Thursday, 13 November 2025

 Michael O’BRIEN (Malvern) (16:02): I cannot say it is a pleasure to rise to speak on the Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025. This is another Orwellian title of a bill from this Labor government. Who can ever forget the Bail Amendment (Tough Bail) Bill 2025 the government introduced earlier this year, a bail bill which actually weakened bail in many respects? If we are going to have truth in political advertising and we are going to have bill titles that reflect what is actually in the bill, perhaps this bill should be called the planning amendment ‘shut up and you’ll take what we give you’ bill, because that is exactly what its fundamental message is to Victorians: shut up and take what this Labor government will give you – shut up, you no longer have a right to object to developments that directly impact you, your family and your community; shut up, the Labor government will impose high-rise high-density towers in your streets regardless of what it will do to congestion, parking and local infrastructure; and shut up because doing the bidding of Labor-donating property developers is more important to this government than is listening to the community.

This bill facilitates Labor’s so-called activity centres by centralising planning control with the Minister for Planning, sidelining local government and sidelining the community. For those of you watching or listening who do not know what an activity centre is, this is Labor terminology for an area where normal planning controls are thrown out the window. It is where normal rights to express a view or to lodge an objection to inappropriate development are also thrown out the window. An activity centre means the right of councils to reject inappropriate development is thrown out the window as well. This is Labor’s idea of cutting red tape: gagging communities, gagging councils and sidelining them both. Labor first announced 10 principal activity centres and then another 50 major activity centres across Melbourne. If activity centres are so good for local residents, so good for local communities, you might expect that the Minister for Planning would have announced a number of activity centres in her own electorate. These are so popular, according to members opposite – activity centres are what everyone wants – so presumably the Minister for Planning would have looked after her own patch, looked after her own community and had lots of activity centres in the Carrum electorate.

Do you know how many activity centres have been nominated in the Carrum electorate? Zero, nada, zilch, nil, doughnuts, none, nothing, nothing at all – not a single activity centre in the entire Carrum electorate of the Minister for Planning. Colour me shocked. Bonbeach station: why not have an activity centre around that? No, that is in the Carrum electorate. Carrum station: why not have an activity centre there? No, that is in the Carrum electorate. Seaford station: no, we cannot have an activity centre there – that is in the Carrum electorate. Okay. Right. Good enough for the rest of us; not good enough for the Minister for Planning’s own electorate. That is right. So the contrast is my Malvern electorate: of the 60 activity centres across the entire state, do you know how many of them are in my electorate?

James Newbury: Two?

Michael O’BRIEN: Fourteen, member for Brighton – 14 out of 60. Nearly 25 per cent of the entire number of activity centres are in one electorate alone, and it happens to be mine. It is disgraceful. We get 14 activity centres.

We will give the house an indication of the sorts of housing choices that this is going to give, because even before the activity centre around Malvern station was designated we had a 20-storey apartment tower approved – 20 storeys. You can almost see it from the moon, that is how big it is. I will give the house information as to what this government thinks is affordable housing, entry-level housing. I heard the member for Mordialloc banging on about gen Z and how they are going to create more houses for gen Z. Well, if the member for Mordialloc thinks anybody in gen Z wants to pay $750,000 for a one-bed, one-bathroom apartment behind Malvern station, he has got another thing coming. They are not all on the member for Mordialloc’s salary. Most of them would not think that $750,000 for a one-bedder is anything like good value. So this is exactly what the member for Mordialloc and everyone on the Labor side thinks; that is their example of affordable housing: three-quarters of a million dollars for a one-bedroom studio apartment. You have got to be kidding me.

As I said, the government now wants to impose 14 activity centres in my Malvern electorate, and I will put them on the record: Toorak Village, Hawksburn station, Toorak station, Armadale station, Malvern station, Tooronga station, Gardiner station, Glen Iris station, Darling station, East Malvern station, Holmesglen station and Chadstone shopping centre. And then there are two outside my electorate but which are effectively in my electorate: Murrumbeena station and Caulfield station. There are 14 in my tiny little electorate of Malvern, and what this means is that we are going to have high-density, high-rise apartment towers built without the local infrastructure to support it.

Where is this government’s commitment to investing in schools in my electorate? There is none. My schools get nothing. Where is the government’s commitment to even fixing the potholes on the roads in my electorate? None. This government will not even remove the level crossings at Tooronga station and Glen Iris station, but they have designated both of those stations as major activity centres. Talk about wanting to have your cake and eat it too. You cannot approve planning changes that will lead to massive towers, increase massive congestion and keep the level crossings at those stations, yet that is exactly what this Labor government, this Labor Premier and this planning minister propose to do. That is why I oppose this bill, because this bill is fundamentally unfair. This is about the government imposing high-rise, high-density apartment buildings on local communities, cutting them out of the process, cutting local government out of the process and not investing in the infrastructure that is needed to facilitate development.

As much as the member for Mordialloc might want to slag off so-called NIMBYs, let me tell you, and let me tell him: I support more housing in my electorate. It is not a question of whether we build more houses, it is a question of how we build more houses. The City of Stonnington has released a housing strategy that will lead to more new homes in Stonnington than the government’s own targets – 17,000 more. The City of Stonnington has a housing strategy to deliver 67,000 new homes across Stonnington by the year 2050 as opposed to the government’s target, which is 50,000 new homes. The difference is the City of Stonnington actually listens to the residents, listens to the community and knows that not everybody wants to live in a 20-storey tower behind Malvern station, paying three quarters of a million dollars for a one-bedroom studio apartment.

The City of Stonnington understands people want a mix of housing – they want townhouses, they want flats, they want homes, they want a choice. That is what people want; they want a choice. And this government proposes to take that away by saying, ‘We know what’s best. We and our developer mates know what’s best.’ I talk about developer mates because of an example of the government’s use of the planning facilitation development program: 173 Bourke Road in Glen Iris, in my electorate. It was knocked back by council as being an overdevelopment and knocked back by VCAT as being an overdevelopment, but of course the minister called it in, used the facilitation development program and decided to grant the permit. And who was the developer? None other than a donor to the Labor Party. What a shock. So this government has got no room to talk about transparency. Where were the reasons for approving that proposal which had been knocked back by VCAT and knocked back by council? It is absolutely disgraceful.

We will stand up for more homes by listening to the community, by working with the community, by working with councils. There is a way to build more homes that does not involve doing the bidding of Labor-donating property developers. It is called listening to the community. Members opposite should try it some time. At a time when this government wants to impose 14 activity centres in my little electorate alone – more than any other state, more than any other electorate in the state – it just shows you that this government is not about building more homes, they are about lining their own pockets with the contributions from their developer mates. That is no way to build for the future. There is a better way. The Liberals and Nationals have that better way, and that is why we are opposing this bill. This bill is about bad building, bad planning, bad development and Labor donations and nothing more.

 Anthony CIANFLONE (Pascoe Vale) (16:12): I rise to speak on the Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025 before the chamber now, and as the state member for Pascoe Vale, Coburg and Brunswick West but also as a lifetime local person now raising my own young family in my community and as the son of migrants who migrated and bought a house and worked hard to raise our family in our community, I am committed to doing everything I can to keep supporting more homes across Merri-Bek so future generations of migrants and young people in our community can continue to live, learn and work locally, whether it be homes for young people or first home buyers, young families, seniors, retirees or downsizers, renters or some of our most vulnerable, through affordable social and community housing. Everyone has the right to a place to call home that is close to jobs, kinder, schools, shops, services, open spaces, family, friends and transport corridors that connect them to the things they need.

The Pascoe Vale electorate in the Merri-Bek municipality is the best place to live, learn and work and raise a family and retire in. We are known for our cultural diversity, our vibrant local economy, good quality education opportunities, beautiful nature and waterway corridors, and a thriving local arts and sporting and social scene. But what is true for Merri-Bek is also true for Victoria more broadly of course, which is why more people continue to come here to live and work and build a better life, with Victoria’s population expected to grow from 7.2 million residents in 2025 to 10.3 million residents in 2050. With more people, we need to continue to plan for more homes to support this growth whilst ensuring we maintain Victoria’s and my community of Merri-Bek’s livability and vibrancy. But importantly, we must continue to plan for more growth to help young people so the next generation of young people have that same chance and right to save and buy for a home that is affordable and accessible in the area they love. It is incumbent on current and older generations to support – not deny, fight against or protest against – the rights of young people to also be able to buy a home.

But the biggest issue in buying a home and house prices is supply, and that is why we need to build more homes – to improve supply. That is why as a Victorian Labor government we have been proudly driving efforts to help more young people into homes via a range of initiatives, including through the Plan for Victoria blueprint for future housing development across the state over coming decades. We are planning for the 60 new train and tram activity centres, including through central Coburg, Brunswick and the Sydney Road corridor; the housing statement, which sets the target of 800,000 new homes over the next decade; the Big Housing Build, the $5.3 billion pipeline of 13,300 new social, community and affordable homes; the rental reforms we have passed, 130-plus standards to improve housing for people who rent; and stamp duty concessions and reforms to continue stimulating construction and purchase of new apartments, multidwelling development and townhouses.

We have created of course the new Building and Plumbing Commission, a more powerful watchdog to oversee building and plumbing construction standards to protect consumers as we deliver more of these homes. What this all equates to is that Victoria is where we are building more homes, with more approvals and more homes in the pipeline than any other state or territory across the country. That is a fact.

However, notwithstanding these reforms, we know that many Victorians, especially younger Victorians, continue to find it difficult to find a home. It is a challenge that has been decades in the making. It is a challenge that is compounded by significant delays and obstacles associated with the current and largely outdated planning application, building approval and engagement process that is associated with building new homes. That is why we are progressing this planning amendment bill to modernise our planning laws, bringing them into the modern era to build and help more young people into homes via three key reforms, essentially.

The first is around faster timelines for simpler projects. Currently a planning permit on average takes 140 days to get approved, and if there is an objection, it blows out to even more than 300 days. That is time Victorian families, renters and builders should not have to wait. Under the existing act most projects, no matter how big or small, go through the same process, and this can mean a single home is assessed the same way as a multistorey apartment block. This bill fixes that. It creates three separate pathways for planning approval so the process matches the type of home being built. Simpler projects will not get stuck in the same queue as those major high-density developments. The three streams will slash timeframes so homes can get off the ground sooner, with standalone homes and duplexes to take 10 days to process, townhouses and low-rise developments to take 30 days and larger apartment buildings to take 60 days to approve. These changes will save weeks or even months at a time on applications, saving, again, precious money, time, energy and resources for builders, new home owners, families and communities alike and providing greater certainty for everyone involved.

Secondly, we are reforming commonsense appeal rights. This bill will establish those commonsense rights, because Victoria currently has the broadest third-party appeal rights in the country, allowing anyone to object to a planning permit no matter where they live – even if they live nowhere near the proposed development. This has led to homes being delayed for years by people who are not directly impacted. The new streams for homes, duplexes and townhouses will require minimal notice and minimal third-party appeal rights and processes. For the third stream, higher density apartments, only those who are directly impacted, like neighbours in the area, will get that notice and be able to appeal.

Thirdly, faster processes – we are going to make it easier for councils and government to update local planning rules or planning scheme amendments. Every council has a planning scheme which outlines what can be built and where, but changing those rules is slow and complicated, even for small fixes. This reform introduces a smarter way to address those changes.

Together these changes are expected to unlock more than $900 million in economic value each year, getting more homes off the ground faster, providing greater certainty, again, for everyone involved. It builds on those major steps that we have been taking to boost housing supply through setting housing targets for every local government area, including in Merri-Bek, unlocking space for homes near trains and trams and making it easier to build townhouses. Within Merri-Bek we are also working to help deliver more new homes for local young people, which is why we have designated central Coburg, Brunswick and the Sydney Road corridor as one of the state’s newest activity centres to help deliver more of those homes but, importantly, to also ensure we continue to invest in the infrastructure, facilities, services and local spaces we need and to help drive those ongoing central Coburg and Sydney Road revitalisation efforts to solidify Coburg as that jobs, skills, cultural and housing hub for the northern suburbs.

Some of the key housing projects we have approved over recent years are progressing, including, firstly, the central Coburg Assemble project at 511–537 Sydney Road. That is 326 new build-to-rent apartments and 195 new affordable homes. Residents can lease the property for five years while they save to purchase a home. It is a 60 per cent affordable housing project; it is now under construction and well and truly underway. Secondly, in central Coburg there is Development Victoria’s pilot site at 541 Sydney Road. It is approximately 60 homes with a minimum 10 per cent affordable housing, with construction due to start next year. Thirdly, we have the Pace 3058 housing project in Wardens Walk in Pentridge. I officially opened that with the minister Harriet Shing on 4 November 2024, the day of my wedding anniversary, for 312 new homes, 140 affordable homes and new spaces and retail spaces. 600 jobs were generated during construction of that project. The new Pentridge housing precinct as well on Champ Street has just recently been approved and construction has started on 245 new homes. Development Victoria’s former Kangan TAFE site on The Avenue in Coburg has 274 new homes and 169 car spaces – again, a minimum 10 per cent affordable with a minimum 10-year tenure period. A new park will accompany that project on The Avenue as well, and I will continue to work very closely with the Kids on the Avenue, KOTA, kinder and the relevant authorities, including Development Victoria, in relation to the delivery of this project, particularly during the demolition process, which is currently underway. We will continue to do so through the construction process, so those impacts are mitigated on the KOTA community.

The UnitingCare project in Coburg is a $45 million mixed-use development of 75 new dwellings – 56 affordable homes, 19 social homes, new social services and a northern jobs hub for UnitingCare workers. 140 jobs will be associated ongoingly with the site. I commend the residents of Florence Street, Hall Street, Station Street and Jessie Street on the project, many of whom I have met with and will continue to engage very closely with as this evolves and progresses. Finally, the Harvest Square project in Brunswick West: proudly we have delivered with Women’s Housing Limited a $86 million landmark project with 198 new homes – 119 new social and community homes – all for women and children in need.

These and future projects within central Coburg very much build on the investments we have been making to improve infrastructure as we build more homes. That is what we are doing. Projects include a $22.5 million new Coburg special development school and a $17.8 million Coburg High technology building. Coburg Primary has been allocated funding to plan for future upgrades as well. Merri-bek Primary – I have supported them to deliver a new concept master plan, which I advocate to the Minister for Education on delivering over the coming years. There is also the Shirley Robertson Children’s Centre, a $6 million upgrade of Coburg City Oval and $6 million for the new Bachar Houli academy of sport. We have officially opened the Pentridge visitor, entertainment and cultural precinct. The Upfield rail corridor – we have delivered those landmark stations at Coburg and Moreland. We have removed the four level crossings at Moreland, Reynard, Munro and Bell streets along the world-class active transport corridor. We have announced improved services off the back of the Metro Tunnel to 20 -minute off-peak services on weeknights and weekends, down from the current 40 minutes. We have secured that $7 million from the federal government to prepare a business case for ongoing improvements, including duplication and extension. There is the $115 million redevelopment of the Brunswick tram depot to improve local tram services on routes 6, 19 and 1. Free public transport rolls out from next year, and we are continuing to improve road safety on Sydney Road, Moreland Road, Bell Street, Nicholson Street and surrounding roads and streets. We have funded the revitalisation of Merri Creek, Edgars Creek and the Moonee Ponds Creek – local environmental outcomes. We are consulting with the community on the future of the Kangan Batman TAFE site in North Coburg as a future jobs, skills, cultural and social enterprise and community hub. We have heard loud and clear from the community through the consultation process. I will outline that in a future contribution, but for now, I commend this bill to the chamber.

 Matthew GUY (Bulleen) (16:22): It is nice to be back again and to talk on a bill on planning. I was actually very interested to speak on this bill because when you have been around long enough in this place like me, the word ‘hypocrisy’ starts to come back and come back and come back. I have seen the Labor Party say – you know, crime is bad – ‘There’s no problem with crime in this state.’ Last year they were saying the age of criminal responsibility was 14, and now they are off to life imprisonment – in the space of a few months.

This bill, of course, is on planning. Developers were their best friend – John Woodman and the past Premier et cetera. Now, of course, developers are evil, but not really evil, kind of evil. I am waiting for the Labor Party to come in and say, ‘Look, we get it. The North East Link is going to end in a T-intersection. We’re going to build the east–west link.’ I am just waiting for that or for one of the ministers to come in and say, ‘Look, I just accept it. The SRL is not properly funded. The value-capture stuff is a great comedy skit, it’s just not real. We’re just going to borrow $25 billion and make it happen.’ I am just waiting for it all to happen.

But you see, all these things come around. This bill I find stunning because I have been a Minister for Planning and faced the Labor Party and the then opposition leader Daniel Andrews and the then shadow minister Brian Tee as they rant and rant and rant about the need for revocation motions and how they could potentially save the community from the evils of the little man who loves skyscrapers. A forest of towers was going to be the case. Daniel Andrews, the then opposition leader, said that Melbourne will have a forest of towers that no-one will live in, and now we are short on them. Oh, what a shock. When you do not approve anything for 10 years, you kind of get that way. Brian Tee said on 29 February 2012:

It is with some sadness that we find ourselves here again. It is another week and we have another decision made by this Minister for Planning to ride roughshod over local communities …

Lo and behold, the same party 10 years later is taking all of those powers – and more – off every community and every council, and they are coming in here saying, ‘It’s for your good.’

It is kind of like when you take your Spriggy card off your son because he has been buying Red Bulls, and you say, ‘Son, it’s for your good – it’s for your good.’ The government is saying to councils, ‘Look, I’m sorry. We have to do it all,’ despite having had 20 years against the Kennett government and the Baillieu government and then in government themselves saying how important it is to have these revocation motions. As I said again, on 22 August 2013: we need to ensure we do not ride roughshod over people’s rights, that we do not cut corners and unnecessarily destroy the fabric of our society. That is what the Labor Party thought of community participation in planning.

I found it stunning listening to some Labor members who came in here, and particularly some in the growth areas, who railed against developers and outer urban development. I found this absolutely stunning, considering in the history of this country it was one government that expanded the urban growth boundary of Melbourne greater than any other government in Australian history has expanded an urban growth boundary of any capital city. Was it Matthew Guy and the Baillieu government? No, we expanded the boundary by 7000 hectares. But the Brumby government under Justin Madden expanded the growth area of Melbourne by 40,000 hectares. I will give you an indication. That would be unable to be revoked by this bill. That is 100 times the size of the city of Melbourne – 100 times the size.

I found it fascinating that the member for Yan Yean railed against boundary expansions, blamed them all on me and failed to acknowledge the fact that virtually all of the land expanded in the growth boundary in her own electorate was expanded by the Brumby government. All of the plans that failed to deliver intersections, upgrades on Donnybrook Road or on Epping Road and the level crossing in Donnybrook and that failed to provide all of the footpaths along Donnybrook Road – they are all failings of their own side, every single one of them. I thought, ‘Goodness me,’ when you come back into this chamber after 20-odd years, then you see a revocation motion being revoked by legislation, by this bill, which would give either chamber the chance to say, ‘Hang on, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,’ this is going a little bit too far.’

Then Labor members have been running in saying, ‘Oh, these developers, they are evil.’ Except that it was the now Premier Jacinta Allan who sat in the cabinet when that boundary expansion was approved. She sat in the cabinet when 40,000 hectares, a third of the size of metropolitan Adelaide, the largest expansion in Australian history and more than five times the size that any Liberal government has ever done in Victoria’s history, was singularly expanded by Justin Madden into the now seats of Tarneit, Werribee, Point Cook, Yan Yean, Sunbury Kororoit and Melton. But oh no, has that featured in any debate? No, no, no – it is just the evils of developers.

I thought, ‘Oh well, you know, you see everything in this job.’ You see it all, about how they are going to make precinct structure plans – ‘Oh, we’re going to make them work.’ You have had 11 years to make precinct structure plans work. Why doesn’t the Minister for Planning just say, ‘I’m going to put an end date on every PSP, whenever that might be, so everyone knows’? Developers, those putting in growth areas contributions, those putting in works in kind, councils, everything – the planning minister could give that certainty tomorrow. The planning minister has more power than any other planning minister in Australia. She does not need this bill. She has got the P and E act now – 20(4) and 20A of the Planning and Environment Act 1987 – to do everything that is contained in that bill.

Instead, no, no, no, no, we have got to rush this in to test it politically, to put 14 activities in the member for Malvern’s electorate but none in the minister’s electorate – oh no! No, no, no, somehow this bill is one of merit. Everything that is contained in the bill can be done in the Planning and Environment Act. I hazard a guess, though, that not many in the Labor side who are speaking on this bill, if any – maybe even including the minister – have read it. I know the P and E act – I wrote and rewrote many parts of it – and what I do know is that that act gives, as I said, more power to the planning minister in Victoria than any other planning minister in Australia.

You do not need these extra powers if you use the act sensibly and wisely, and through the Victorian Planning Authority you can bring and facilitate it, whether it is land, whether it is higher density development, whether it is growth area development or whether it is adopting council structure plans, which they have asked the government to do, from Boroondara to Stonnington to Bayside to Manningham and all through the east of Melbourne.

Adopt our structure plans, stick it in the VC as a Victorian planning provision, put it in the state planning system and you will achieve more homes than what the government is now saying they need to achieve. I will say that again. If we actually put in the Victorian planning provisions what is called a VC amendment, which means you actually list the council structure plan as state policy, we would have more homes than what the government are saying they want to achieve. But hang on a tick, the government is now saying councils have got to get out of the way. But if the government decided to work with communities, unlike with this bill, and work with councils, we would achieve more homes for gen Z, which the member for Mordialloc quite rightly said we need to have housing for. We would achieve more homes for them, more homes for first home buyers and more homes for those seeking to downsize. We would have more homes in sensible activity areas, which councils have already done all the work to approve. No, no, no, not for this government, because it is all politics. I tried to put capital-city zones in regional centres, through Bendigo, Geelong and Ballarat. No, that was the end of the world. ‘We can’t have high-rise in regional cities,’ said the then Manager of Opposition Business and member for Bendigo East. ‘No-one wants high-rise in those areas’ – but it is okay for high-rise now, isn’t it? Hypocrisy comes back in every way, and this bill is a mass amount of hypocrisy by a tired and lazy government that has just been there too long. Labor have had their time. Their time is expiring. This planning bill is a hoax. If Labor wanted to work with communities, they would get more homes rather than trying to ram through stupid policy that everyone dislikes except a couple of boffins in the department.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Mordialloc! I was going to make some comments about AC/DC, but I have chosen not to.

 Dylan WIGHT (Tarneit) (16:32): It is a pleasure this afternoon to rise and make a brief contribution on the Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025. It is always a pleasure of course to follow the member for Bulleen in any contribution that I make. The member for Bulleen spoke at significant length about being stunned and about hypocrisy. The thing that stuns me is that the member for Bulleen has the audacity as the former planning minister, every single time there is a bill about planning, to stand up in this place and make a contribution. It stuns me that he has the audacity to do that. I have spoken at length in this place about some of the planning failures in my electorate of Tarneit, chief amongst them the Tarneit North precinct structure plan, ticked off by the very former planning minister that just made the previous contribution, the member for Bulleen. That PSP deprives residents of basic amenity and basic services, like being able to put a bus route through an estate. We are left with residents in Tarneit North that cannot access a bus route. We are working diligently to retrofit a bus route through that PSP, and hopefully we will have a positive announcement soon. That PSP did not have triggers for developers to deliver critical infrastructure at critical times. If the member for Bulleen wants to continue to have the audacity to stand up in this place and make contributions on planning and blame this government for failings, he should come and doorknock with me throughout Tarneit North, and he can explain to residents there why they cannot get a bus and why they struggle to get out of their estates. That is the legacy that the Liberal Party have left in the west. There is only one legacy from this Liberal Party in my electorate of Tarneit. There is only one thing that they have delivered, and that is the Tarneit North PSP, which ensures that people that have bought into that PSP cannot move around and cannot access services as they should. It is an utter disgrace. To have the member for Bulleen stand up in this place and gaslight Victorians time after time after time every time that there is a planning amendment – honestly, have a good, hard look at yourself.

This piece of legislation is an incredibly important part of delivering our housing statement, which is an incredibly important part of how we are going to account for population growth and build more houses in this state in the future. The key pillar of that housing statement is making sure that we share the load, because places like my electorate of Tarneit and like the member for Point Cook’s, the member for Werribee’s, the member for Yan Yean’s and the member for Pakenham’s – I am not trying to miss anyone – and those outer suburban areas of Melbourne have shouldered the lion’s share of the load for population growth and an increase in housing supply for too long. This housing statement will mean that 70 per cent of new dwellings are built near existing infrastructure, near existing train stations, near existing amenities and near existing services, because we know that works and we know that is what people want. People want the basic services, the infrastructure, the transport infrastructure and the schools that allow them to live the fruitful life that they deserve and that they want. They want to be able to afford to buy a house close to home, close to their family and close to their support networks, and continuing with urban sprawl as far as the eye can see does not deliver that.

The NIMBYs opposite – the chief amongst them sitting there – know that. Their opposition to this – walking with your Liberal branch down the main street of Brighton – is nothing more than rank political opportunism. They say that they support an increase in housing supply. The member for Malvern said that he supports an increase in housing supply in Malvern, yet at every single turn they oppose everything we do to try and increase housing supply. Anything that we do to try and fix this issue or make it easier on people or make housing more affordable in those inner suburbs both the Liberal Party and the Greens oppose. They oppose us at every single turn.

This is an incredibly important bill. Like I said, it is part of the journey that we are undertaking with this housing statement to make sure that we are sharing the load geographically across Melbourne and Victoria and that people can afford homes close to all the amenities, services and transport infrastructure that they need. I commend it to the house.

 Nicole WERNER (Warrandyte) (16:37): I rise to speak on the Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025. I rise first to say that with such a landmark bill and with so much time that has been put into it, with a timeline that is not due for implementation before October 2027, to give the opposition barely any notice to be able to go to stakeholders to consult on the bill and also scrutinise legislation with such a landmark change is offensive. It is offensive to the parliamentary system and it is offensive to our democracy to not allow the opposition the time to do the due diligence to actually scrutinise the bill – look at its contents, look at the implications for our communities – and go to stakeholders in a week that is reduced because of a public holiday. The insult that it is to Victorians to give the opposition no time, as we represent our communities in this place, for such a landmark change to planning is not only offensive to our democracy but offensive to Victorians. The timeframe for consultation, if I can start with that point, has been just terrible.

Secondly, local councils and communities with this bill are going to be deprived and cut out of deciding the opportunities for growth in their own communities. Next-door neighbours will not be notified of development plans with these reforms. We all want planning systems that are clear, efficient and fair. We all want homes that people can afford, thriving activity centres and infrastructure that keeps pace with growth. But big change requires big trust. This bill does not build trust; it narrows community voice, it weakens parliamentary oversight, it leaves too much to regulations that do not yet exist and it risks switching off the very safety checks that protect families from flood, fire, landslip and contamination. It promises speed but delivers uncertainty. It talks about affordability but offers no mechanism to make housing more affordable. It moves money without clear guardrails and asks communities to simply believe that all will be worked out later.

The government asks us to sign a blank check on process, on safety and on accountability. That is not good enough for my community, and that should not be good enough for this Parliament. Just last week, in the midst of trying to consult on these bills, we held in my community a planning forum in conjunction with the Park Orchards Ratepayers Association. This is a great community group. This is a great ratepayers association. They do so much for our community in terms of local advocacy. They run our local market, the Park Orchards Market, which runs every month in our community, and they are there to advocate for the ratepayers and for the residents of Park Orchards. Residents from across Park Orchards, Warrandyte and surrounding suburbs turned out in force to say planning must put people and communities first, not speed, and not the letting go of safeguards.

We walked through the state targets applied to Manningham council and the dwellings that have been dictated to them by the state government. The councils at large have been speaking to us and have told us that they object to this riding over the top of their planning that they have already done. These councils have been looking at the growth of our suburbs and the growth of our LGAs. They are intimately acquainted with where the growth is and know that Doncaster East is very, very different to, say, a place like Wonga Park and Doncaster East is very, very different to a place like Warrandyte. There are different applications for different areas. So in my community they have spoken out about the fact that they are the best placed to define where there should be appropriate housing that is true to the area, true to neighbourhood character, true to where there is amenity, true to where there is access to services, true to where there is access to schools and true to where there are the roads to be able to keep pace with growth. Yet what the state government has done has centralised these powers and instead has acted as the dictator, as it does with its big government, by telling the community and by telling the council, ‘No, this is where you should grow, this is how many houses you should build and this is what you should be doing.’ That is offensive to these councils, which have undertaken work on where they should plan to position housing in our areas, in our LGAs, in consultation with the community, as is due process.

As the planning forum went ahead it was made clear to us that locals objected to the proposed neighbourhood activity centre at the Park Orchards village because it is out of sync with neighbourhood character, with talk of three- or four-storey forms and fewer VCAT appeal rights for code-assessed projects, that it was not acceptable, that no real consultation took place, that there was no notice given to the residents and that there were no ironclad safety checks. This entire suburb – we talk about it in my community; it is where the city meets the country in my electorate – sits in a bushfire-prone area where the evacuation risk is real, and residents will not accept a model that weakens hazard scrutiny whilst inviting height creep and lot splits as sewer coverage expands. The message from the room was simple: to restore the voice of the community, to protect the safety of the community and to give them rights to be able to appeal and object to what is going on in their very own suburbs or, in the case of some of the residents, what is happening next door to their very own homes.

The SPEAKER: Member for Warrandyte, through the Chair, please.

Nicole WERNER: The message from the room was simple: restore voice, protect safety and be honest about infrastructure before growth. For decades Parliament has had the power to disallow planning scheme amendments. That has been a vital control to protect against overreach, to ensure transparency and to maintain public confidence. This bill moves that power behind committee process and regulation making. It reduces the ability of the elected chamber to say no. It compresses consultation windows and relocates critical detail into future instruments, some not expected for years. We are being told, ‘Trust us; we will sort out the details later.’ Victorians deserve better than just ‘Trust us. Give us control. Give us centralised power. Give us the ability to dictate to communities. This is what is meant to happen in the suburb that you live in. This is what your community should look like.’

There is no right to appeal. There is no right to be able to take it to VCAT. There is no right to even have a voice from the community to speak out against or to be consulted as to what happens in their own neighbourhood, in their own suburb. In my community – that is why people buy in Warrandyte; that is why people establish homes, make a family and grow their family in areas like Warrandyte, in areas like Ringwood North, in areas like Park Orchards. People buy for a purpose, and it is a purpose of lifestyle. It is a purpose of the area that they have known to have this low residential code that has been applied to it, where it is meant to be semirural. So to have this application now in semirural areas where there is no right to appeal, there is no right to object and to actually just be slapped in the face and to be told, ‘No, it doesn’t matter if you have bought in this suburb’ – these residents have no ability to appeal or to object or even have a say about what the planning looks like. Local residents do not want a veto on change, but they do expect a fair say, timely notice and basic respect.

This bill narrows who must be told when, and it shifts more notice online and relies on people to have the time, the technology and the luck to spot the development next door or down the street as it is about to go ahead. It formalises fast tracks that can exclude third-party review, even when the impacts are real. In Warrandyte, Park Orchards, Donvale and Templestowe neighbours help each other every day. They coach our kids, keep our clubs going and step up in disaster. They deserve to be told before bulldozers arrive on their doorstep. They deserve a chance to be heard when a project will change traffic, overshadow homes or strain local services. Real reform should make notice simpler and more reliable, not weaker and easier to miss, and it should expand accessible face-to-face engagement rather than hiding change in a web portal. And then that speaks to the issue of: what if there are residents that are elderly that are not able to access these web portals? What about accessibility for them? What about inclusion for them? The government purports to support inclusivity and accessibility; that is not available for many of these elderly residents in my electorate. That is who I am standing up and fighting for: these residents who have been vocal about their appeals, been vocal about saying, ‘Would you stand up and fight for us?’ We oppose this.

 Mathew HILAKARI (Point Cook) (16:47): I follow on from the member for Warrandyte of course, and it was a combination of fearmongering and out-and-out mistruths, really. There was a suggestion that there would be activity centres in the beautiful area of Warrandyte. It is a beautiful part of the world and I know it well, but I am not aware of the activity centre, and the member for Warrandyte was just claiming in this Parliament that there will be an activity centre built there. Well, it is not true. The beautiful suburb of Warrandyte has not got an activity centre. Do not believe the member for Warrandyte, because she is spreading falsehoods to spread fear. She has left the chamber for that exact reason.

The member for Warrandyte also said infrastructure should be there before growth. If only she spoke to the member for Bulleen about that, that would be a wonderful thing, because communities like mine are suffering because –

James Newbury: On a point of order, Speaker, the member for Warrandyte repeatedly is called by members –

The SPEAKER: What is the point of order?

James Newbury: Can I get to it, please, Speaker?

The SPEAKER: Yes, please. Be succinct.

James Newbury: I am going to get to it. The member for Warrandyte is repeatedly called out for the way she presents in the chamber, but other members like this member are speaking out to anywhere.

The SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

James Newbury: Well, there is clearly a pattern of behaviour in what is happening to the member for Warrandyte.

The SPEAKER: I ask you to resume your seat, member for Brighton. There is no point of order.

Mathew HILAKARI: When members attempt to mislead the house, they are rightly called out, because community members deserve a truthful conversation from this place and they deserve truthful members. They deserve truthful members who will talk to the community about what is real and what is fantasy.

I come back to it: the member for Warrandyte should speak to the member for Bulleen about building infrastructure and building that infrastructure for the growth that they propose through changing the community and the activity centres, including precinct structure plans in communities like mine.

For example, Aviator Fields in the community of Point Cook is getting a new development. That new development is likely to have 20,000 people and no viable north–south roadway that takes people to the freeway, that takes people to the shops and that takes people to the train stations so that they can participate in community life in a wholesome and fulsome way. There was no provision by the member for Bulleen when he was the minister to make sure that there was the infrastructure there. In fact they did quite the opposite. They left a distance of about 5 kilometres with no north–south transport route – and there never will be one because it is all housed in. So we are needing to retrofit this. We are needing to build more infrastructure to make up for this now, and we will do so. Of course this government will do so, because we must, and we must do it before those houses come in. We are doing that at the moment on Central Avenue and Point Cook Road.

I followed on from the member for Malvern earlier, and he has got a certain style, a certain way about him so that you just want to believe him. But he mentioned the plan by Stonnington council, and I just thought there might be a few things that I might pick him up on. He said by 2050 there will be 67,000 new residents in Stonnington – that is a substantial number, there is no doubt about that – and that is more than the 50,000 in the plan by the government for 2050. He was a year out there; it is by 2051 of course. But he was actually completely wrong. He was a mile off. Stonnington’s plan, if you just google it, does not go till 2050, it goes till 2040. That covers between 10 and 15 years, they say, and it covers an extra 12,950 homes for the community of Stonnington, not anywhere near the 50,000. But of course that is people, not homes. So what would 67,000 people in those 12,950 homes look like? Well, it would look like somewhere near five, 5.2 people per home. For those people who know the communities well, you probably get about two, 2 ½ people per home depending on where you live. So what he is actually advocating for is the equivalent of rooming houses across all of Stonnington. I do not think that was his point when he was verballing the council in Stonnington, yet that is where he ended up. He said there would be 14 activity centres. He will be very sad to hear it is actually 15. Again, the style does not match the substance of what he is saying.

What do Stonnington say about themselves? I will take him to page 10 of their plan, and I quote, on activity centres:

The City of Stonnington has an existing network of well-connected and evenly distributed activity centres of varying sizes and roles …

And it goes on to talk about those wonderful activity centres that they do have. They have activity centres like Chadstone of course. They have wonderful places like Toorak Village and Hawksburn Village. They have Chapel Street, Glenferrie Road – all these places that we actually enjoy as a city. So I ask him: please get your facts straight before you stand up in this chamber. Your style makes me want to believe you, member for Malvern, but it has got to be backed up by the substance. And the member for Bulleen – well, isn’t Brian Tee living rent-free? What a wonderful expression of his fears.

I might finish on Ventnor, another thing that lives rent-free. The community was opposed to it, Miley Cyrus was opposed to it, but not Matthew Guy and his Liberal friends, who wanted to make a buck. I will finish it there –

The SPEAKER: Member for Bulleen.

Mathew HILAKARI: Pardon me – member for Bulleen of course. I might finish up there. I support this bill’s swift passage through the house.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the minister at the table, I would like to remind members and those that are listening through the broadcast that contributions in this chamber are to be made through the Chair, not through the many cameras in this building, nor across the other side of the table. I remind members that contributions, irrespective of whether it is government side, opposition side or wherever, are to be made through the Chair.

 Melissa HORNE (Williamstown – Minister for Ports and Freight, Minister for Roads and Road Safety, Minister for Health Infrastructure) (16:55): I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.