Thursday, 14 November 2024

 Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (18:45): (1294) My adjournment is for the Minister for Planning, and the action that I seek relates to the development facilitation program. The government’s own website sets out the objectives of planning in Victoria, which include the fair use and development of land, protection of the environment and securing a pleasant and safe space for Victorians to live, work and enjoy. However, the government has abandoned fair and proper statutory planning processes so it can rush through approvals for renewable projects within four months in an effort to achieve its unrealistic renewable energy targets. As a result the standard planning process and community consultation have been scrapped. The right of third-party appeal to VCAT has been revoked. There are no regulatory safeguards for landholders who host renewable energy generation, transmission or storage. Power is centralised with the Minister for Planning, and there is virtually no avenue of objection.

Once this circumvention of regulatory processes was reserved only for the most essential of developments, such as hospitals and schools. Now it is afforded to renewable energy projects in a brazen display of political favour towards one form of energy renewal. This is a serious regulatory and planning failure that disproportionately impacts regional communities – communities that are forced to bear the burden of the renewable projects in their backyards but are powerless to object to them. This is not indicative of accountable and transparent government. If there is one thing, though, that this minister has been consistent in, it is her Stalinist approach to planning, robbing Victorians of their property rights and making sure there is nothing that they can do to get in her way. She has done this by secretly placing overlays and restrictions on planning and legislating away the rights of landowners to oppose or appeal. It is anti-democratic, and on behalf of my constituents I am calling it out.

Minister, when will this government restore fairness and due process to Victoria’s planning regulations to allow renewable projects to be adequately investigated and scrutinised to ensure the fair development of land and the protection of the environment while securing safe and pleasant spaces for Victorians to live, work and enjoy?

The PRESIDENT: Dr Heath, to avoid the question, instead of saying ‘When will the government restore?’ why don’t you just say, ‘And the action I seek is that the government restores’?

Renee HEATH: Yes, thank you so much, President.