Tuesday, 21 March 2023

Heritage Amendment Bill 2023

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Lizzie Blandthorn:

That the bill be now read a second time.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (15:49): I am pleased to rise and make a contribution to this bill – the Heritage Amendment Bill 2023 – noting at the start the opposition will not oppose this bill. There are a number of parts to this bill that are completely unexceptionable and indeed logical. The purpose of the bill is to amend the Heritage Act 2017 in relation to notices and publication and inspection of documents and hearings. For example, some of the electronic hearing aspects we strongly support and see good sense in. It is also to provide for exclusion determinations and a number of other general amendments.

It does make amendments in relation to notices and publication and inspection of documents. The bill contains a number of notification and publication requirements as well as requirements that certain documents, the Victorian Heritage Register and the Heritage Inventory, be physically available for inspection. The amendments made by this division provide for the Heritage Council and the executive director to comply with these requirements via online publication, provided the Heritage Council and the executive director continue to facilitate inspections by persons on request. Again, these are not disagreed with and follow some of the COVID innovations.

There are number of amendments in relation to hearings being conducted by the Heritage Council. Part 12 of the principal act governs the conduct of the Heritage Council in its hearings. Division 2 of part 2 of the bill makes a number of amendments to part 12 to allow the Heritage Council to conduct hearings electronically. Again, this is innovation that flows out of COVID, and we clearly support these points.

The bill also provides for exclusion determinations. It allows applications to the executive director of Heritage Victoria to exclude a place or object from the Victorian Heritage Register. Applications are likely to be made where there is some possibility that a place or object has some heritage value or where this remains unclear. The process will allow the significance of the heritage place or object to be established and considered as part of the planning stages.

What does this mean and what are the potential pitfalls? It does make sense to bring heritage determinations up-front in a process. It does make sense. It helps local communities. It helps planners. It helps developers to know what they are dealing with. So the concept of bringing these decisions early, bringing the matters into the public domain, debating them early and scoping them in a structured way is relevant and can potentially be helpful. If at that point a part of a site is excluded because the work has been done, that gives a developer greater security going forward. It also means that at that early point local communities are in a position to advocate for areas that they actually do believe deserve proper heritage protections.

I do sound, I might say, a note of caution. If the bill works in the way the government has outlined to the opposition and in the way, being generous, I think might be intended, there is scope for better outcomes, both for the development industry and for local communities in terms of heritage protection. My note of caution is that these exclusion approaches can be used malevolently too. That is my concern. A government that has shown itself prepared to use and misuse planning provisions, to use section 20(4) of the act, to take all control from local communities and to strip away local democratic involvement is not necessarily a government I trust with greater powers and greater machinery and greater mechanism. Just because there is machinery or a mechanism in the act does not mean it will be used properly, and it does not mean it will be used malevolently either. Really often, as with many of these things, it is the intent of the people who are using this machinery.

We have seen with transport project after transport project that the government has overridden local communities. It has taken all power to itself, and it has done so at tremendous cost to local communities, with suboptimal planning outcomes achieved. Often transport projects, as I say, are projects that have merit and are broadly supported by the community. The implementation of a good project can still do significant damage if the processes are wrong – if the override of local communities is wrong.

We have seen, for example – and it is one that I have talked about in this chamber many times before – the Surrey Hills and Mont Albert level crossing issues, where the government lied to the community in 2018 about them getting two stations. They said, ‘There’s a rail-under-road solution,’ which was supported by the community, but then the government came back and said, ‘No, no, we’re only going to build one station instead of two and we’re going to take an area of parkland’ – which is an important area of parkland – ‘and build a station and car park and so forth on that site.’

This again was done using section 20(4) powers and Major Transport Projects Facilitation Act 2009 powers to override. As with a lot of these, the government has been using techniques to exclude proper local involvement. Even councillors are not able to have the proper say that they would want to have and are not able to properly consult with communities. The government is increasingly using gag contracts, gag arrangements, that say if you want to discuss this with the relevant department or agency, you will have to sign a gag order, a gag contract, which will stop you talking to local communities, which will mean you cannot communicate with your community, you cannot put in front of them what is being proposed, to scope that up in a sensible way and come back with sensible suggestions. You do not have that capacity because the material is not able to be shared with a local community.

These techniques are being used right across the state, whether it is the sky rail on the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines or whether it is many of the issues about the proposed Suburban Rail Loop where again gag orders are being used. Again the government has taken more power to itself and is showing every sign that it is going to misuse those extraordinary and almost unconstrained powers. This is my point about bills like this: conceptually, we see that there is value; misapplied, the bill can give much greater power to the government and enable it to act malevolently, enable it to act in a way that is against the community interest and enable it to act in a way that leads to lesser outcomes. A number of concerns were raised about clause 100 in relation to general powers of entry, and that is a legitimate set of questions.

As a couple of my colleagues have said, the bill in many ways is straightforward. It modernises legislation and increases the visibility of the Heritage Act 2017. If I can just make some general comments about heritage, the government is going headlong to strip out many of our heritage zones and to diminish the place of heritage in our city, and we see this across a wide area. In recent months in this chamber I have raised issues, for example, about Hawthorn and elsewhere where important heritage streetscapes have been damaged and left exposed by government failing to act to protect them.

We put forward proposals for greater examination of heritage during the last Parliament. During the parliamentary committee process I sought to move to widen a planning inquiry to ensure that heritage protections and the scope of heritage protections were firmly on the agenda for that public inquiry. That was opposed by the government and defeated. I think that was a mistake. We have got a city that is growing, a city with greater density, a city that is going forward in a number of ways. We need to preserve vegetation and tree canopy. We also need to preserve streetscape and heritage. There needs to be proper open space. We have seen these recent figures. Melbourne at 8 million and 9 million – a huge city – is a city that could lose its heart, could lose its history and could lose the ambience that is what has brought so many people to our city. I say that part of that is protecting heritage. I say that part of it is making sure that there is proper account taken of heritage. This bill is not opposed by the opposition, but we do sound that significant note of caution.

Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (15:59): It is my absolute pleasure to rise today and make my contribution on behalf of this side of the chamber to the Heritage Amendment Bill 2023. The purpose of this bill is to deliver heritage legislative changes first proposed in the lapsed Building, Planning and Heritage Legislation Amendment (Administration and Other Matters) Bill 2022 from the 59th Parliament. Much like the lapsed bill that I just mentioned, this bill will improve the operation of the Heritage Act 2017. The bill provides for online access to notices and inspection of documents and notices, allows applications for exclusion from the Victorian Heritage Register and clarifies and improves the operation of the Heritage Act.

I will come back to these points in greater detail later in my contribution. With the indulgence of those here in the chamber now, let me begin with a bit of a vision, a bit of a language lesson, about the differences as I understand them between place and space, both of which I will be exploring in my contribution. They are both really common and have featured much more prominently in public debate of late, and you would not be blamed so much for using them interchangeably, but there is of course a subtle difference, and I think it is in that difference that we can wrap our heads around what heritage really is all about. We need to ensure that we are best positioned to preserve, celebrate and cherish our state’s rich, colourful and very much living and thriving heritage, because these things are not static.

‘Space’ is what we know as a defined area within the physical space. It is a location; it is a physical point in geography. ‘Place’, however, is entirely something else. It is a space with meaning to people. It is a space with value to people. It is a space where memories happen. It is a space which is important to people and is more than just a location or a point in geography. It is what a space becomes or where it develops or when it is given by people a personality or, later, a spirit – some may call it a vibe. A place is where people can feel a sense of connection to the location – where it resounds with their cultural or personal identity. And I think it is places which are important to and valued by communities and cultures among the people of Victoria which we should preserve, celebrate and cherish, because these places are a significant part of what makes Victorians Victorians. We have to do our best to secure our state’s historic beauty and heritage for future generations to come.

My area of Northern Metropolitan Region is so, so rich and absolutely spilling over with beautiful heritage sites and significant places.

David Davis: A lot of them are being trashed. They’re not being protected like they should be.

Sheena WATT: Well, this one here, right here where we are today, is one place that is being protected and refurbished, and I cannot wait to see what it becomes. When you go outside you only need to walk down Bourke or Collins streets to find many iconic and significant places, like the Old Treasury precinct, like the Royal Arcade and the Block Arcade and – even newer than those – the Rialto. Some love the many splendid terraces and the period architecture of mansions and places of worship not far from here in East Melbourne. It is a very nice view from my office out back to St Patrick’s Cathedral, a very significant place of worship here in Melbourne. Not too far from my new electorate office in Brunswick there are a few of the old Presbyterian church buildings along Sydney Road, now decommissioned. There is John Curtin’s old house along Fallon Street, where he resided in his late 20s, from 1912 to 1915, during his staunchest anti-conscription phase, and there is the Brunswick fire station and flats on Blyth Street, designed by the architects at Seabrook and Fildes in 1936 and constructed between 1937 and 1938, with the red and white bricks and featuring modernist architecture – the first station of the Melbourne Fire Brigade to be designed in this modernist style.

Finally, because I am enjoying this bit of a history lesson here, I am going to indulge myself in the spirit of celebrating the 8-hour day movement in Victoria and Labour Day, which has just passed. I recently joined Minister Kilkenny for a tour and visit of the historic Victorian Trades Hall along Lygon Street in Carlton, where the first stone of Trades Hall was laid with funds from the 8-hour workday movement in Victoria, where its builders set out to build a true workers parliament. Any of us who have been there recently will have seen what a rich heritage it has. Today it is the site of the world’s oldest continuing trade union building, something that many of us on this side are enormously proud of.

Across the road from Trades Hall on Lygon Street is a place known to some. It is an institution to others. It is the John Curtin Hotel. The John Curtin Hotel is awash with history and is particularly close to members associated with the union movement in our state. It has especially long links to Labor’s longest serving Prime Minister Bob Hawke, and we have Victoria’s heritage system to thank for it being saved after fears of demolition late last year, and it today continues its role as a live music venue and a place for a round of beers with mates. I could go on – I could.

David Davis: Tell us about the Corkman.

Sheena WATT: That was a great shame, the Corkman, but all around the inner north and beyond there are so many places. I have just picked the places that sort of come to mind that are very much close to this place, but right across the Northern Metro –

David Davis: The Corkman doesn’t come to mind; it’s not there anymore.

Sheena WATT: Look, it is true.

There are many places of significance to Victorians, and this bill will do its part to ensure we do our very best to preserve that history and heritage.

Now, I am going to spend some time after that declared love of all things Trades Hall and mention that this bill provides for online access to heritage hearings, documents and notices. What does this mean for Victorians? It includes removing the requirements to make documents available in person during a state of disaster, a pandemic declaration or a state of emergency; allows online access to key documents and public notices at any time; and clarifies that the Heritage Council may conduct a hearing online at any time. This bill makes several changes to primary functions within existing legislation to allow for online notices responding to a number of issues which arose during the COVID-19 pandemic.

I will take a moment now to turn to amendments in the bill concerning exclusions from the Victorian Heritage Register, because there is no ability for agencies delivering major government infrastructure projects to confirm the heritage significance of a place or object during the planning stages currently and there is a significant risk that major government infrastructure projects could be disrupted or delayed by the receipt of a new nomination to the heritage register after works have started. This bill makes amendments to allow agencies to apply to the executive director of Heritage Victoria to exclude a place or object from the Victorian Heritage Register. Applicants will be required to provide detailed information to support a case for exclusion, including reasons why the place or object should not be included in the heritage register based on the assessment criteria published by the Heritage Council. This is to provide a more effective way of establishing the heritage significance of a place or object in the early stages of major infrastructure projects. This change will allow a proactive assessment of the significance of affected places and objects to be established by Heritage Victoria and the Heritage Council well before a project begins.

This is absolutely necessary to getting things going and getting things done and getting things built. After all, the Andrews Labor government is embarking on the most ambitious infrastructure investment program this state has ever seen. Front of mind is our government’s $100 billion Big Build program of rail and road works currently underway, which will see the Suburban Rail Loop absolutely transform the way people all around Melbourne metro and beyond travel and has the Melbourne airport rail as a part of it, which will connect Melbourne Airport to Victoria’s regional and metropolitan rail networks so Victorians will not have to worry about airport parking – well, that is a point of great grief for a number of us that have ever had to park at the airport – or hitting up a friend to play driver for airport drop-offs, which too is a cause of great grief, before a trip. We will also see the Level Crossing Removal Project remove 110 level crossings in total – that is 110 dangerous and congested level crossings gone for good across Melbourne by the year 2030, with 67 right now gone as we speak. Along the Upfield line in my area of Northern Metropolitan Region five level crossings have already been removed and are gone for good, with another eight to go by 2027.

There is the West Gate Tunnel, the North East Link and the Metro Tunnel, which will feature five new stations, which are Arden, Parkville, State Library, Town Hall and Anzac, connecting to the Sunbury line via North Melbourne station and to the Pakenham and Cranbourne lines via South Yarra station. The Metro Tunnel will untangle the city loop, Melbourne’s biggest bottleneck, so that more trains more often can run across Melbourne.

There is our ambitious target to build 100 new schools by 2026, of which we will have built and opened 75 – three-quarters and well ahead of schedule – between 2019 and 2024, including the new campus of North Melbourne Primary School. The Molesworth Street campus will open in term 2 of this year, which is in just a few weeks, and I know the students there are absolutely thrilled to bits with the prospect of moving into the new Molesworth Street campus. There is our historic $1.7 billion Melbourne arts precinct transformation project across the Yarra in Southbank, which I understand my colleagues from Southern Metropolitan Region are extraordinarily excited about and which will deliver the NGV Contemporary. This will be Australia’s largest contemporary gallery in a world-class cultural precinct, because this city is the cultural capital of Australia; there is no doubt about it.

Of course I am going to talk about housing and the absolutely landmark and historic $5.3 billion Big Housing Build, which will see more than 12,000 social and affordable homes delivered for Victorians. This is the biggest investment in social and affordable housing by any state or territory ever. Every new social and affordable home built through the government’s investment is a home taking pressure out of the housing market and provides a place to call home for a family in need – which, by the way, also puts downward pressure on overall rental prices in the private market and improves housing affordability. This is the importance of getting on with the job and doing things, not just talking about them, because that is what governments do. That includes making the process of building things and getting on with major projects just a little bit easier. That is what the people of Victoria need – for it to be just a little bit easier. Members of this chamber have raved on about shortages of housing stock and rental units while their colleagues in local government oppose new residential builds and developments. People need places to live.

This bill makes a number of operational improvements, finally, to the Heritage Act, with key changes relating to processes for issuing heritage permits, consents for archaeological sites and entering places and objects into the Victorian register.

To conclude, the amendments will improve heritage outcomes and make it easier for people to engage with heritage in Victoria while ensuring that our government agencies are best placed and resourced to deliver our government’s pipeline of historic infrastructure programs and projects, which will transform the lives of Victorians for the better. There is so much more that I would like to say about it. I will just take a moment to acknowledge my colleague a member for Eastern Victoria Mr McIntosh, who in reading and considering this bill and in his remarks thought that it was worth reflecting on the importance of Aboriginal heritage in our state. While this bill particularly enables a whole lot of works in our state, major projects, of course it has strong linkages to the maintenance and preservation of Aboriginal cultural heritage. So to you, Mr McIntosh, can I just take a moment to thank you for raising that as something that is very dear to your heart. It is something that all Victorians should be enormously proud of. You indeed come from an area with a very rich and vibrant Aboriginal heritage, and I know you will fight very hard for its protection in the years to come. I just wanted to take that moment to acknowledge and thank you for your considered leadership on that, and I look forward to hearing your contributions to this important bill later on and other contributions being made by members of this chamber. Thank you for the opportunity to speak, and I commend this bill to the chamber.

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (16:14): I rise to speak on the Heritage Amendment Bill 2023. I thank Ms Watt for her contribution. I too had a beer or two at the Curtin back in the day when I was on the National Union of Students Victoria executive as the secretary. I had a few drinks with comrades, I will admit, at the Curtin hotel.

This bill seems pretty straightforward and seeks to make some, I think, practical improvements. The bill modernises the legislation and increases public visibility of the Heritage Act 2017 by allowing online access to key documents and notices via the Heritage Victoria and Heritage Council of Victoria websites and public access to council and heritage hearings. It will also be enhanced with a process for hearings to be held using audio and visual links. Due to the nature of the pandemic that we have just lived through, these are pretty commonsense changes. They do seem like a no-brainer.

While we are considering changes to this act and heritage, it does allow me to question the government’s silence on the increasing impact heritage overlays are having on turbocharging the crisis around housing affordability in this state, particularly for young Victorians. In my inaugural speech to this place, in December last year, I spoke about what I believe is my duty as a millennial MP to do what I can in assisting my generation to achieve the great Australian dream of home ownership. As I said then, I believe it is immoral that large sections of our inner cities, flush with good transport, schools, health care and other infrastructure, remain almost flat, with obsolete overlays denying young Victorians a chance to own their own home where they want to live.

As parliamentarians we must at every opportunity reject short-sighted and unfair approaches to housing development – putting strict overlays on places of limited significance. Heritage overlays on sites of significant architectural importance can be done sensibly. On the other hand, the bizarre independent Planning Panels Victoria report into the City of Melbourne’s Carlton heritage review, which said there was a significant justification for applying the heritage overlay on a brutalist-style car park on the corner of Grattan and Cardigan streets in Carlton, is a perfect example of what is wrong with our heritage listing process. They say one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, but why we would want to heritage list a museum to cars is beyond me. Yet we have significant architectural experts lining up to opine on what is no more than a seven-storey pile of concrete. While some in the political class might not want to admit it, we do have a housing crisis. That is not to say – I will say – that significant sites and buildings should not be heritage listed, but it is about striking the right balance, which I do not believe has occurred in the City of Melbourne heritage review.

Defenders of heritage listing and overlays will often argue that listing does not affect development if the facade is maintained, but what we are now seeing are some truly absurd prohibitions on developments. Just consider for a moment Maribyrnong City Council’s decision to quietly place 900 heritage listings on properties in Footscray that include 1960s suburban, single-storey brick veneer and weatherboard homes. If they sound like ordinary houses to you, it is because they are. That is why I am concerned that restrictions are not always about heritage but about using the guise of heritage to stop housing development, and that needs to be called out for what it is: nimbyism. While some might think they are on the side of the angels in fighting a holy war against evil property developers, in large part all they do is send my generation packing to growth areas where infrastructure is already a decade behind growth. I will say: Green-tinged councils have been largely responsible for this, and if we have a gander at the New South Wales election going on at the moment, the teal political party has now become the nimby political party as well.

But amongst my generation there are young Victorians fighting back against encroaching nimbyism, and I want to acknowledge their advocacy: the ‘yimbys’ – those who do not say no but say yes to development ‘in my backyard’. Yimbys represent a generation of potential home owners who find themselves locked out of the market by skyrocketing prices and who rightly point to supply constraints worsened by zealous planning rules and nimby objections. They know the iron laws of supply and demand are too often ignored. They know the only way to improve housing affordability in areas where young Victorians want to live is to boost new housing supply by allowing new builds.

The Melbourne-based yimby Twitter account Heritage: Why? is one tireless campaigner that raises awareness at the cost that burdens and is borne by young people when developments are stifled in inner and middle suburbs. The cost of new public infrastructure necessary to make outer growth areas livable is borne by all of us and is far too often built far too late. Just ask the residents of Kalkallo in the outer north, who continue to be stuck in traffic for an hour and a half every day because of this Andrews Labor government’s lousy planning and lack of upgrades to roads like Donnybrook Road. I am all for residents having their say about what they believe to be inappropriate development. I am not about to go into bat for developers; some deserve the poor reputation that they cop. But we need to understand that it is not developers that are moving into these homes and apartments, it is the next generation and migrants – I will say on Harmony Day – that are looking for a slice of the great Australian dream. There is a cost to stopping development, and it is mostly borne by the young, the aspirational and Victorian new migrants.

I do think we need to think about this. When we get a heritage application, government consults with councils, and councils consult with affected communities, heritage experts and architects, but no-one is consulting with those Victorians who would potentially move in. For every heritage expert, for every architectural expert and for every council infrastructure expert, bureaucrat and local community, there are thousands of young people who would love to live in that neighbourhood – who would love to live in Brunswick, who would love to live in Carlton, who would love to live in Preston – but are being pushed out to growth areas and forced to deal with the lack of amenity and infrastructure that has gone into those growth areas. I think that is pretty immoral. I believe strongly that that is pretty immoral, and that is doing my generation a deep disservice.

I want to talk about an extraordinary analysis released recently by John Burn-Murdoch of the London School of Economics Data Science Institute and the Financial Times. It shows English-speaking countries have faced far worse decreasing housing supply than other developed nations like developed European countries. Those Anglo countries, like ours, that fear and block sensible density in greater numbers have seen a far steeper price rise than developed European countries. I think we should take analysis like this really seriously, because what it shows is basic supply and demand. If you build less of something, you make it rare and you make it more expensive; build more of something and you make it cheaper.

We have some in this place and local government political types, usually from the left of centre, blocking housing developments when they come to local government, while at the same time they have got scores of bureaucrats screaming about housing affordability and for the government to do something. It is like that meme where the person is riding along on a bicycle and puts the bar through their wheel. These are the people blocking sensible development. We know through lots and lots of research and data, like I just mentioned, that if you build more things, more apartments, more houses and more sensible infill development, you make those homes cheaper. That is what I would like to see, certainly, because as I said, I think with the nature of heritage protections at the moment – and I am not against sensible heritage protections – heritage overlays are being used as a political tool to stop development, and that is doing my generation a great disservice.

What we end up doing is sending young people to growth areas, and we are sending young people to growth areas where there is a serious lack of development. I want to talk about my own electorate. There is the GAIC, the Growth Areas Infrastructure Contribution Fund. Currently in the City of Hume there is $74 million unspent by the Treasurer – unspent by the Andrews Labor government. This is one of the biggest growth councils in the state, a place where the government is approving new precinct structure plan after new precinct structure plan, like the Craigieburn West PSP that the council opposed because their very reasonable logic was that you are not upgrading Mickleham Road in the section where you are putting the PSP, so you are going to end up with the exact situation you have in Kalkallo, where Donnybrook Road is not duplicated all the way through. They put 6000 people in a new housing estate, and then they end up waiting an hour and a half in the morning to get out of their estate. Now, Daniel Andrews – I give credit to him – came out and said that he was looking into the Kalkallo issue, but he also said he did not know whose fault it was. He did not know if it was the developer; he did not know if it was the council. The Department of Transport and Planning have blamed the council, but I say to Daniel Andrews: it is your fault.

It is his fault, because the Andrews government should have seen this coming in Kalkallo, but they are repeating the same mistakes with growth just further south, in Hume City Council as well, where there is $74 million left unspent in the Growth Areas Infrastructure Contribution Fund. Daniel Andrews is happy to spend over $1 billion on removing level crossings in Brunswick, and for the people of Brunswick that is great, but at the same time you have got council pushing against sensible five- and six-storey developments in Brunswick. Why can’t people that do not get a say in these developments get a share in that infrastructure spend that the Andrews government is spending on by living in Brunswick, where every level crossing gets removed? I am sure the people of Donnybrook and Mickleham would love that line to be taken out of V/Line and electrified so it is on the Metro network. I am sure they would love the new train station that was promised to them. But it just does not happen in the growth areas, because the Andrews government is not putting in the investment, which again is part of the immoral nature of some of the planning amendments that go on and that I was talking about. We are happy to approve new PSPs, put people in the growth areas, but not willing to back that up with the investment in the growth areas that is required to create a community.

I think where there are existing communities and there is that existing access to amenity we should be welcoming. I am someone who is on the record for a very long time supporting a big Australia. We want to be a welcoming country. I am also a big free trader. If free trade is the belief that the exchange of goods and services across borders is fundamental to our prosperity and if we believe in the free trade of goods, we should also believe in the free movement of migrants with valuable skills. Let us not pull the ladder up behind us. Instead we should helpfully drop it down so the next generation of Australians can secure a home where they want to live.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:29): I also rise to speak on the Heritage Amendment Bill 2023, and in doing so I would like to take a brief moment to acknowledge the contributions of colleagues Ms Watt and Mr Mulholland just now as well. I have got to say, having a point of unity over the Curtin hotel and hearing the word ‘comrade’ from the Liberal side of the chamber was quite a shock for me today.

Georgie Crozier: It was for me too.

Michael GALEA: I am sure it was. This place never ceases to disappoint and surprise us.

This is a very useful bill. The bill proposes changes to the Heritage Act 2017 in Victoria. It will modernise and streamline our heritage application and submission processes whilst preserving our rich cultural heritage, promoting public engagement and awareness and ensuring that future generations can appreciate and learn from what can be very important sites.

One of the main objectives of this bill is to address the challenges that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly regarding access to heritage processes. The bill will seek to improve access to notices and documents held by the Heritage Council and the executive director, ensuring that they are available for inspection not just in person, as is currently the case, but online as well. The amendments in the bill will enable the Heritage Council to conduct its hearings online via audiovisual link, which will increase the opportunities for the public to actually participate in heritage processes and see them firsthand as well and allow for more accessible methods of communication. The proposed amendments will also allow agencies to apply to the executive director of Heritage Victoria to exclude a place or object from the Victorian Heritage Register, ensuring that the significance of the heritage place or object can be established and considered in the planning stages of a project as well.

These reforms will fundamentally address the challenges that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly by improving access to heritage processes. The bill will address the issue of accessing notices and documents held by the Heritage Council and the executive director, ensuring that they are available for inspection both in person and online. This adaption is crucial in accommodating situations such as states of disaster, pandemic declarations or emergencies, during which inspection can be limited to online access. However, when these circumstances do not apply, access must also be provided for individuals who wish to inspect a document or notice in person upon request. The response is based on the experiences faced during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020–21, when restrictions on public movement prevented Heritage Victoria and the Heritage Council from making documents available for the public to view in person at their offices – a requirement under the current Heritage Act. The proposed amendments are designed to allow for the publication and inspection identification requirements to be met in a more modern, flexible manner, which would minimise disruptions associated with social distancing measures, such as those imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the amendments will enable the Heritage Council to conduct its hearings online, via audio or visual link, which will increase opportunities for the public to participate in heritage processes by allowing for more accessible methods of communication. Overall, these changes largely modernise existing processes and enhance public access to statutory documents.

Currently there is no ability for agencies delivering major government infrastructure projects to confirm the heritage significance of a place or object during the planning stages. This creates a significant risk that such projects could be disrupted or delayed by the receipt of a new nomination to the heritage register after work has already started. To tackle this issue, the bill introduces amendments that will allow agencies to apply to the executive director of Heritage Victoria to exclude a place or object from the Victorian Heritage Register. Applicants will be required to provide detailed information to support a case for exclusion, including reasons why the place or object should not be included in the heritage register based on the assessment criteria, which will be published by the Heritage Council. Applicants will need to ensure that the information in any such application is complete, as even if an exclusion is granted, a new nomination for inclusion on the heritage register can still be accepted if new and significant information is received. Applications will be reviewed by the executive director and assessed against the same threshold as applications for inclusion. Any such decision to grant an exclusion will be made public, and anyone with a real and substantial interest will be able to request that the Heritage Council then review the decision. If the executive director is completely satisfied that the place or object does not and will not meet the threshold for inclusion in the Victorian Heritage Register, the exclusion application would then be granted. However, if the place or object does have the potential for inclusion, it would become a nomination for inclusion and be progressed accordingly. These changes will allow the significance of the heritage place or object to be established and considered in the early planning stages of a project. If a place or object is then excluded from the heritage register, no new nominations will be able to be made for five years unless significant new information is received.

Consultation has taken place for this bill with heritage bodies, non-government organisations and other government agencies, including the Major Transport Infrastructure Authority, the Heritage Council of Victoria, Australia ICOMOS, the National Trust of Australia Victorian branch and the Royal Historical Society of Victoria. Consulted parties supported the amendments as safeguards to ensure that recognition and protection of our cultural heritage will not be undermined.

It is important to also emphasise some key changes in this bill that relate to the processes for issuing heritage permits, consents for archaeological sites, and entering places and objects into the Victorian register. These amendments will not only improve heritage outcomes but also make it easier for people to engage with heritage in Victoria. For instance, the amendments remove the requirement for the executive director to obtain consent from the Heritage Council before serving a written notice to show cause to an owner. This will expedite action when there is evidence that a property is at risk from neglect. Furthermore, the bill will enable minor permit amendments without requiring the applicant to pay a fee, allowing for works or activities proposed by the application to be less harmful to a registered place or object or to deliver improved heritage outcomes. Furthermore, in order to increase certainty for owners, these amendments will ensure that they are notified of decisions sooner and within set time frames. Moreover, these amendments will make it easier for communities and stakeholders to participate in heritage processes. The provisions for online access will facilitate community members to ensure that their views are heard. Additionally, changes in this bill will prevent notification of permits and other key documents over the Christmas period when community members may be less able to engage. The bill also grants additional time for responsible authorities and municipal councils to make submissions in the permit process. By incorporating these points, the bill seeks to modernise the heritage process and make it more accessible for all stakeholders, thereby preserving Victoria’s rich cultural heritage while promoting public engagement and awareness.

When it comes to protecting heritage sites across Victoria, Labor’s record is clear. Through the Living Heritage grants program the government has provided $60 million in funding since 2016–17 to protect Victoria’s significant heritage places. This funding has supported 185 conservation projects across the state, of which 130 such projects have already been completed. Examples of these conservation efforts include the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre, the Ballaarat Mechanics Institute and the Hamilton Botanic Gardens. Moreover, the government has strengthened protections for buildings with local heritage protections following the shameful and illegal demolition of the Corkman hotel. These measures demonstrate the government’s commitment to preserving Victoria’s cultural heritage, ensuring that future generations can appreciate and learn from these important sites. The bill, with its proposed amendments and improvements, aims to further this commitment and make it easier for people to engage with our heritage in Victoria.

The Andrews Labor government also has a strong commitment to managing the state’s growth whilst ensuring that Victoria’s best features are protected and enhanced. We do, unfortunately, know the opposition’s record of ignoring local communities: cutting necessary services and cutting infrastructure projects and a general failure of planning policy. The Andrews Labor government, in contrast, over the last decade has been focused on delivering the best outcomes for local communities. In metropolitan Melbourne the government is guided by the existing planning blueprint Plan Melbourne 2017–2050, which supports jobs, housing and transport whilst building on our legacy of distinctiveness, livability and sustainability. The establishment of nine regional partnerships ensures that local communities play a central role in planning for their region’s future. The government has also protected and enhanced Victoria’s best features by implementing stronger protections for heritage buildings and introducing new protection against overdevelopment across sensitive parts of Melbourne and Victoria, including important landscapes like the Surf Coast, the Bellarine, the Bass Coast and the Macedon Ranges.

The government is also streamlining the planning process by cutting unnecessary red tape, increasing Victoria’s housing supply and creating thousands of jobs. In 2022 planning made a significant contribution to the Victorian economy with various project approvals, such as the development facilitation program, the Big Housing Build program, the Big Build project approvals, construction activity approvals and renewable energy permits. Victoria is leading the nation in the supply of new homes, with about 62,000 new homes approved for construction in 2022 alone. This surpasses other states like New South Wales and Queensland, which had 53,000 and 35,000 approvals respectively.

There is of course always more to be done, and this is a government that is intent on doing that work and delivering better planning outcomes for all Victorians, including new home buyers and people trying to enter the market. The opposition’s planning record has been characterised by prioritising developers over local communities, with a laissez-faire approach on issues such as Ventnor, Fishermans Bend and other skyscraper projects which have actually left communities worse off. There is definitely a place for further supported development and growth, but I would also note, to Mr Mulholland’s point, that it was actually the previous Liberal government that last expanded the urban growth boundary. We are doing the work, though, in our outer suburban areas and in our inner suburban areas as well, where there should be more appropriate development. We have unfortunately seen some councils – I do agree with you, Mr Mulholland – who have championed very, very sensible planning ideas and then turned around and opposed them in their own backyard, and I join you in saying that is not enough. We need to have our councils working together in the interests of all Victorians to provide more houses in the right, appropriate places, and in those outer suburban areas too. Like Mr Mulholland, I look after an outer suburban area, and I am very happy to report that we are doing that work in those growth areas. Quarters Primary School in Cranbourne West opened just this year. There are new schools being built all the time. In every part of the city and every part of the state there are new schools being built.

We have also been doing the work with level crossing removals. In a few years time every remaining level crossing on the Pakenham line will be removed, for example, including the ones in my region at Station Street in Beaconsfield and at Webb Street in Narre Warren too. We are doing that work. Near the Station Street, Beaconsfield, one there is going to be a huge new development within the existing urban growth boundary at Minta in Berwick. The Level Crossing Removal Project there will support that new development in time, as the houses are now starting to be built. We are also extending the Pakenham line to Pakenham East to support the thousands and thousands of new homes in that estate. This is a government that gets on with doing the work to support growing areas as well as established ones too.

Furthermore to that and in closing as well, the Heritage Amendment Bill 2023 will streamline and modernise the heritage process. It will do so whilst ensuring that Victoria’s rich cultural heritage is preserved for future generations. These changes increase opportunities for the public to participate in heritage processes by allowing for more accessible methods of communication. They will largely modernise existing processes and enhance public access and accountability when it comes to heritage statutory documents. So if anyone, for example, lives a fair way out from the CBD in places like Pakenham or Kalkallo or even further out in the regions as well or has other accessibility requirements which preclude them from making the journey into the city to view such documents, they will be able to do so under the changes in this legislation.

The amendments in the bill will improve access to Heritage Council documentation and notices for all Victorians, a commonsense measure that will allow for greater engagement by all members of the Victorian community, those interested in heritage and those trying to get into the first home owners market as well, and it will improve heritage outcomes at the same time. The government’s commitment to preserving Victoria’s cultural heritage and planning for the state’s growth is demonstrated in this bill. The Heritage Amendment Bill 2023 is a very important step towards a more modern and accessible heritage process in Victoria. Its proposed changes will benefit existing Victorians and future generations of Victorians as well, and it is for those reasons and the ones I have previously gone into that I commend this bill to the house.

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (16:43): I rise to speak on the Heritage Amendment Bill 2023. I was going to make just some brief comments. It is an important bill because it is talking about heritage protections and streamlining services and how it will improve the Heritage Act 2017 with respect to notices, publication and inspection of documents as well as conduct of hearings and exclusion determinations.

Mr Galea was making a very good contribution, but he did go off on a tangent a bit, and he was again blaming the Liberal government. The Labor government have been in power in this state for nearly two decades, and I have got to raise the point that for the last eight or nine years the issues around heritage protection in my area of Southern Metropolitan Region have been very significant. There are some tremendous community groups out there who have just had no joy with various ministers for planning, who have just washed their hands of some very serious issues. You say the rich cultural heritage is preserved in this state – well, it is not in some areas.

In some of the areas in my particular electorate the councils have no say, because your government is overriding their ability to have a say. That is happening across Southern Metropolitan Region. So to say that you have done such a great job and slap yourself on the back and say, ‘We’re the only ones that recognise rich cultural heritage,’ is absolute baloney. I want to just place on record the number of people that have come to my office, to the office of Mr Davis – he has outlined the coalition’s position very clearly on this – and to the office of the Leader of the Opposition Mr Pesutto, the member for Hawthorn. In these areas there is significant cultural heritage. It has to be looked at. There is also Mr Southwick down in Caulfield, where they have been overridden as well. They have not been listened to by the government.

The government might like to say that they are the ones to protect the heritage of Victoria, but I have to say, when the Metro Tunnel went down St Kilda Road and destroyed that magnificent boulevard of trees, there were things that we did to try and get heritage in respect of that aspect. I know it is not a building, but it is a part of Melbourne – a very significant part of Melbourne. It was just destroyed, the magnificent heritage of those trees and that boulevard. That is part of planning. That is part of our rich cultural heritage. This government bulldozed trees, so your record is not as rosy as you might like to think, Mr Galea.

Michael Galea: Do you want development or not?

Georgie CROZIER: Well, you can do both. You bulldozed trees down St Kilda Road, and it destroyed many aspects of that magnificent boulevard. It is a gateway to Melbourne. And that is what happened. If you had done the project properly, you could have dug a bit deeper and preserved them. That is what we found out. You were not in the Parliament at the time.

But I want to return to what Mr Mulholland said as well and the very important issue facing many of his friends and constituents, housing availability. And if anyone recognises this, it is Mr Mulholland. He has done a lot of work on this. He understands it very, very well. This government has been very sloppy on this and has not done the work. We have got a housing crisis. There is a lack of availability for young people to get into the market, and that is largely based on state government decisions. So let us not think that government decisions in this very important area around housing affordability do not matter; they do. And we need more young people to be able to aspire to and access their own homes – to have their own homes. It is very, very important. I want to just make note of that important point that Mr Mulholland raised in this debate.

So just to get back to it, this is a very simple bill. It allows the Heritage Council of Victoria to hold hearings electronically. It allows for greater accessibility and ensures disruptions are minimised if there are restrictions on meeting face to face – and don’t we know how face-to-face meetings through the COVID-19 pandemic were disrupted. It is very pleasing that we are not going back to that. It is a sensible measure to be able to have those hearings electronically.

The bill permits the executive director of Heritage Victoria to exclude places and objects from the Victorian Heritage Register. Applications in relation to this could occur where it is unclear if a place or object has heritage significance, and the bill allows for consideration of this during the planning stages of a project. I go back to my point about St Kilda Road and trees – a place that is very significant. The planning stages of the Metro Tunnel were not undertaken properly and as a result we have lost that magnificent boulevard as it was.

I will conclude my remarks by saying again that planning is a very important aspect. It is important to everyone. Again, it is very important to many constituents within my electorate of Southern Metropolitan Region, and legislative provisions that allow for easier access to documents and meetings and generally improve transparency around planning decisions that affect our neighbourhoods and local amenity are greatly welcomed.

But I say again: the lack of ability for some of the councils within my area to have a say about government projects, I think, shows the nature of this government and how they say one thing but do another. Community consultation is incredibly important; having the ability to have that is incredibly important. We have seen too many times where the government has just overridden council and not provided proper processes. With those few words, as Mr Davis and others have said, we will not be opposing this bill.

Lee TARLAMIS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:50): I move:

That debate on this bill be adjourned until the next day of meeting.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until next day of meeting.