Tuesday, 2 August 2022

 Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (12:40): I want to make some commentary about 442–450 Auburn Road and 9 Bills Street, Hawthorn, and there is a planning scheme amendment proposed by the government, C376 Boroondara. This is further to the intense development of this precinct, and the state government is overriding local communities. It is doing this in an absolutely scandalous way. I note the opportunity for the public to put in commentary at this late stage of the process, and I know Ms Crozier and our candidate for Hawthorn, John Pesutto, have been fighting very hard with local community groups to see the protection of local communities here and to see that proper processes are in place. These planning amendments should be done by the local council with local community input. They should not be done by a minister in the city overriding local communities, arrogantly pushing forward on local communities. They should actually involve local communities, and the council should be the decision-maker, including on any future development of the University of Melbourne site; I say the council should be the decision-maker on that site. Further on this, I think people can be very concerned about a VCAT case we ran unsuccessfully to force the government to release the shade diagrams—the actual length of shadows. It is very clear that the shadows cast by the Bills Street properties are very long, very large and very impactful, and that is why Daniel Andrews and his planning ministry would not release them.