Tuesday, 17 October 2023

Southern Metropolitan Region

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (15:43): (464) My matter is for the attention of the Minister for Planning. A letter to me dated 16 October from the City of Monash lays out a series of issues relating to tree removal controls in the City of Monash. They say they are seeking from me:

… support for Council’s ongoing efforts to protect our suburban environment, maintain and grow our tree canopy … and implement State policy on cooling and greening Melbourne.

This process has been going on for five years. The minister and the government seem not to have made a decision as to how things are to proceed, with the most recent outing on 23 June 2021, when they said they would not proceed with amendment C153. I ask the minister to review this issue and to work with councils, including Monash, Bayside and other councils, to ensure that proper controls are in place to protect tree canopy, heritage trees and the cooling effects that are involved in this. It is completely unsatisfactory for the government to leave cities exposed and to allow the trashing and removal of trees in a damaging manner.