Western Victoria Region
Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (14:46): (650) My question for the Minister for Development Victoria concerns the compulsory acquisition of 32 hectares of land for the Twelve Apostles precinct development. Minister, this acquisition of privately owned land is against the will of the owners and will damage their tourism business. It will cost hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers money despite the family’s willingness to develop tourist facilities privately. Worse still, confiscation ditches normal safeguards requiring prior reservation, a process of public consultation with affected landowners. Such exemption is envisioned for minor acquisitions or for cases of special urgency, yet this is a vast and long-term project. Minister, your coercive and expensive state takeover requires total transparency. Given the long-term planning must clearly have happened already, I ask: will the land acquired by Development Victoria be leased or sold to any third party, for example the Eastern Maar corporation or an overseas entity?