do not want more homes more quickly and more affordably in Victoria, but because we believe that the key people that will drive those solutions at the end of the day – the minister in this house, this government and those representing the people of Victoria – are not the ones that actually build the houses. They are not the ones that prepare the land. They are not the ones that make things happen. They are supposed to facilitate it. This government has failed dramatically in facilitating the necessary consultation and the necessary engagement with the community, with the industry sectors and with the people that will be out with the shovels in their hands, the people out there that will actually deliver the homes that Victoria desperately needs.

Coinciding with the debate on this bill, we had the Council to Homeless Persons saying, for example, that Victoria now accounts for a third of the nation’s homeless people. We have a record amount of homeless people in the country. We have a record amount here in the state, in the middle of our housing crisis. And this bill does not deliver the homes that those people will desperately need. This does not deliver the homes that people want in our inner suburbs, our outer-ring suburbs, our growth areas and regional Victoria. And why doesn’t it? Because it fundamentally refuses to address the key stumbling block, and that is affordability. What this bill does do is on one hand it says ‘We’re going to speed things up and make things quicker’, but on the other hand one of the key blockers to getting things happening in this state is the planning minister herself.

The industry throughout Victoria knows her office to contain what they call the scary cupboard. The scary cupboard is filled with documents that look just like this, sitting there waiting for the minister to say, ‘Yes, Victoria. Thank you, development industry. Thank you, entrepreneurs. Thank you, builders. Thank you, local municipalities. Thank you for trying to provide more land and more opportunities for Victorians.’ And they sit, and they sit for months. They sit for years. In fact, some have been sitting for six and seven years in the minister’s office. And the fact, quite simply, is that this bill achieves nothing when it does not put any obligations on the minister to make decisions quickly, in a timely manner, in the interests of the community. There is no impetus whatsoever in this for the minister to open her scary cupboard and let the progress commence in Victoria. That is what is holding it up. It is getting worse.

James Newbury interjected.

Richard RIORDAN: Member for Brighton, you are absolutely right. There is zero confidence in the community that that delivers it.

The other interesting thing that this bill does is it introduces a whole new area of uncertainty in planning in Victoria. I will touch on it in more detail later, but for the first time ever, it affects nearly all planning – not only planning amendments, but planning applications. We are talking about when mum-and-dad Victorians want to do a home improvement, make alterations at home or do something on their property where they need a planning permit. Let us face it, this is the way we keep order and understanding of how our communities grow and develop; we need planning permits. But we now have to consult with traditional owners on planning permits. Now the government in its brief bill briefing not only to the opposition but to all key stakeholders did not clearly identify in any functional way how that will affect the development. Unfortunately this is what the bill specifically says about applying or notifying traditional owners. I will read this because it is a really important part of the legislation. This one clause alone creates so much uncertainty. It says:

if a traditional owner notice has been given to a registered Aboriginal party, a copy of the notice and any responses received from the registered Aboriginal party; and …

I have gone to the wrong clause. It is on the next page.

The clause identifies that the non-response from the traditional owner group does not imply consent. For every other referral group, if they do not comply in a certain amount of time, consent is by default granted to a planning application. It is the responsibility of the referral authority to act in a responsible and prompt fashion. That is not on traditional owner applications, and so quite simply the uncertainty that this leaves is: what does it mean if during the process, after the time given for consent, there is a problem, a perceived problem or an understood problem that then is raised by the traditional owner group? Will this in fact derail, hold up and slow down even further the planning and development process here in the state of Victoria?

To overview this bill that has been put to the Parliament today: why has this bill come? This bill has come because we have a housing crisis. This bill has come because this government wants the community to believe that we have a housing crisis because we have backlogs in planning permits and planning applications. We have those backlogs because this government have blamed endlessly local communities, they have blamed local councils and they have blamed community groups that want to preserve, manage, look after and treasure their local heritage in the built form. Take the people in Blackburn: one of the most important elements of the community they live in is their tree canopy and tree cover. It is those issues. It is a wide range of issues that communities have had for time immemorial in wanting to preserve and maintain in order to keep the integrity and the specialness of the place that they call home. These are not unreasonable requests. It is not unreasonable that communities want to continue to have a say in how their communities develop. What this bill does is say that because we have a housing crisis, we are now going to remove in a drastic fashion the ability of councils to oversee their community’s development and withdraw the rights of adjacent landowners to have any say over how their street, their neighbourhood and their community develop. All those things will be cast aside in order to allegedly speed up the process.

At the same time, when we understand that there is an affordability crisis, not a planning permit crisis, we are embedding increased extra costs into the planning process. Those increased costs, which we have discussed earlier, are in the traditional owner notice and process, which already is a very, very costly and timely process in the planning amendment application stages and completely unregulated and completely at the whim of the various groups that are called upon to make judgements on the cultural heritage of an area – and now we are embedding it into the planning scheme. So Victorians that want to get ahead, Victorians that want to create homes and developments here in the state of Victoria, will be forced to engage in that process at every level of the planning permit and the planning amendment stage.

Another element that this government have brought in, as they have a strong habit of implementing new taxes, is the ability of referral agencies to start charging fees. Now, at first glance, that can make sense – cost recovery of agencies. But the great concern the opposition has is that this is code for ‘We will cut funding to the CFA. We will cut funding to the catchment management authorities. We will cut funding to the water authorities. We will cut funding to local councils, and you will be able to recoup those lost funds by charging developers, mums and dads and others putting in planning permits more money to put those processes through.’ There is no capping of the fees. There are no outlines of what those fees and charges could be. It just enables all referral authorities to recoup funds from every single planning amendment and planning application. When we are talking about how we get the cost of homes down, how we make homes more affordable for everyday Victorians, we have a piece of legislation here that is taking communities’ rights away while at the same time embedding extra costs into the planning process.

Another element that has struck me as very unusual in preparing for today’s bill is that I have never received so much correspondence from key stakeholders, keeping in mind that this government presented this bill to Parliament in its first reading on the eve of the Melbourne Cup long weekend and essentially gave all key stakeholders literally four working days to process something that is essentially a 700-page state-changing piece of legislation. It has wide impact and massive implications, and yet we have four working days to process this and understand what it means. In doing that, the opposition was given very little time, and as a consequence multiple municipalities which have had the chance to have a meeting have sent requests to the opposition to do whatever we can to adjourn and stall this legislation until such time as those most affected – and ultimately they are members of the Victorian community, their representatives and the people that work with them – have time to fully assess and thrash out the implications of what this means for Victoria in terms of our suburbs, what it means for our small country towns and what it means for growth and development opportunities going forward at an industrial and commercial level as well.

To summarise the various groups that have given submissions to the opposition, they are all greatly concerned about the loss of community input. They are really concerned that, as we get to the detail, this bill essentially takes from the Parliament its ability to overturn planning amendments. At first thrust some people might not always have sympathy for the Parliament about the powers that it does or does not have. But this power affects everyday Victorians because a government, until this bill came to the Parliament, always knew that ultimately its decision-making on planning amendments had to be rational, had to be sensible and had to fit with community expectations. It is taking away the Parliament’s ability to overturn bad planning decisions, and in order to do that, you have got to get multiple members of Parliament onside. It is not an easy task. It has only occurred five times in the last 10 or 12 years, so it is not a power that the Parliament uses frivolously or without good reason. It requires a united belief within a chamber to make that happen. This bill will take that away from the Parliament.

What that means is a planning minister can make decisions without any regard to what the community might think about it. Some of those decisions have involved really inappropriate housing and commercial developments that will just have a really negative impact on communities – that is why it has happened. Governments do make mistakes in this area, and this bill seeks to ensure that this government, which has a track record on bad decision-making, will in fact have carte blanche on making those types of changes.

The reduction of power to local governments is another huge concern. Communities and local councils often fly and get elected and councillors come and go over issues around planning. Why is that – because planning is at the heart of the vibe, the spirit of various communities. Across Melbourne and across Victoria we have 79 local council areas. As a member of Parliament you get the opportunity to travel around many of these municipalities over time, and every single one of them is a different community. It has different aspirations and requirements, and it has allowed its community to evolve and develop over time. It actually makes no sense for the state government to essentially be at war with local council and to blame local councils for the housing dilemmas that we have here in the state. When you look at the municipalities here in Victoria – and the MAV will back this up – we have literally tens of thousands of planning permits already issued in Victoria that have not gone ahead. They have been stalled and held up first and foremost because of the affordability issue I touched on earlier, but also from other requirements that this government has put on them, not the fact that the councils have not issued the permits.

The most damning example of where planning has been put in place and a government has failed to make it happen is of course Fishermans Bend. We have the situation where some 12 years ago now, as a Parliament, we put in place the planning regime to see 80,000 homes built, and this government after 12 years have not even got close; 6000 homes out of 80,000 is all they have managed to facilitate in 12 years. That is not a planning problem, that is a government-lack-of-will problem. That is a government that cannot prioritise its infrastructure program. That is a government that is refusing to look at the real issues and get on and work with the local councils, the City of Melbourne in this case, and the development sector, who could actually get the homes there. Once again, it is the people outside this chamber that hold the shovels and the spades and drive the excavators that build the homes, and we have to work with them.

One of the things that will hit the average Victorian hardest in this is the fact that you will be able to have a three- or four-storey apartment building built next door to you without notice. The irony of this notice and participation and ability of community to have a say in what gets built in their street, in their suburb and in their community is that this government is fast-tracking as of right deemed-to-comply planning provisions. That will mean that the old argy-bargy that might have been a nuisance to someone building a new home – such as making sure bedroom and bathroom windows do not line up across the fence or people do not shade their solar panels or privacy is maintained to the best ability – will no longer exist. That right that people once had will no longer exist in Victoria. You have got to ask why that is being removed. Where is the evidence that that level of over-fence negotiation was so damaging in Victoria that it prevented people from getting houses built and homes built? It just simply has not. The problem with that is that communities will wake up one day – they will not know about it – and according to this planning legislation the weird twist in it is you do not have to tell your neighbour that you are building a four-storey apartment building, but you will have to notify traditional owners that you are, and of course there are not going to be similar concerns and considerations.

The other element in the notification of traditional owner groups on developments and every single planning permit that is happening in the state is the fundamental problem that there is nothing in this bill that prevents political activism or incredibly subjective decision-making on what involvement those groups can have. The many, many traditional owner groups that have been set up and structured around the state will all come to the planning process with a different perspective and a different view and a different understanding. That adds to the huge uncertainty, and it is uncertainty and lack of trust in the system that is killing housing affordability and housing production in the state of Victoria.

One of the minor concerns, but it speaks to where the government’s head and mindset is on the housing crisis here in Victoria, is around the objectives at the start of this bill. What concerns a lot of people is that there is a list of I think nearly 10 objectives at the start of the bill. When you are in a housing crisis, when you are trying to get more homes built, you would think a responsible government would prioritise affordability as the most important element. When you go through this, the government has gone to great effort to make sure that political considerations around climate change are adhered to – priority two. Priority three is around the notifications of traditional owner groups to preserve cultural heritage elements in the community. These things are nice to have, and I think, as a responsible community, we can always work with and have our mind to those principles. But first and foremost, when we have the nation’s largest number of homeless people, when we have the nation’s longest waiting lists for housing, when we have a situation where we have tens of thousands of planning permits issued and no-one prepared to go ahead and build, then we must prioritise and have as a key objective the affordability of housing here in Victoria.

Another really big issue, and this is one that once again speaks to the confidence of the development industry, is that at the end of the day we are not going to have homes in Victoria. We are not going to have the new suburbs for people to live in unless we have got the confidence and support of the building and development industry.

This bill has another little nasty hit in it. We talked earlier about the referral fees being a potential new tax in this bill. The other big tax grab in this bill is the treatment of growth areas infrastructure contribution (GAIC) and development funds. In briefings from the department the government made it really clear that this bill will enable them to use development contributions. Of the cost that has been added to a parcel of new land released in a new suburb – a $300,000 or $400,000 block of land – a portion is in fact a tax that goes to the government. That money is taken from the developer, and it is supposed to be used for the infrastructure and needs of that new growing community. It is the funding that is supposed to build the freeway access. It is the funding that is supposed to provide the open spaces. It is the funding that is supposed to help create and set up new suburbs for Victorians to live in. The problem is that for a long time that money has been going to Spring Street, coming here to town, and it has been sat on. Then we have seen, progressively, ministers coming out in hard hats and fluoro vests and gifting the money back to that community at some point in the future.

There has been a huge lag from the time the money is taken to when it is given back to the community, and right across Melbourne’s growth areas in the west, the north and the south-east we have seen communities begging to have basic road upgrades and basic overpasses built – all sorts of basic infrastructure where people have bought into communities expecting it to be done in a timely fashion. That money now can be diverted anywhere a minister wants to put it. The minister merely has to draw a nexus between the benefit that community might have and that spend. The cynicism of the development community and certainly the wariness of this opposition is, quite simply, that this is just another opportunity for this government to divert funds, just like they did with the emergency services tax, where they tried to convince Victorians that they are taking all this extra tax money from Victorians because they are going to improve our emergency services, yet they are not. They are committing very little of the extra tax take to our volunteer emergency services. They are in fact paying for ongoing responsibilities of government, and that is the great concern with this legalising and legislating that a minister can make these decisions.

What is stopping this government from, for example, drawing the line that people in the far west, out in Melton and Tarneit and growth areas out in Wyndham, when they drive into the CBD have got to go through the West Gate Tunnel to access the city. Is that a nexus? That is my question. That is the question the opposition has. Is that enough of a nexus that we can take funds designed to make life better for people in the western suburbs, take that money, and invest it in vanity projects of this government and vanity projects that we know all too well are over budget, over time and costing Victorians a lot of money? That is a great concern to the industry and certainly a key reason why we need to have a parliamentary inquiry into this bill to get on the record and ensure that the money stays with the communities that have paid for it, because what every home owner in our growth areas needs to remember is that those GAIC funds, those development contributions, they as residents have paid for. They have paid for it in the past in the block of land that they have bought, and they deserve to have that money spent for them.

Restrictive covenants, in the few minutes left, are just another element. Restrictive covenants are a property right. People buy into streets. They buy into communities with an understanding that what they have bought stays there and is to their benefit. This bill essentially turns that around, and the removal of restrictive covenants is much, much easier. In fact those that benefit from a restrictive covenant are now left to argue why they should continue to have it, rather than the old way, which was that if you want it removed, you had to argue why it should be removed. There is no doubt that restrictive covenants often are very old, no longer relevant and a thorn in the side of good planning and good development.

The opposition does not oppose improving the way we deal with restrictive covenants, but to reverse the onus of responsibility on it without consultation, without thinking it through, could have disastrous long-term effects and will actually strip, without compensation, many home owners of rights, having bought into an estate, that they believe that they have on their property, and they will essentially lose that.

The overall assessment of this bill by all the key stakeholders is universal, that there is too much information not made available to the industry, too much detail denied local council’s input, and it is very much the view of the state opposition that the solution for our housing crisis, the way forward in making Victoria better and more affordable for everybody, is having to work as a team. We have to work with our local councils. We have to work with the development industry. This bill highlights the fact that the Allan Labor government does not get it. It is not interested in working with its partners. It is not interested in working with the people that will make the real difference and getting the good solutions. It is disappointing to think that we have got to this point that this bill has been rushed through and, without proper oversight by the Parliament, risks putting the future development of Victoria in huge danger.

We absolutely need the government to think, and we will be doing what we can with our colleagues across the Parliament. We need to make sure that the Parliament preserves its authority over planning. We need to ensure that there is clear transparency on money raised in planning and development and that it stays in the communities that it is designed for. We need to make sure that communities, streets and neighbours still have some say over how their communities develop. There is great sympathy for making simple planning permits more transparent and easier to progress, but we cannot have a situation where whole neighbourhoods – the essential elements, the vibe, the nature of communities and neighbourhoods – can be transformed forever and those living in those communities do not get a say. This bill has been rushed. This bill has not had the consultation that it requires. This bill is not fit for purpose here in Victoria, and the opposition will stand firm on opposing this bill until such time as there is greater consultation with the key stakeholders and we can bring a bill that genuinely helps make homes more affordable and brings them to market in a more speedy way.

 Matt FREGON (Ashwood) (11:18): I rise to make a contribution on the Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025. Whilst the member for Polwarth and I may agree to disagree on many aspects of his contribution, I think something that we can agree with is that we need as a country, not just as a state, to try and address housing affordability. As I have said in this place before, a lot of the levers in our housing affordability issues as a country – and it is not just our country either; affordability of equity is almost a global, if not a Western world issue. It is a slight diversion, but I read earlier that America is going to start quantitative easing again, although they are not calling it that this time. They are calling it something else, which again means all of our assets are getting less expensive because our world dollar is measured in the US. So that is going to be great for us; the last bout did not necessarily help our country. As a general rule the problem is affordability.

Coming to the bill and what we can do as a Victorian government, the one thing that we can do which will assist with affordability is supply. Obviously this is a place of debate, and members will stand up and argue whether they think this bill does help that: does it help it in the right way or the wrong way?

What we have seen over the last 12 months especially, but growing over the last number of years, is an increasing debate from many contributors about the need for supply. We have had conversations, we have had a housing strategy, we have had the Plan Victoria work and we have got the work going on with activity centres and the extensive consultation that is going around that, and I appreciate that not everybody agrees with everything that is being done. But again, if there are sensible ways that we can address planning permits being achieved quicker, that will assist, presumably, with costs.

I note the member for Narracan is over there. He is a builder; I am sure he will have a contribution on this, which I will listen to later. I would expect that if a builder is sitting there waiting for a permit for a very long time – presumably they have made a quote, with our situation where we have fixed price quotes for builders – and if those permits drag on and drag on and drag on in a world where inflation is a thing, then it gets harder to quote for those jobs. Having a quicker turnaround, especially if we think about tranche 1 or the first range of assessments – we are talking about single dwellings or two-storey townhouses. If you look at streets around my way, you have still got this transition between the old 1960s blond brick single house – well, the price of our land these days. Yes, we talk about the price of building and we talk about red tape, which we are trying to address here, but the price of the land is such that, when most people sell, the next thing that will happen is either someone is going to invest a lot into a very big house – McMansions are not universally popular, but some people love them, and good on them; they are their homes and they love them – or that block will get turned into two townhouses.

In my street, of the houses that have sold in probably the last 15 years that we have been there, I reckon at least half have been made into dual two-storey townhouses. Personally, I do not see a huge reason why someone who lives eight streets away or 10 blocks away or a suburb away – they can make an objection, but should they be able to necessarily take that to VCAT if that is essentially matching everything else that has been done on the street? I completely agree with the bill, which allows neighbours and those who are adjacent – I know the member for Polwarth said people adjacent do not have rights. Well, adjacent means ‘next to’, so that is not correct. Those people, yes, should be able to go to VCAT if they have issues, especially for larger buildings. But if something is deemed to comply and is relatively the same as everything else and ticks all the boxes, then a quick turnaround is a good thing. That is going to help with supply, and over time that will help with affordability and what we can do.

We are not going to solve, in this room, wages compared to the price of equity overall – there are a lot of federal levers there – but we can address the planning decisions. The objective of this bill is to significantly reduce the time, cost and complexity of making those planning decisions, the planning scheme amendments that we need to support Victoria’s projected population growth.

Thinking about some of the processes that have gone on in the last seven years around my patch, previous to the government’s train and tram activity centre zones process that is going on at the moment, I commend the minister for going through this work. The Department of Transport and Planning are doing an amount of work in consultation. I have got people in my patch who are not 100 per cent happy with consultation – they do not think it is quite enough, and fair enough – but compared to some of the other work that has been done in the past, I have not seen this much consultation in these sorts of things before.

I go back to the activity centre at Hamilton Place shops in Mount Waverley, and this has been on the activity centre list since I think about 2010, so it was probably the previous government or the government before that.

I am not having a go at Monash, but Monash sat on this area as being an activity centre, where they need to rezone it, for eight, nine years before they started. About five, six years ago, they started going through the process of rezoning that area. Hamilton Place shops are mostly single or double storey, right next to the Mount Waverley train station, and they went through a process to rezone the height limits for that, and that was not universally popular, obviously. It is worth mentioning with something like that, or activity centres, the process with independent panels, which is what in Monash still remains under this bill. Essentially, there was a lot of concern from people – and I take the point of the member for Polwarth about there being a lot of, ‘We don’t know, we don’t know, we don’t know.’ Well, okay, none of us know exactly what our state is going to look like in 25 years, but we should be able to at least think about how we cater for a projected population, and we need more housing. In the end, Monash went through that process in a very similar way to what is happening now with activity centres, except they probably had less consultation than this government is doing with the activity centre. There are changes to planning schemes in regard to reducing time for obtaining permits by establishing the three approval pathways, and I touched on that before.

I also would note – just because I am running out of time – that I was doorknocking in my area around the activity centre of Ashburton last week just to, as we do, go and talk to our constituents and get a feel for their thoughts. I will say that the activity centre area, because I was in that area, came up a couple of times, and people are generally supportive because they understand that the next generation needs to be able to afford a roof over their head. The changes in this bill are about providing better decisions in a more timely fashion to provide an ability for those building houses, because government is not building them themselves, to do so in a more efficient manner, and I commend the bill to the house.

 Peter WALSH (Murray Plains) (11:28): I rise to speak on the Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025. The member for Ashwood hit the nail on the head when he talked about affordability of houses, but he obviously has not actually read this legislation, because if I go through clause 1 – there are a whole heap of dot points there – not once does it actually mention affordability as a prerequisite. The second dot point is:

to provide for traditional owners to be notified of, and then participate in, strategic planning and planning permit applications processes …

So it has actually set up two classes of citizens in Victoria, and I will talk about that more as I go through the bill. The bill actually prioritises traditional owner concerns over the affordability of housing in planning decisions. The member for Ashwood is right about affordability. But this bill actually does not address it at all, member for Ashwood, so I would ask you to go away and read that bill.

If you talk about the affordability of houses, the first thing the state government can do is stop taxing them. As the Housing Industry Association has said, more than 40 per cent of a house and land package is actually state government charges. So if the government want to make houses more affordable, stop taxing mums and dads that are trying to buy their first house, because it is their taxes and charges that are actually driving up –

A member interjected.

Peter WALSH: The planning process, yes, has been tortuous for a lot of people. I am not sure this actually solves all those issues. But stop taxing house and land packages as you do with all the taxes that are there. We often talk about the more than 60 new taxes and charges this government has introduced. At one stage nearly half of those were on land and on houses.

It is you taxing the houses that is actually making the price –

The ACTING SPEAKER (Daniela De Martino): Through the Chair.

Peter WALSH: Through the Chair, Acting Speaker, it is the government taxing houses and land that is driving up the price for Victorians. That is what is making it unaffordable. So for those things, do something about that.

But on this particular bill, Master Builders Australia and the Urban Development Institute of Australia have a number of concerns with this bill around the expansion of ministerial powers, the erosion of local and parliamentary checks and balances, unclear and subjective regulatory frameworks, weakened public participation rights and uncertainty in the implementation and governance mechanism, and I think they are the concerns that we have, which is why we are opposing this bill. We do not believe it is amendable to actually make it better; it is so bad you cannot make it better.

All the submissions that were received by the opposition were concerned about the concentration of powers in the minister as the single biggest concern. It grants the minister wide discretion over planning amendments, including the ability to prepare and vary local planning schemes. In my electorate, in Echuca and Swan Hill, in Kerang, in Cohuna, in Kyabram, in the regional towns and cities, we do not want the minister overriding what the locals want. That is what is going to happen with this particular bill. Why would we want the minister overriding the work that a local council has done around the views of their community around development? This is just the centralisation of power. The Chinese government, the politburo – we effectively have a politburo here in Victoria running this state. I think Chairman Dan probably made one too many trips to China with how he has actually set up the functioning of this government.

This legislation repeals section 38, which currently allows Parliament to revoke a planning scheme amendment. It is seen as particularly undemocratic. Not ‘seen’ – it is undemocratic. It is absolutely undemocratic. I go back to my point about the politburo here in Victoria. The removal eliminates the final parliamentary safeguard against improper or controversial amendments. The Parliament of Victoria is being excluded, effectively, from any processes in this particular bill, and that is fundamentally wrong. As a legislator, I could not disagree with the fact that those powers are being taken away more strongly. It just lacks the checks and balances and gives unfettered ministerial power as we go through. The minister’s ability to approve an estate planning scheme without public or parliamentary consultation – again, it takes away the Parliament. Look at the way the circle of Parliament works: the Parliament is there to oversee the executive government, to make sure they do not get out of control. This sets up the ability for the minister to do whatever the minister particularly wants with no oversight by the Parliament. If you were cynical enough, you would say it is open to political manipulation. I know the Labor Party would never, ever use political manipulation here in Victoria – the tongue is in my cheek when I say that, because they do it all the time. This is about how the government can control what goes on in Victoria. As has been said by a number of the people that made submissions to this legislation, it opens it up for potential corruption. We have seen issues of corruption around land development previously in this state, and this does not solve that; it actually opens it up for it to happen more into the future.

The bill also diminishes the role of local councils and independent planning panels. Again I go back to: why should the councils in my electorate, who do the work to develop their communities in line with the community’s expectation, all of a sudden have a minister that has a different view on what should happen in that community override that? It talks about the three tiers of decision-making, low impact, medium impact and high impact, and the fact that if you are in low impact, you are not going to get told what is going on, as the shadow minister said. Impact is in the eye of the beholder. You might not think it is an impact; I might think it is an impact. But now the minister decides that without the community having any say in that. Yes, a minister or her bureaucrats in an ivory tower in Melbourne might decide that something in Cohuna is not an impact, but the Cohuna community might think that is a real impact and they would like to know what is going on, or the neighbour to it might think it is an impact to them when no-one else does and they would like to know what is going on. There is no public notice for low-impact amendments. That is wrong. That is not democracy. That is dictatorship, as I talked about before.

Medium-impact amendments only require a notice via limited online or newspaper publication. How often do we hear someone say, ‘Well, it’s on the website. You should have known.’ How many websites do people have to monitor to know what is going on? And when you just tell someone that it is on the website, it is not always that easy to find. It is buried away and you have to go through multiple links to actually find it. That is not a way that people should actually be notified in the future. In the high-impact amendments it says ‘may’, not ‘must’; it says ‘may allow public submissions, but with restricted hearing rights’. Again, we are stripping away the rights of Victorians around planning decisions around their own neighbourhoods. To go back to the movie, a person’s house is their castle; they should have some rights over it. They should not have their rights stripped away by a Labor government that just wants to dictate what happens to Victoria.

When you talk about the traditional owner notification, there is the issue that there is no timeframe on the traditional owners for responding. I know from the personal experience of my constituents that when they have to apply for a cultural heritage study, it takes months or years to even get a response to a phone call. Why isn’t there a requirement on traditional owners, the same as any other referral authority? It should be the same for everyone. Again, we are setting up two classes of citizens here in Victoria.

The thing I want to finish off on is something that the shadow minister raised: this issue about referral authorities being able to charge for work to be done. We are seeing the government being very good at letting all the government instrumentalities and non-government instrumentalities have the ability to charge Victorians. Yes, we have got 60 new taxes and charges from the government, but we are getting all these additional charges from non-government or government authorities which are additional taxes as well. We see that with all the charges here in Melbourne around the water authorities and all the things that happen there. But we do not want to see another taxing regime set up here in Victoria to charge to do work that they are supposed to do anyhow.

As I said, this bill cannot be amended to make it better, and we will be opposing it. It does not solve the issue. The key issue to affordability of housing is for the government to get their hand out of new home buyers’ pockets and stop taxing them more than 40 per cent of a house and land package here in Victoria. That is just, in the old terminology, highway robbery, because you are making houses unaffordable for people here in Victoria.

 Eden FOSTER (Mulgrave) (11:37): I am extremely happy to make a contribution regarding the Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025. This bill amends the Planning and Environment Act 1987 to deliver wideranging reforms to Victoria’s planning system. It modernises our planning framework and efficiency and delivers faster decisions in our housing challenges. At its heart, this bill supports the government’s commitment to tackling Victoria’s housing challenge head-on. Consistent with the housing statement and Plan for Victoria, it provides the policy levers needed to increase housing and land supply, open up redevelopment opportunities and streamline the delivery of the homes, services and infrastructure our growing population requires.

Our current planning system has been unable to keep pace with the growing needs of our state. It takes, on average, more than 433 business days – over two years – for a planning scheme amendment to move from authorisation to approval. Many take longer, delaying projects, stifling investment and leaving communities waiting. When it comes to planning permits, the story is similar. Although the statutory timeframe for a decision is 60 days, the average processing time is 140 days, and applications that attract objections take more than 300 days. The cost of these delays is enormous. The opportunity cost of decisions taking longer than the statutory timeframe is estimated at over $1 billion every year. That represents lost homes, lost jobs and lost investment.

Victoria needs a planning system that is efficient, transparent and proportionate to the risk and complexity of each proposal. This bill delivers exactly that. Let us be clear about what this represents. This is people who own land and have the legal right to build on their land within the existing zoning and health and safety frameworks, and yet we have a system that all but takes away the right for that to occur by delaying such work.

This bill amends part 3 of the Planning and Environment Act 1987 to introduce three new pathways for planning scheme amendments – low impact, medium impact and high impact – tailored to the complexity and potential impact of each amendment. This structured approach will shorten timeframes, cut red tape and give proponents and the community greater certainty about the process that applies. For low-impact amendments, consultation will be targeted to directly affected landowners and occupiers, as well as prescribed authorities, including traditional owners. For medium-impact amendments, there will be notification to prescribed authorities and public exhibition, but no independent panel review. Instead, the planning authority will report to the minister after considering submissions and any supplementary consultation. For high-impact amendments, independent reviews by a planning panel will continue, but with more flexible arrangements. Panel hearings will focus on inquiry and investigation rather than adversarial disputes. Members will have discretion to decide how best to engage submitters, ensuring panels remain forums for informed discussion, not legal contest.

The bill also reforms the authorisation process for planning scheme amendments. Under current arrangements there is no structured process when further review is required, leading to significant delay. The bill introduces clear decision-making criteria, defined timeframes and the ability for the minister to request further information or a revised proposal. It responds directly to recommendations from the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission’s Operation Sandon inquiry, requiring the minister to consider specific decision-making criteria and be satisfied that any proposed amendment aligns with state and regional plans.

The bill also enhances transparency by requiring both amendment proponents and submitters to declare financial interests, including gifts and donations. This reform helps safeguard integrity and restore public confidence in the planning process. For local councils the bill provides greater structure for initiating amendments, including the power to request further information from proponents and recover reasonable costs once an amendment advances the proponent’s interests. This will help address resourcing pressures that often cause delays. Public consultation will also be modernised. Instead of relying on newspaper notices like back in the day, planning authorities will prepare public engagement plans outlining how they will notify and consult the community using digital and contemporary methods better suited to today’s information environment.

Another vital element of this bill is the reform of the planning permit process. As with planning scheme amendments, the bill introduces three assessment types for permit applications tailored to the complexity and risk of each proposal. Assessment type 1 will apply to simple, low-risk proposals clearly envisaged by the planning scheme. It replaces the current VicSmart process and introduces a deemed approval mechanism. If a responsible authority fails to decide within the prescribed period, the permit will be deemed approved. Given that VicSmart applications currently take on average 29 days – nearly triple the intended 10 – this will deliver immediate improvements. Assessment type 2 will apply to proposals that comply or substantially comply with specified codes, such as those being developed for townhouses and low-rise developments. These will generally not require public notice unless prescribed by the code and will have a 30-day decision timeframe. This code-based model, used successfully in other states, will reduce delays and provide clarity for applicants and councils alike. Assessment type 3 mirrors the existing full permit process, including public notice and referrals where required. It will continue to apply to more complex proposals presenting a high risk of impact on surrounding landowners for the environment.

This government is ending the delays of the planning system and getting homes built – it is that simple. We should not have incredibly modest developments go through the kinds of bureaucratic nightmares that occur under the current framework, and every man and their dog or woman and their dog should not have the right to halt construction of structures as simple as townhouses from being built on land on which they are legally allowed to be built. This structure, which allows for greater feedback for developments that have a proportionally larger impact, is a sensible change that makes sure we are not wasting time on incredibly simple developments.

I have heard those opposite, and I would like to touch on the approach of those opposite. The coalition have made it clear that they do not support this bill – I am not surprised – and I dare say they have made it clear that they are against the right of a landowner to build sensible and lawful homes on their own land. Those opposite believe in the right of the person who lives 30 minutes away and does not like the look of townhouses further down the road or in another suburb to get a say in whether something is built, whether more houses are provided. They talk about housing affordability and how this does not deal with that. Well, if I go back to my year 11 economics class, I think economics 101 says supply and demand – the more supply, the cheaper the homes. If we go back to year 11 economics, the more we build, the less red tape we have with building these new homes, and we bring down those prices. That is why it makes sense to pass this bill. I am not surprised, though, that those opposite oppose this.

We are restoring the balance. We are making sure that we are building more homes. We are acting on this. We are doing what is needed for Victorians. I am looking forward to building more homes in the electorate of Mulgrave, because I know that people want to live there. I am excited about this bill, and I am excited to see us providing more homes for more people. Ultimately, the more we build, the more prices will come down. I commend this bill to the house.

 Wayne FARNHAM (Narracan) (11:47): I am pleased to rise today on the Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025. It was very interesting listening to the member for Mulgrave. I did not study economics at school. As I have said, I did not go past year 11. I was not that good at school. But there is one thing I have done more than anyone in this chamber, and that is live in the real world and have real-world experience when it comes to planning and building. None of those opposite have had that experience. None of those opposite actually know much about planning and building at all. What they do is they take the minister’s notes, stand up here and spruik the minister’s notes with no real-world experience. That is what this chamber lacks.

Members interjecting.

Wayne FARNHAM: I am listening to schoolteachers sledge me, for goodness sake.

What amazes me about this bill – and there are a few things I am going to touch on here, and the reason we oppose it has been touched on before – is we cannot amend this bill. There is too much wrong with it, and that is a problem. But part of the problem I have with the minister that has put this bill forward is the hypocrisy of the minister. We are talking about a minister that wants to bring in a planning amendment bill to get subdivisions done – all those types of things. This is the same minister that blocked a 400-lot subdivision in Cape Paterson against every planning recommendation that said it should go forward. This is the same minister that blocked that. You talked about supply. This minister herself blocked that. Then at the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee she was asked: did you give a statement of reason for this development? She said, ‘Yes, I think I did.’ Do you know what the reality was? I went back to the council meeting when the minister blocked that. The council officer was asked whether the minister had given a statement of reason. What did the council officer say? Have one guess. No, the minister did not supply a statement of reason for blocking that development in Cape Paterson. This is also the same minister that blocked a three-storey development in her electorate. Then we have the Minister for Local Government, the member for Bentleigh, who ran his whole 2014 campaign to get elected to Parliament on guess what – blocking development in his electorate.

That is the hypocrisy of this government. Now they have turned around and they have brought in this bill to say, ‘We’re the saviours, unless it’s in our patch, or if it’s in a patch where we only hold that seat by 200 votes, we’d better not do it.’ That will come down to the minister’s decision. This bill reeks of hypocrisy to me – it actually does. But the fact of the matter is that with the implementation of this bill we are fast becoming a democratic dictatorship, because you are taking away the rights of people to actually –

The ACTING SPEAKER (Daniela De Martino): Through the Chair.

Wayne FARNHAM: The government is taking away the rights of people to have an opinion and to have input.

Having been in this space my whole life, I understand the frustration from a developer’s point of view. I totally get it. I do not think somebody should object to a development if they live 30 minutes away. The member for Mulgrave made an assumption. I actually do not think they have a right to object. If you are in a completely different suburb and it does not affect you directly, you should not have that right to object – no way. I agree with that. I reckon it is a load of rubbish. But if you live next door, if you live across the road or even if you live 100 metres down the street, you should have a right to have input into that development.

Part of the problem we have with this is the fact that, when we come to culturally sensitive areas, it has to go to the traditional owners to have their input into that. The neighbour 100 metres down the road does not have that right, but they do. I looked at a map of my area, particularly Warragul and Drouin, the two highest growth areas. I looked at the culturally sensitive areas. There are big swathes of culturally sensitive areas in my electorate, but the houses have been sitting there for 40 years. I would say that at this point in time, with a home that has been excavated, has been built and has been landscaped, any cultural sensitivity was gone decades ago. That person that now owns that home and owns that property – and this comes back to the rights of people wanting to do things on their own property – has to go to the corporation to get approval. Do not worry about what tier it is or what stream it is; they have to do that. It is in the legislation, and there is no time limit on that – none at all.

We talk about affordability and we talk about supply, but that one thing in this bill will block that. When it gets to the minister’s desk there is no time limit on when the minister has to do that. We were told it would be fixed in regulation, but I am sorry, we get told a lot by government that it will be fixed in regulation, but it is always the cart before the horse. We have got to trust the minister that that is going to happen. I am sorry, but with the hypocrisy of this minister, I do not trust her to do that. If that is going to be the case, put it in the bill, because that is the way it should operate. If that is what is going to happen, put it in the bill.

One of the major problems with this bill is that not only are we taking away the rights of councils but also we are taking away the rights of community, especially in regional Victoria. It affects us a lot because we are different to metro. Having the ability to reallocate funds from the growth areas infrastructure contribution – I sat in the bill briefing and I asked what this means, and it was explained to me. This is what was explained. Let us say there was an intersection that needed an upgrade in an adjacent LGA that would affect that LGA where the GAIC funding was from, then it could be reallocated to upgrade that intersection. Okay, I accept that. But the problem I have with it is when I look at the City of Casey – the City of Casey is going to be a very good example of this – there is nothing to say that the GAIC money could not be reallocated to the Suburban Rail Loop. There is nothing in here that says that.

The SRL, a project by this government, is underfunded and undercosted. The feds have not put in their allocation. The government does not have the money. What is to stop that money from going to Cheltenham? We have got the suburbs here – Cheltenham, Clayton, Monash, Glen Waverley, Box Hill. They are all not that far away from the City of Casey. So what is stopping the reallocation of funds to the SRL because the government does not have the money? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There is nothing in this bill that stops that. If it was for an intersection upgrade and it was clear and defined, I would accept it. But it is not. And nobody can tell me it is.

I have heard the argument about affordability, and honestly, the member for Murray Plains hit it on the head earlier: if you want to talk about affordability, cut the taxes. You want to get homes cheaper? If the government want to get homes and land cheaper, they should cut the taxes. Because no matter what you do, the price is still the price. You say that if you increase supply and create competition, it will drop the price – it will not. If it costs what it costs because of the taxes implemented by this government on the construction industry and the development industry, it will not bring the price down. The government’s own precinct is not a housing supply; it is a tax policy. It is a tax policy because you are rezoning land that then triggers windfall gains tax. That is not going to decrease the price; that is not going to make it more affordable. That is where the government have a major problem with affordability in this state – the taxes they implemented on the development community and the construction community. I said it in my inaugural speech in this place: every time you introduce another tax or charge it gets passed down the line. And at the moment, affordability in this state is not affordable at all. Of course I hate the bill.

 Josh BULL (Sunbury) (11:57): I am pleased to have the opportunity to make a contribution on the Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025. I want to start my contribution by thanking teachers for the outstanding work they do in our community each and every day. Perhaps the member opposite, if he had his time again, may not have made some of those comments around teachers and some of the former teachers that come into this place – teachers in our local community who every single day do an amazing job educating Victorians. I want to thank each and every one of them for the work that they do.

This bill goes to a series of reforms that go to housing in our state, and what we see time and time again from those opposite is them coming into this place and claiming one thing and then going outside in the community and claiming another. We remain focused on making sure we are delivering tangible and practical legislation, programs, initiatives and projects that go to driving the cost of housing down, adding supply and of course leveraging off those massive investments in infrastructure that we have delivered now for more than a decade. I will go to the various changes and the mechanics of the legislation, but broadly, what we remain focused on doing is providing for additional supply. We have invested – whether that be through the Metro Tunnel, which of course opens very, very soon, or through the West Gate Tunnel, the removal of 110 dangerous and congested level crossings by 2030, the building of the North East Link or the building of the Suburban Rail Loop – and making sure that we are setting this state up for the future is something that we remain committed to doing.

Those opposite, in the period from 2010 to 2014, did have a really precious gift of government. Unfortunately for them, and unfortunately for Victorians, there was very little delivered – in fact nothing. So when they come into this place or they go outside into local communities, whether to incite fear or stoke up anger, what we know and understand is that we remain committed to delivering the tangible and practical solutions to the challenges of our time. It is certainly no secret that housing remains, with cost of living, a really significant community concern to many.

Whether you are in the suburbs – out in Sunbury, where I live – or whether you are in here close to the city or indeed in the regions, due to many of the circumstances that have been very well canvassed we know and understand that having a safe roof over your head and a place your family can call home is of course something that is so important to everyone that lives within our state. The bill before us today, the Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025, is of course a key commitment from the housing statement – rewriting and reviewing the Planning and Environment Act 1987 to build for, as I mentioned earlier, fit-for-purpose planning systems, significantly reducing the time, the cost and the complexity of making planning scheme amendments that will be needed to support, as I mentioned, that population growth by establishing three approval pathways that are proportionate to the risk and complexity of the amendment. This will significantly reduce the time and cost of obtaining planning permits by establishing three approval pathways that are proportionate to risk and complexity of the development application, making a range of reforms to improve regulatory efficiency and effectiveness and providing for greater transparency to increase certainty and to ensure that the act is fit for purpose to support the implementation of the plan.

As others have mentioned, the Planning and Environment Act is 30 years old and no longer fit for purpose, and bringing it forward into the 21st century is of course something that we have committed to do and are doing. Making for those better decisions, making for less red tape and providing for the option and the opportunity for people to be able to move into a home sooner is something that is incredibly important – a simpler process, a clearer process, with separate pathways for small homes being 10 days, townhouses and low rise, 30 days, and larger apartments, 60 days, meaning people building homes will not get stuck in those same slower queues as, we know, has occurred in the past. It is a significant reform and goes to unlocking housing supply, which goes to many of the comments that I made earlier in my contribution. Making for a better process and a faster process adds to the economic output and the ability to provide for more homes, and being able to do that in a practical way is something that is incredibly important.

We know that the option and the opportunity to live in an affordable suburb close to family and friends, close to where you want to work and which you are able to get to in a safe and appropriate way is of course something that we remain focused on. There are of course the significant reforms that were announced last year by the Premier and this year by both the Premier and the Minister for Planning. They are significant and they are important, and having those conversations, I should say, in the local communities, as members of Parliament do each and every day – whether that be on the phone, whether that be at a street stall or knocking on doors – and making those opportunities for people to understand that this work is being done is also something that is really important. We know that housing supply is a massive and serious challenge for our state, and we know and understand that the work that is done both through this piece of legislation that is before the house today or the significant reforms that have been announced via the housing statement and through other processes is really significant when it comes to options and opportunities for people to be able to, as I mentioned earlier, get into the housing market and to be supported in each and every way. Those challenges remain consistent; they change of course in their complexity, and they change as we move through a whole different series of challenges, whether they be global supply markets or whether they be construction and various challenges that have previously presented and will continue to present. To be able to have the market flexibility, and indeed what this piece of legislation does to reduce the time, will improve efficiency.

I think – in fact I know; I am confident – that when you speak to people within local communities they are supportive of this. They are supportive of this because what they know and understand is to have an opportunity to do those things is something that is really, really important. When I move around my local community, speaking of those challenges that are well canvassed and within the community, I think what our local community not only expects but really importantly deserves is a team that is focused on supporting them as they go forward – not to provide for a system where either you are in or you are not and not to provide for a system where either you have ticked that box or you will never get the opportunity to be in a safe and affordable home. That is not something that we should ever contemplate, and that is not something that we should ever accept. It is why this bill and indeed the work of the Premier, the planning minister and the team are really important when it comes to these matters. Reducing the time that it takes for these applications to go through, minimising red tape and providing for better efficiency makes for a better system, and a better system makes for a better state. If we are constantly driven by those values, constantly driven by providing for a better system, a fairer system, then these principles – values, if you like – provide an opportunity to get into the market and, as I mentioned earlier, the ability to leverage off really key massive investments in transport, both road and rail, to get people home safer and sooner. These are important steps, and with those comments I happily commend the bill to the house.

 James NEWBURY (Brighton) (12:07): I rise to speak on the so-called Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025. This bill is an utter disgrace. It is an absolute, utter disgrace, and Victorians will see it, just like when I started talking about crime a few years ago and the Premier held his press conference to tell me that I did not know what I was talking about. Victorians have now seen that, and they have seen what a pig of a man that Premier was. They know with this bill –

Members interjecting.

James NEWBURY: Defend the pig of a man? Are you serious?

Michaela Settle: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, that is very unparliamentary language.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Iwan Walters): Member for Brighton, I would ask you to ensure that your language remains parliamentary.

James NEWBURY: I appreciate that. I notice the member did not use the factual point of order and did not take issue with the fact of the comment that I made. But on this bill, Victorians will see what a shameful bill this is being rammed through this chamber. It is a total fake, a total lie. You read the bill, and it says things like it is going to increase transparency. What a joke. Under this bill you as a neighbour no longer have the right of a say over what is built next to you. You no longer have a say. Parliament is having its rights stripped away in terms of oversight. Your rights as a property holder, in terms of covenants, will be stripped away, and all under the cover of ramming this legislation through, trying to push through this legislation while covering with other issues in this state, with the Premier announcing new laws that have not even been drafted yet. This bill is an absolute disgrace. How did we ever, as a state, get to the point where a government thinks it is all right to take away property rights, to take away the rights of community? This issue will turn, because what you will see is people building bad things and neighbours finding out bad things are being built and asking why they were not notified, why they did not have a say in the process. People who live in communities – not the Premier in her taxpayer-funded tower; I am talking about real people on the street – will start to say, ‘Why didn’t we get a chance to be notified? Why didn’t we get a say?’ These are very fair and reasonable questions which are being stripped away.

In fact, as a neighbour, not only do you not have a say, but you will have to notify, for certain applications, registered Aboriginal parties. So your neighbour does not know, but the Aboriginal parties do. What does that show you about the treaty circus? The treaty circus.

Members interjecting.

James NEWBURY: The treaty circus. You did not hear me the second time? The third time? The circus. Now a neighbour does not know what is being built next door, but you need to notify the registered Aboriginal parties of what is being proposed to be built. It is absolutely disgraceful what this bill does, and there is no wonder that affected communities are calling it out.

This bill will actually end up affecting everybody. This is more than just the Premier attacking certain areas that she thinks are Liberal and she does not like and proposing 20-storey towers in those areas to take on all of the population growth of Victoria. This bill will affect everybody, and everybody is going to start to ask, ‘What happened to my right to a say on the future of my community?’ Because that is what is missing in the government’s socialist ideology. They do not understand that communities have been built by the good people in them. They have not been built by Spring Street. Communities should have the say over what happens around them. This bill, by definition, takes out the right of communities to have a say. That is what the bill does in its very, very core across the entire state.

I understand – and I have said it before, and the Premier does not like it – because she is not from Melbourne, she does not understand the issues in Melbourne, and I stand by that. She does not understand the issues in Melbourne. The government do not like it when I say that, but it is true.

Members interjecting.

James NEWBURY: Is there is any question that the Premier does not –

Natalie Suleyman: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I think the member needs to speak through the Chair and stick to the point of order. You are straying away from the issue.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Iwan Walters): I will rule on the point of order. The member for Brighton is germane to the subject matter. But member for Brighton, can you make sure you are referring your comments to the Chair.

James NEWBURY: As I have said before, this bill shows the Premier does not understand issues in Melbourne – clearly; I have said it over and over again – just like she did not understand there was a crime crisis. It turns out the only time she understood there was a crime crisis was when there was a protest in her electorate. Until then it did not exist. We heard member after member, minister after minister, deny it existed, literally on the record denying there was a crime crisis. Now she is trying to outflank from some kind of ‘Let’s put as many people as possible on life sentences’ –

Belinda Wilson: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, he is straying very wide from the bill.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Iwan Walters): Member for Brighton, return to the bill and continue your contribution.

James NEWBURY: What this bill proves is the point that I just made, because nobody who has any sense of how Melbourne has been built will think the pathway forward for our great communities is to take away every possible say from the people in those communities, and that is why there will be a lot of people in my community on Sunday meeting to talk about this very issue. Last time this happened there were 3000 people there. It has been written about – in Church Street, Brighton – in fact by the good Age, and they would never tell a lie. Thousands of people turned up from all over Melbourne. There were a lot of people from Bentleigh there, there were a lot of people from Essendon there and there were a lot of people from a lot of Labor seats who were there, who were coming and saying, ‘What is this all about? What is this 20-storey tower policy all about? This is disgraceful.’ And not just that: ‘What is the policy of putting six storeys in leafy suburban suburbs about?’ The member for Frankston has walked in. I tell you, in his community, they are not gagging for this policy.

I tell you what, there are a lot of people in Frankston who are contacting me concerned about the great wall on the beach that this government has approved.

Paul Edbrooke: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, as is the normal practice in this house, I think members should stick to telling the truth.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Iwan Walters): Member for Frankston, I do not think there is a point of order on this point.

James NEWBURY: I can understand why the member would be touchy, because his community are contacting me, and I have not come into the chamber and read out the string of emails I am getting from his community but I am more than happy to find myself an opportunity to do that.

This bill is absolutely disgraceful. It is not the only disgraceful bill, it is one in a string of disgraceful decisions by this government, a decision which says, ‘We in Spring Street know better than anybody who lives in the community. We know better than what you know about what your neighbour is proposing to build.’ The idea that your neighbour does not have a say over what is being built next door but you must notify registered Aboriginal parties – how could anyone other than this ideological left-wing government think that that makes any sense for Victorians? It does not, and they have not been asked about it. None of these policy decisions were put to an election, not a single one of them. The stripping away of property rights is disgraceful. The 20-storey tower policy is disgraceful. This is an absolute disgrace. Victorians will absolutely turn on this like they did on crime. It will happen because we have a series of policies this Premier who does not understand Melbourne drives in to impose upon us, and Victorians know that it is an absolute shame and an absolute disgrace. Victorians in their thousands are now seeing this, and they certainly will in my community on Sunday. I would certainly encourage everybody who wants to come to come along.

 John MULLAHY (Glen Waverley) (12:17): I rise to speak in support of the Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025, a bill that reflects exactly what good governments should do: listen to their people, act on what they hear and build a better future through thoughtful reform. This bill is about creating a planning system that is modern, efficient, transparent and, above all, fair, a system that works for local communities, for council, for industry and for every Victorian who just wants a fair shot at finding a home in the community that they love.

The Planning and Environment Act 1987 has served Victoria for almost 40 years, but it was written in another era. It was crafted when our state’s population was barely 4 million, where were still building the foundations of modern Melbourne and where the pace of change social, economic and technological was far slower than today. Since then Victoria has grown dramatically. We are now up to more than 7.2 million people, and by 2050 that number will swell to over 10 million. That is the equivalent of adding the populations of Brisbane and Adelaide combined. The planning system that once worked well is now buckling under the weight of that growth. It is slow, cumbersome and often confusing. The average planning permit takes around 140 days to process, and if there is even one objection that can blow out to 300 days or more. It is costing Victorian families time, opportunity and money, and the cumulative cost of those delays is estimated to be more than $1 billion a year in lost economic activity. That is why this bill matters. It is about streamlining the planning process, cutting unnecessary red tape and ensuring decisions are made with integrity, transparency and pace and not held up by outdated processes or endless procedural wrangling.

The bill delivers two major reforms that sit at the heart of our government’s housing statement and Plan for Victoria. Three new pathways for planning scheme amendments based on complexity and risk and three new assessment streams for planning permit applications will ensure simple proposals are not trapped in the same queue as complex ones. Together these changes will make planning decisions clearer, faster and fairer, allowing more homes to be built sooner while maintaining proper oversight and community engagement. At the moment a planning scheme amendment, even a straightforward one, takes on average more than two years. That is simply untenable when Victoria needs more homes and better infrastructure now.

This bill introduces a smarter tiered approach: low-impact amendments – straightforward matters such as minor zoning updates or corrections – in which councils will consult with affected landowners and report directly to the minister for timely decision; moderate impact amendments, proposals requiring some public notice and exhibition but not the full rigour of a planning panel unless the minister deems it necessary; and high-impact amendments – complex or sensitive proposals that warrant a full public exhibition and an independent panel review.

This is proportional regulation, a principle that underpins good governance. It ensures scrutiny where it is needed and speed where it is sensible. Crucially, these reforms do not weaken transparency; they strengthen it. The bill mandates public engagement plans, disclosure of financial interests and the publication of reports showing how community submissions have influenced decisions. That means clearer processes, fewer surprises and greater trust in the system.

The same logic applies to planning permits. Right now, a family wanting to build a townhouse or a small duplex faces the same approval process as a developer that is proposing a 20-storey tower. It is inefficient and unfair, and this bill fixes that by introducing three new assessment types. Type 1 are low-risk, code-compliant applications. Simple developments like dual occupancies or small dwellings that meet clear design codes can be approved within 10 days with no public notice, because the standards are already met. Type 2 are moderate-risk, code-based applications. These will have a 30-day timeframe, streamlining referrals and limiting notice requirements to only proposals where there is genuine local impact. Type 3 are complex applications. These will remain subject to full notice, public exhibition and review rights, protecting community input for proposals that truly warrant it. For too long our planning system has been a one-size-fits-all bottleneck. These reforms mean people building a simple home will not be stuck behind a major apartment development. It is about fairness and common sense.

Some have asked whether these changes remove community voices from the process. Let us be clear: they do not. Victoria already has some of the broadest third-party appeal rights in the country. Under this bill those rights will remain for developments that have a genuine impact on neighbours and the wider community – the type 3 applications. What changes is that objections and appeals will be limited to those directly notified – people genuinely affected by a proposal, not individuals or groups with no connection to the site. That is a fair balance between the right to be heard and the need to prevent vexatious delays.

These reforms are not just about efficiency for efficiency’s sake; they are about unlocking more than $900 million in economic value each year and accelerating the delivery of 800,000 homes we have committed to build over the next decade. Right now Victoria leads the nation in home approvals and completions, with 56,000 homes approved in the 12 months to September 2025 – 16,500 more than Queensland and 4500 more than New South Wales. But we know there is more to do. Housing is not just a market challenge, it is a moral one. Every delay in the planning system means a young person waiting longer to move out, an older couple unable to downsize or a family priced out of the area they love. I have that exact issue in the area of Glen Waverley, where often we have got three generations living in a household – a couple in their 30s or 40s with kids going to local schools and a set of grandparents helping get the kids to and from school. But what happens when those kids become 23, 24 is that they literally have to move an hour away –

Lauren Kathage interjected.

John MULLAHY: to your electorate or down to Cranbourne – essentially removing that ability to have those close family connections that they have been brought up with in those three-generation households. So this bill is all about making sure that we give more options to those kids locally.

The Plan for Victoria underpins this bill. It is the most extensive community-led planning process in our state’s history, engaging more than 110,000 Victorians – young people, multicultural groups, regional communities, local councils and industry experts. This is not planning done to communities; it is planning done with them. Through that engagement Victorians told us they want a system that is fair, transparent and responsive – a system that builds the homes we need while protecting what we love about where we live. They also told us they want a planning system that recognises and respects the rights, interests and values of traditional owners. For the first time, this bill makes that an explicit objective of the Planning and Environment Act 1987. It ensures that registered Aboriginal parties receive notice of strategic planning proposals affecting country, enabling early input and partnership and not late-stage conflict. This is reconciliation in action, embedding respect for country into the way we plan for our shared future.

Our councils are on the front line of the planning system. They do the day-to-day work – assessing permits, engaging with communities and making tough local decisions. This bill supports councils by providing clearer frameworks, new cost-recovery mechanisms and better tools for enforcement and compliance.

It also ensures that referral authorities, those government agencies that often slow the process, must meet prescribed timeframes or their silence will be taken as consent. That is accountability in both directions: faster outcomes for applicants and clearer obligations for authorities.

One of the most significant features of this bill is its emphasis on integrity. It directly responds to the recommendations from the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission’s Operation Sandon inquiry. It requires the disclosure of financial interests by both applicants and submitters, extends the time for prosecutions of planning offences and strengthens compliance and enforcement powers. It also ensures parliamentary scrutiny of planning scheme amendments through the Subordinate Legislation Act 1994, so approved amendments remain subject to review by the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee, just as all other subordinate legislation is. That means greater transparency, not less. These reforms are about restoring faith in the system, ensuring that every decision, whether made by a council, a panel or the minister, can be trusted by the community that it affects.

In my own electorate of Glen Waverley I see the need for this reform every day. Families want to live close to the good schools, transport and community facilities, but they are often locked out by outdated planning rules and unnecessary delays. This bill will help ensure we get more homes built near the activity centres and along train and tram corridors. In well-connected suburbs like ours, it will be about ensuring that future generations, including the young people growing up in Glen Waverley today, can one day get a house in Glen Waverley. It is also making sure that the growth happens in the right way – sustainable, inclusive and supported by good local planning – because while we need more homes, we also need great neighbourhoods with parks, services and community spaces that make life there so special: Jells Park, ngarrak nakorang wilam park and the Suburban Rail Loop coming through, kicking off in 2035. We want to have more homes and more apartments and townhouses around that area so the next generation, after they have finished uni, can move into the area and build a life for themselves and their family in the great Glen Waverley district. I am very happy that this bill will, hopefully, get through this house. I commend the bill to the house.

 Gabrielle DE VIETRI (Richmond) (12:27): I rise to speak on the Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025. At the outset can I state that the Greens support more housing. We also support the idea that our planning system needs updating. This is long overdue and something that there is broad support for. Not only is there a need for greater clarity, certainty and efficiency, but our current laws fail to properly account for contemporary challenges like climate change and housing affordability. But while this bill addresses in part some of these issues in a piecemeal kind of way, it fails with respect to climate change mitigation and adaptation and housing affordability and, crucially, it fails in maintaining public trust in the system.

It has been disappointing but unsurprising to learn that in overhauling these laws to develop the bill before us, the government has failed to engage key parts of the sector, those who hold the relevant expertise and who also will be responsible for administering these laws, in particular the local government sector. They have been given no opportunity to be able to shape these laws, which remove considerable power from the communities and from the councils and even from the Parliament itself. Instead Labor has favoured the development industry and certain schools of economic thought that push the line that if you deregulate planning and let the market take control, you will see this magic proliferation of affordable housing. This approach fails to recognise that leaving things to the market is what has got us into this housing crisis in the first place.

But the truth is the planning system did not cause the housing crisis. Government choices to demolish public housing, to allow rents to skyrocket and to give tax breaks to property developers and investors – that is what has caused the housing crisis. Even property experts acknowledge that the reason they are not delivering more housing is not because of the planning laws, it is because the market conditions are not favourable – that is, they cannot turn a profit – and the proof is in the number of permits that have been issued that have not resulted in a sod being turned. In Melbourne there are 100 active permits that have not been acted on – 118 residential buildings and almost 22,000 apartments where work has not commenced and a permit has been issued. They are just being sat on until they can make a higher profit.

Councils currently approve the overwhelming majority of permit applications. For example, the City of Yarra approved 98 per cent of applications it determined over the past four financial years, and figures from last year show that Darebin approved around 96 per cent of applications and Merri-Bek around 88 per cent. Housing is not like bananas, operating on a simplistic supply-and-demand curve. People’s demand for housing is not elastic in the same predictable way, and nor should it be, because housing is a fundamental human right. No matter how you peel it, the reality is that there is no incentive for developers to deliver genuinely affordable housing if it means crashing their own prices. It is disappointing to see that the Labor government has once again failed to use our planning system to ensure some expectations of actually affordable housing are built into it, something that has been long called for by housing and homelessness support services and local governments. The delivery of genuinely affordable and public housing should be explicitly mentioned as objectives of the Planning and Environment Act 1987, with powers created enabling planning scheme amendments to require a proportion of such housing. The truth is that Victoria already falls way below the national average, with only 3 per cent of our total housing stock being public or community housing, the lowest out of all the states and territories in the country, and it is not like it is getting any better. Without such provisions in our planning laws the state government’s current drive to infill in inner suburban Melbourne through the activity centre program is a major missed opportunity to deliver affordability.

Many of the changes in the bill before us also, concerningly, remove the most fundamental reason for having planning laws in the first place: to keep people safe. That includes from the impact of natural and climate-related disasters and other risks to their health and wellbeing. In fact Labor has removed the very idea of keeping people safe from the objectives of the act, instead only requiring that the buildings are safe. We are also seeing a worrying tendency of this government to switch off the requirement to take into account key environmental considerations when developing planning scheme amendments, including for townhouse and mid-rise codes. This means that key issues like the requirement to remediate contaminated land before development or flood risks can be overlooked. This kind of deregulation will only produce an abundance of poor-quality, unsafe and unaffordable homes. There have been numerous inquiries and reports over recent years, including the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, the inquiry into the 2022 flood event and the recent climate resilience inquiry, which have all made strong recommendations with respect to strengthening planning laws to take into account the risks of climate change. We believe that significant amendments are required to this bill to ensure that it is the case.

Further, this bill outrageously seeks to make oil and gas exploration easier by removing the ability of the Parliament to disallow planning scheme amendments for these projects – explicitly removing it. Once again Labor shows its true colours on climate, talking a big game but quietly helping the fossil fuel industry to expand. The removal of this parliamentary oversight extends to all planning scheme amendments, including for residential and commercial developments, mining projects and transport projects. Disallowance of a planning scheme amendment or regulation is a power rarely used by this Parliament, but taking it away is a dangerous concept that demonstrates the further erosion of respect for democracy by this Labor government – something that is again on display in its attempt to cut out councils and communities from the decision-making process, with changes to notice requirements, and in the weak and convoluted response to the recommendations from Operation Sandon around donations and conflict-of-interest reforms. This has implications that go beyond public trust in the planning system, though that is absolutely important. It is about public trust in government more broadly, and that is rapidly eroding. Labor will no doubt spin these changes as the panacea to the housing crisis. We would actually love it if that were the case, because we genuinely want to see everyone having access to adequate housing. But given the significant flaws and omissions within this bill and the total lack of consultation on these proposed changes, there is a very real risk that all this only leads to a proliferation of poor-quality, unaffordable, unsafe housing not fit for a changing climate.

Young people will continue to be blocked out of the housing market, homelessness will continue to rise and investors and developers will continue to win. We will see more dodgy apartments and housing built in flood zones that cost a fortune to heat and cool. The planning, local government and insurance sectors have all signalled that this is what they are worried about. We are all going to be living with the consequences of these changes for decades to come. Once something is built, it is very hard to take it back. The government needs to listen to these concerns and fix the bill they have put before us. The Greens will be abstaining from this bill in the lower house while we consider our position in the upper house.

 John LISTER (Werribee) (12:36): I rise to talk about yet another one of our planning reforms that is designed to help improve the planning situation that we have seen in Melbourne for generations, which I will come to in just a moment. The issue we have when it comes to housing is one of supply. We need more houses to meet demand and make the market more affordable. We have this issue which is also geographic. We have had decades of greenfield development, including in my electorate, to meet this demand, and it has left us with a housing doughnut with its hole in the inner east and south-east. We see this when it comes to housing approvals, and this has been a subject of discussion in this debate, but Wyndham has had 3133 approvals in the year to July, while Bayside, for example, where one of our activity centres is, has had 897 approvals in the year to July, which is quite cute. While we may have the benefit of space in Wyndham for many of these dwellings, you do need to look at that imbalance. Some of the reforms in this bill as well as in previous bills that we have had in this house go to addressing that imbalance, because not only is it important when it comes to helping communities like mine who are sharing the load when it comes to housing Victorians and giving them great places to live – because it is a great place to live, out in my electorate – but it is also about making sure that we make other municipalities share that load.

There has been a fair bit of discussion around a particular part of this bill which is close to communities in my electorate, which is around clarifying the ways that the growth areas infrastructure contribution can be used. Now, GAIC is a fantastic program. I know this firsthand. Literally last Friday I was standing there in Harpley, which is one of our growth areas, announcing the start of our route 194 bus, funded by the growth areas infrastructure contribution. We are bringing this on line six months earlier than originally planned, and it will help get people from those growing suburbs to our train stations, our shopping centres and our schools. This is what GAIC is for. It is disappointing to hear from those opposite this weird conservative argument that somehow taxes on housing are in some way bad. These taxes are contributing to the buses that are getting people in my electorate to the station. These taxes are contributing to Ison Road, which will help them get to and from the freeway sooner and safer. These taxes that they keep talking about are going towards the Ballan Road upgrade, which will remove that roundabout at Greens Road and help people get to and from Manor Lakes sooner and safer. The growth areas infrastructure contribution has built the schools in my electorate, the schools that we need to help give our children a better future and make sure that they have the jobs and opportunities that they need.

Now, the member for Polwarth is referring to the clarification that we have in clauses 229 and 230 of the bill around the growth areas infrastructure contribution, clarifications that are necessary because of the nature of the infill changes that we are making with our activity centres. These activity centres are already located in quite built-up areas – that is the whole reason why they are there. It is not always possible to build that park in the middle of that activity centre, so you may choose to upgrade a nearby park or open space that is used by that community that may be slightly outside of that area. We need to make sure that that can still be done.

The member for Polwarth’s geography when it comes to the western suburbs is a bit disappointing for someone who drives through them most times to get out to his electorate. He said to the Age recently:

Is there a nexus for people in Tarneit using the West Gate Tunnel to access Melbourne’s CBD, while they wait 45 minutes every night to get off the freeway because promised exit lanes have not been built?

I would like to just test which promised exit lanes we are talking about. Are we talking about the upgrades that we are doing at Point Cook Road? Because people from Tarneit do not take Point Cook Road.

Richard Riordan interjected.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Iwan Walters): Member for Polwarth, order!

John LISTER: The member for Polwarth might be referring to the Werribee Main Road interchange, which is only being upgraded thanks to the federal Labor government and state Labor government using not only growth areas infrastructure contributions but also the big road blitz that the federal government have announced. Those people who are going off at Werribee Main Road interchange are not going to Tarneit, member for Polwarth. They are going to my fantastic communities in Riverwalk, Harpley, Wyndham Vale and Manor Lakes. The member for Polwarth should stick to Colac. He clearly does not know his western suburbs geography, and this says it all about those opposite. They know nothing about the west. They show up at a by-election, and they are, like, ‘Hey, Labor neglects the west.’ You do not even know where these places are – pardon me – the member for Polwarth does not even know where these places are.

Richard Riordan interjected.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Iwan Walters): Order! The member for Werribee will resume his seat. Member for Werribee, if you can direct comments through the Chair. Member for Polwarth, it is difficult to hear the member on his feet with your interjections.

John LISTER: I apologise, Acting Speaker. The member for Polwarth does not even know his geography. It shows the neglect that they have for my area that they think that by going off at Werribee Main Road interchange you are going to Tarneit. No, you are not. You are going to Wyndham Vale, Manor Lakes – all these other beautiful growing communities.

I wanted to go into a little bit about the Werribee Main Road interchange, because this seems to be, from the member’s interjections, what he was referring to: data from Major Road Projects Victoria, after they had installed the semi-permanent lights, which I fought for in my community to help people get off that freeway sooner. After they installed the warning signs on the freeway, their data is saying that the average travel time to exit there now is 6 minutes, not 45 minutes. The member for Polwarth has misled the public in his statement by trying to attach this problem that the community in the outer west of the municipality is having. It is clear that the Liberals know nothing about our growth areas.

To go back to this issue of the growth areas infrastructure contributions, we also have a lot of new, growing suburbs, particularly between the north and the west where they cross boundaries. They may go between the LGA of Melton and the LGA of Wyndham. It makes sense to be able to spend money in the LGA of Melton on a road or an intersection that leads into the LGA of Wyndham, to help those residents get between the two. That is why we are having this clarification in the growth areas infrastructure contribution. It says in the changes that clause 230 provides that a reference in section 201VB in the act:

… to infrastructure in any growth area includes a reference to infrastructure that services the growth area but cannot reasonably –

reasonably –

be located in it.

The only people who are being unreasonable in all of this are the Liberals, who clearly just do not know the geography of the outer west. They clearly do not know anything about our growing suburbs.

GAIC revenue is so important, and for them to say, ‘Oh, this amount that sits on top of people’s housing prices, we need to get rid of it,’ well, what I ask those opposite is if we do not have the growth areas infrastructure contribution, how are they going to pay for schools? How are they going to pay for the roads in my electorate? How are they going to pay for the train upgrades and the bus upgrades? How are they going to pay for the hospital upgrades and the upgrades to the off-ramps that the member for Polwarth is so obsessed with, yet he zooms past at 100 kilometres an hour? I hope he drives safely through my electorate. I have been to a few accidents along that stretch of the Geelong road, with people driving way too quickly. I would say that if they do not think that we should have a growth areas infrastructure contribution they need to come clean, just like with all the other cuts that they intend to make – the nearly $11 billion worth of cuts that they intend to make. Just remember that the reason why we have all these precincts, particularly in my electorate, is they were approved at the 11th hour by the former Minister for Planning Matthew Guy. They were approved at the eleventh hour of their last failed government, and they had no infrastructure plan to deal with it. So in the last 10 or so years Labor has used this infrastructure contribution to build those schools – those great schools like Riverbend, those great schools like Laa Yulta, those great schools like Lollypop Creek.

That is what we have used GAIC for. These changes clarify that as we move to this activity centre model and take that pressure off the outer suburbs, we have done our bit. Build it in Brighton. Stop blocking it. We have done our bit in the outer suburbs. But these clarifications make it clear that if services for the growth area cannot reasonably be located in it, then we can still use that GAIC funding, because it is so important to use our GAIC funding for these very things. In the end, I think it says it all, from the member for Polwarth’s lack of understanding of the geography of the outer west, that they do not understand what to do when it comes to growth areas.

Richard Riordan interjected.

John LISTER: Member for Polwarth, I have already explained how we are fixing this solution with over $200 million between the state and federal government, and I commend this bill and the changes to growth areas to the house.

 Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (12:46): As I have said a few times in this place this week, I never thought I would be so passionate about planning schemes, but here we are. I am more than happy to contribute on the Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025 – I cannot say that without having a bit of a giggle. Honestly, if the member for Werribee wants to talk about lack of understanding of geography, let us talk about the planning scheme and the inability to actually develop housing in rural areas and how caught up in red tape that gets. If we want to talk about the lack of understanding of geography, the planning scheme written by the state in the city for the city is a very good example of a lack of geographic understanding.

But as we have heard, first of all from the member for Polwarth, there are many concerns with these amendments, to the point where a couple of amendments would not even fix it. I want to talk about one of those concerns in particular, and that is – well, I will start with the local councils and communities being cut out of deciding about the opportunities for growth in their communities. This has been a longstanding issue, and this is exactly what I talk about when we talk about being cut out of opportunities. Rural councils in particular have to abide by this planning scheme written in the city for the city with no flexibility whatsoever for farmland, and for developing farmland that has been dewatered so it will not be productive any time soon. Those that live in soldier settlement areas, like I do, that were allocated as 30-acre blocks – these are generational farms a lot of the time – are caught now in a situation where they have moved on or maybe the sons and daughters have taken over the farm or it has been leased out, or they just want to retire but they do not want to move into town. They cannot do that, because they cannot excise off their property. Having these people that have lived on the land their entire lives move into town would have such a negative impact on their mental health and a lot of times their physical health, so that is one area of concern.

Obviously, climate change and traditional owner concerns are prioritised over the affordability of housing in planning objectives and the fact that next-door neighbours in many cases will not be notified of development plans while traditional owners will. There were concerns, and we saw the Premier out at a press conference saying that treaty will have no effect on private land. Well, I can tell you that the concerns of traditional owners – and this causes such horrific division within communities – are already happening.

[NAMES AWAITING VERIFICATION]

I have a case, and I was on the phone to a gentleman called Murray Allan. He and his wife – Mick is her nickname; I do not believe I know her first name.

Members interjecting.

Jade BENHAM: Maree, sorry. Murray and Maree Allan – it is a country thing – have, again, a generational farm just out of Sea Lake. I see the member for Preston stop. I am talking about Sea Lake. Take a seat – you might be interested in this. They have been trying to develop some accommodation on their farm.

Their farm backs onto Lake Tyrrell, and we know Lake Tyrrell has had a boom in tourism around Sea Lake in recent years, thankfully, because they cannot run their huge major event, the Mallee Rally, there anymore. Thankfully, Lake Tyrrell has provided a tourism opportunity. Murray and Mick have been trying to develop some accommodation on their farm, which has been cultivated for nearly 200 years. They started this process in 2018 with plans and consultants. They had a cultural heritage management plan done. Then work started. They got the footings in the ground and the construction site was identified. You can see very clearly that the views from this beautiful accommodation and tourist park would be spectacular because Lake Tyrrell, particularly when it has got water in it but even when it has not, is spectacular. It is fantastic for stargazers. If you wanted to see the aurora last night, Lake Tyrrell would have been the best place in Australia you could see it, with no light pollution. The concept of it is incredible.

In 2021 work stopped because of concerns by the traditional owners that it was of significant cultural heritage value. The cultural heritage management plan that was conducted during the planning stages did not identify any sacred sites on their plot of land. Like I said, it has been cultivated for over 180 years. So work stopped in 2021. Footings were in the ground, mind you. Plans were up. Signs were up. It has been back and forth with the department and the TOs and is now at a stalemate. Classifications have tried to be changed, but no further action has been taken. With a lack of response, which does not equal approval, they can actually not move forward with this development. They have spent many hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to develop what would be a beautiful accommodation precinct on the most spectacular lake in north-west Victoria, offering many opportunities for the traditional owners as well to sell arts and crafts and tell stories about what that lake meant to their people. If we are going to talk about self-determination, this is an opportunity staring everyone in the face, but it has been caught up and stopped for no reason whatsoever since 2021.

So when they say that this will not affect private land, it will – it already has. When those of us that have gone through it and know of constituents that are currently still going through it hear statements like that from the Premier, they are absolutely laughable statements. This family can still cultivate their land. They are harvesting at the moment. Well, actually, they are not harvesting today, because there is a total fire ban. At 29 degrees there is a total fire ban – what a joke. That is a whole different issue, not a planning issue. If you were going to put up a fence, a shed, a pergola or whatever it might be, you do not have to tell your neighbours, but you do have to inform the traditional owners. In some sort of ideological, delusional utopia this might actually make sense, but I can tell you in communities like this it widens the gap, it does not close it. That is my biggest concern: that the gap will get bigger. It is so divisive because of what is already happening. If you think treaty is going to change that, that is an absolute farce. It absolutely will not.

I will move on from there to a couple of our other concerns – of course, the digital illiteracy and marginalisation regarding public notices. They only have to be printed online. Our small rural newspapers, which have been the backbone of regional communities and rural communities, more importantly, for generations, rely on even the smallest amount of spend from classified ads and things like that. It is really important to them; it is what keeps them going in a lot of cases. Those newspapers are read by a certain generation, and sometimes that is the only way that they get their local news. It is the only way – we do not have local news on free-to-air television anymore – they get their information and their local news. I can see your face, Acting Speaker Walters – in Mildura we had our local news broadcast services from television stripped away from us years ago. It is a problem, and it is now done out of Canberra and Queensland, believe it or not. So that is also a real concern. And the growth area infrastructure and development contributions can now be used for purposes outside the area where funds are raised – I mean, again, this is another laughable point in these planning amendments. If we actually want to make planning decisions better and faster, we should give back councils and local communities a say in what happens in their local area, because you know what, the ones that live there know best.

 Paul MERCURIO (Hastings) (12:56): I am very pleased to stand and speak to the Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025. Listening to the debate, I can actually say I can understand why those on the other side are mad about this bill, this legislation. I can understand it, and I feel for them; they are mad because we on this side are getting stuff done, we are building stuff whilst they block. So I am sorry for you guys being mad and feeling embarrassed by the fact that you actually cannot get on and get things done or built, but at least we are.

I think the great thing too is that we on this side accept that we work really hard to make a difference but nothing is perfect. One of my personal beliefs about perfection is as soon as you reach what might be considered perfect, the bar moves again. We on this side recognise that, and we are not frightened by that idea. That is why we keep bringing in legislation to improve past legislation. We write legislation, we pass it, we look at how it works and what the nuances are, and then we go back, look at it again and tweak it and fix it. We do that because that is what we believe in – we believe in working hard for our constituents and our community. We do it because we are trying to make everyone in our communities’ lives better, easier and simpler and take away some of that red tape so that people can get on and get stuff done.

I find it slightly amusing too – I got a letter today from my local council asking me not to talk on this bill, or not to agree with it, and I think that is why we need this bill also. Look, I love my council and my councillors to a point, but when they write to me to say it is not on and they do not want it, that is why we need the bill. We need to get rid of the red tape, we need to allow people to get on to build, and we need builders and developers to get on and do stuff. When I was on council, we were talking about planning when I was at council hall. I was at a meeting and I actually said, ‘How about we say yes to things faster?’ The reply to that was, ‘What if we actually say no faster?’ We need to change that mindset and say yes, say it faster and understand what we are doing. I believe that this bill is working in that way, which is what it should be doing. We are looking after our community.

I certainly liked the member for Werribee’s contribution to the debate. I thought he spoke very well, and I understand that is why the member for Polwarth is also angry. I am sure the member for Werribee would be happy to take you through his electorate and show you where things are and where the off-ramps are and how it all works. Anyway, it is good to share and talk about these things.

There is quite a lot in this bill, and I do not have a heap of time to go through it all. All I can say is that, certainly with the member over there – I have forgotten his electorate for a moment – everyone so far has spoken really well. I am very forgetful. I certainly appreciate the efforts and debate that people have spoken on this side. I believe in this bill. I think it is doing the right thing. It is working for the community. That is what we are all doing in this place, some better than others. But I certainly commend the bill to the house.

Sitting suspended 1:00 pm until 2:02 pm.

Business interrupted under standing orders.