Wednesday, 14 May 2025

Motions

Victoria Planning Provisions

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (15:22): I move:

That this house:

(1) notes that planning scheme amendments VC257 and VC267 change the Victoria Planning Provisions and that:

(a) planning scheme amendment VC257 was gazetted on 25 February 2025 and tabled in this house on 4 March 2025;

(b) planning scheme amendment VC267 was gazetted on 6 March 2025 and tabled in this house on 18 March 2025; and

(2) pursuant to section 38(2) of the Planning and Environment Act 1987, revokes amendments VC257 and VC267 to the Victoria Planning Provisions.

I am pleased to rise and make a contribution to this debate. This is an important motion, and it is an important motion because it is about the future of our city. It is about the future of our state. We have very significant population growth. The state government has set dwelling targets – in my view unrealistic and unthoughtful dwelling targets – for many municipalities. Parallel with that, it has brought into place a series of planning scheme amendments, a veritable cavalcade of amendments that have come in quite quickly without proper discussion, without proper engagement with local communities and without proper engagement with the municipal bodies that have got the most important oversight over those pieces of land in our state.

The state government says that it wants to create more housing, and that is an agreed objective of all in this chamber, I think. Indeed it is an agreed objective certainly of all on the committee that recently looked at these planning scheme amendments. We do want to see more housing in this state, but the question is: will these planning scheme amendments achieve that housing, which would help in particular young people by providing more housing opportunities, or would it simply lead to a set of developments that are expensive homes that are not accessible to younger Victorians and homes that come at the expense of our municipalities and the heritage of our state? Much of the evidence we heard at the inquiry suggested it would also come at the expense of significant vegetation and tree canopy.

The truth of the matter here is that the economics is what has governed whether housing is available on one hand and the state government’s failure to bring forward a range of options that could have been brought forward has crimped the supply on the other. The state government, in a panic after almost 11 years in government, has now decided that there is not enough supply. To achieve more supply, they are now taking draconian, authoritarian steps and doing so in a way that is fundamentally at odds with our history in this state, fundamentally at odds with the understanding of how democracy should work and fundamentally at odds with good land use planning.

What the state government seeks to do through the three amendments was examined in the important inquiry – the short, sharp inquiry into VC257, VC267 and VC274 and in effect GC252 as well, which is an underpinning and a linchpin to implement many of the aspects in the other planning amendments – and what the inquiry heard was very convincing evidence that the government had not thought this through carefully. We heard convincing evidence that they had not properly engaged with each local council. We heard convincing evidence that they had not even engaged properly with the standing advisory committee on activity centres. We heard convincing evidence that they had not understood what these changes could do to heritage. We heard convincing evidence that they had not understood what could happen with respect to tree canopy and vegetation and the quality of life and livability in many of our suburbs.

The state government has declared 10 large activity centres. These were in two parts: the central hub, where there has been longer term discussion with councils and communities, and which are in general much less contested; and the so-called walkable catchment or the transport zone or however it is described, a much larger penumbra around these centres, which was sprung on councils and communities late last year. Councils and communities were not provided the detail that is required. They were not provided the opportunity to consult and make different points about these matters. I say very clearly that the state government have overstepped the mark in this regard and that they have gone too far. The one purpose of the inquiry was to put a spotlight on these matters, and the inquiry certainly did bring a spotlight onto these matters. The committee, chaired by Mr Ettershank admirably, was a committee that looked at these things quite closely. We had three days of hearings, hundreds of submissions and detailed evidence from a range of planners as well – very experienced planners, who made it clear that the state government was fundamentally on the wrong track here.

Many of us understand the opportunities that are here for closer development, for more thoughtful density, but that is not what is being put forward with these amendments. It is not what the government has promulgated with these amendments. What the government has sought to do is to impose this and to press forward. Local communities are outraged. I know in my area, in Southern Metropolitan Region, I have closely engaged with my community across many of these activity centres – the 10 large ones and the larger number of 50 additional ones that are on the way as well. The state government has loaded many of them, let us be clear, into Liberal electorates. This is a political step. Let us also be clear that they are doing this in a way that will put at risk our livability and the quality of life in many of our suburbs.

What I think will occur is there will be a forced densification in an unsophisticated way. What we will see is a loss of vegetation, a massive clearance of vegetation and a clear-felling of massive areas of streetscape and the vegetation on private land. This will intensify massively with the arrangements available in 267 and the arrangements that will be oversighted in the activity centres by 257 and GC252. What will happen is where now a development might occur on a 1000- or 1200-square-metre block of land, all the trees will be cleared from that land. Overwhelmingly, what happens is a lot of the trees are cleared.

The state government is going to remove any leverage from councils and communities. The intention is very, very clearly to make sure that nobody can appeal and nobody can actually object, because a lot of this will be done as of right and a lot of this will be done where the ability to appeal even to VCAT is restricted to matters of, in the case of 267, whether the code assessment requirements have been met. It becomes a tick-a-box scheme with very sharply defined opportunities to develop, and if you tick those boxes, you can develop and off you go. The council and the community can have no say about a significant tree, about the tree canopy, about heritage. All of those matters are squarely in the gun from the government’s perspective here.

It is true that there is no guarantee that major heritage-protected assets will be able to withstand the push here. There is no guarantee that heritage streetscapes will be protected in any way at all here. That is actually the truth of the matter, and that is very clear. I invite people to read Heritage Council Victoria’s submission, which is attached to the minority report of the Liberals in this case, and also in the main report there are some quotes from the Heritage Council. Those quotes are very clear. It is very clear that the Heritage Council do not believe that the protections are sufficient – nor does the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, nor do many others who gave evidence to this inquiry.

The state government has sought to counterpose this and say, ‘You can have more houses for young people, or those who are opposed to that would stop that.’ Of course there is no such decision in this, because the state government’s proposal, on the one hand, will not deliver the choices for young people. They will not deliver the requirements. It is very clear that the taxation regime and the lack of land supply in many other areas will not allow the provision of sufficient properties coming through and will not provide the supply of land that is required. In our report we point out that there are alternative land options here. Working with councils in the activity centres, in these municipalities in the middle suburbs that the state government wants to target and wants to roll over, is the preferable way. We will get better outcomes, and each of the councils has actually developed plans for additional housing in their area, significant additional housing.

It is also true that the state government has missed many opportunities. We heard from the City of Casey, on the edge of the city, about the large precinct structure plan that has been drifting without support for seven years now; maybe 20,000 dwellings could come forward with that, with the proper support from state government and councils. At the same time we look at areas like Fishermans Bend, where the state government has drifted and been unable to bring to market opportunities in the area, where up to 80,000 dwellings could be sited. The state government has brought forward nothing in its 11 years in power – almost nothing.

One of the sites that we mentioned was the Maribyrnong site. There are clearly opportunities there. If the state –

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

David DAVIS: It is Commonwealth land, and the Commonwealth should clean it. The Commonwealth, as a tenant that has left it in a dirty way, should clean it, and the Commonwealth should give it back to the state and allow whichever state government is in power to open up that land – 128 hectares.

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

David DAVIS: That is exactly right. The Commonwealth should fix it. The Commonwealth has left that despoiled, and it is actually disgraceful. If it was a private landowner, the EPA would have thrown the book at them. That is what would have happened. But because it is the Commonwealth, they all think they can just sit on it, and the truth is it should be a political campaign across this chamber to say, ‘Clean the land and bring it back into state ownership.’ We can build some public housing there. We can actually build additional housing. We can add parkland.

There are many opportunities across the city for a creative government to work with councils and communities to actually have more opportunities and more land and more dwellings come forward, which will assist not just young people but everyone. That is what we have got to do. The solution here is not overriding councils, it is not overriding communities, it is actually working with them. It is working with them; that is what we have got to be doing here. It is very clear that in the middle suburbs, which the state government wants to target, there are many planning permits that have been provided which have not been actioned – thousands and thousands across the middle-ring suburbs, tens of thousands of permits that have not been actioned.

It is the economics behind this that have made it unsuccessful in terms of new developments coming forward, so the economics have also got to be dealt with. We actually need to make sure that the state government brings some of the tax off these things. Tax is a big part of it. There is no question that the property industry is correct when it says that more than 40 per cent of the cost of a new dwelling coming onto market is actually tax; huge amounts of taxation are incorporated in the cost of housing. If you make housing unaffordable, it is actually hard to bring forward a supply in the volume that is needed for those, particularly for younger people, who would seek to buy that housing, so we need to have some of the taxation reduced on some of our key sites.

The state government in the last day has announced that they are going to give another one year for the off-the-plan exemption. The off-the-plan exemption was a very helpful way of kicking things forward. For history reasons I pulled out the 1994 news release from then Treasurer Stockdale, who announced an off-the-plan scheme and actually did not limit it to one year. This government limited it to one year, and now they have extended it for a second year. So you have got this piecemeal approach, and the development industry of course are not going to be able to bring forward what is required there.

When you think about affordable housing, the state government has not got the proper plans in place for affordable housing – to get the outcomes that are required there – either. So we say the state government has got this wrong. We say that instead of rolling over councils and communities the state government should step back. These revocations are an opportunity for them to look at this afresh and to work with councils and communities. We do not need a one-size-fits-all approach right across the state. What we actually want is a particularised approach where you actually work with councils and communities in particular areas. They are all different – they have different solutions – but in most of these areas there are tracts of land that can be brought to market, there are tracts of land that can be developed, there are tracts of land that are appropriate for affordable housing as well. All of that should occur.

The truth of the matter is that a revocation is a very clear signal, and the point is –

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: Acting President, on a point of order, could we just have a little bit of silence? Is that possible?

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): I uphold that point of order. Mr Davis to continue unassisted.

David DAVIS: I have only got a minute or so left to go, but I want to say that we did not come lightly to this position of seeking to revoke these planning amendments. We think that actually that is the least preferable way, but the state government appear intransigent, and it seems to be the only way that we can send a signal to the community and to the government that many in the chamber and many in the community are not happy with the approach they have adopted. Either house alone, in the Planning and Environment Act 1987, retains the power to revoke in whole or in part planning scheme amendments. Five of those have happened since 2009. These are important steps, and on some occasions the government of the day has actually worked with councils and communities to deliver a better outcome after a revocation, and that could happen here.

I would encourage the government to actually work with councils and communities to find particular solutions in each individual area where there is more opportunity for housing to come forward but so that that is done in a way that respects the vegetation. For goodness sake, we have got a city that is getting more dense and we have got enormous population growth, and of course if you tear down tracts of trees – and heritage trees at that – you actually end up with more concrete, more brick and more heat. This is not a sensible way to go forward. At the same time we have got major heritage assets that are at risk, and these will be rolled over under the government’s current proposals – the Heritage Council makes that clear. There will be destruction. Melbourne will be vandalised. We will lose our Marvellous Melbourne, and that is an outrage.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (15:42): I am pleased to rise to speak on this motion. Having spent quite a while with Mr Davis recently as a member of the select committee inquiring into the planning scheme amendments that are the subject of this revocation motion, it is quite clear that he is passionate about this. It is quite clear that he has some pretty clear views about what he wants to see. In his contribution today he spoke about the future of our city and the future of our state. I want us in this debate to think about not only our city and our state but the future of Victorians – the future of people who actually live here or want to live here – because planning is not about buildings, it is not about walls, it is not about surfaces; it is about people and how people can live in communities that they love and how people can find a home near their family, near where they went to school, near their communities, near their sporting clubs, so that they can spend more time in the places that make them happy and less time commuting 20, 30, 40 minutes on a Sunday to catch up with their parents for lunch. That is what we should remember as being the most important part of a debate about planning rules. Yes, it is important that we listen to the planners and the planning experts and that we listen to municipal authorities, but we have got to remember why we are doing it. Why we are doing it is to give more Victorians, particularly younger Victorians, the opportunity to own a home in the communities that they grew up in and that they want to spend their time in.

We are living in a world where young Victorians in particular are being locked out of the housing market, and we know that one of the biggest barriers that we have got to building more homes for Victorians is our planning rules, and we need to change that. Driving that change has been the heart of the Allan Labor government’s housing agenda. The planning rules, the planning amendments and the planning changes that are the subject of this revocation and that were the subject of the committee inquiry are one of the mechanisms that we have. They will not solve the problem on their own, but they are an important ingredient, and they are an important foundation in delivering that policy goal of making sure that more Victorians have an opportunity to call Victoria home.

There are a couple of specifics in the context of Mr Davis’s contribution that I want to get to. He talked a little bit about the economics of this – and I will come to that – and he talked a little bit about tree canopy and vegetation. I do think, despite its limitations in terms of the length of time that we had, our select committee did have quite an engaged and thoughtful process in examining some of these issues. I do thank the chair Mr Ettershank for the way he conducted this inquiry under some short timeframes and the other members of the committee for the way that we all, I hope, conducted ourselves to try to get to some of these questions. One of them was this issue of tree canopy and vegetation – that came up as being one of the issues. Legitimate concerns were raised about the application of the new rules.

I think it is important to see these planning scheme amendments in the context of the broader Plan for Victoria that we have and the minister has released. Plan for Victoria sets a 30 per cent tree canopy target right across our urban areas, including on both public and private land. So in the Townhouse and Low-rise Code, VC267, we have set a new standard through this code for tree canopy coverage on new projects assessed under this particular planning pathway. But we are also going to protect significant trees that are over 5 metres tall by requiring a planning permit so that existing trees will be protected and added to our canopy target, and we will also continue to support the cooling and greening Melbourne initiative, the metropolitan urban forest strategy, the More Trees for a Cooler, Greener Westprogram and the suburban parks program, which is planting hundreds of thousands of trees across metropolitan Melbourne. There is much more to do to make sure that Melbourne retains its tree canopy and retains its vegetative cover, and we are going to be working nonstop with councils, industry and other important stakeholder groups to achieve our 30 per cent tree canopy target. It was one of the critical issues that was raised in the course of the inquiry and is something the government acknowledges, and I hope that contribution helps address some of the concerns that were raised in the course of the inquiry on that question.

I want to come briefly to this point about economics that Mr Davis raised, because he said that there was a problem with the economics that underpin this. All we heard from the economists who appeared at our inquiry was that the benefits of these changes in terms of the transformation of the economics of development were significant. I do not want to quote at length people from the Grattan Institute or the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia as just one, but it was very clear. What CEDA said in particular and what the Housing Industry Association and developers said in particular was that one of the big issues with the economics of bringing more houses to market is that time is cost in development. The extra time that is taken through the way the planning scheme operates is increasing the costs of development due to holding costs. Appeals and the way that decisions can take extended periods of time, largely to get to, in many instances, very similar decisions, are some of the key drivers of the cost of housing development in this state, and in terms of providing more consistency and more certainty over the rules that apply right across the metropolitan area, the evidence that our committee heard was that that will help increase the productivity of the construction sector with respect to these new homes and that both the scale and the certainty should help put downward pressure on those costs. That is the economics that we are talking about here.

We do not have, sadly, a lot of time to go through all of the issues individually, about what was raised and some of the issues that are here. It is pretty clear that our housing agenda and these critical planning reforms are the change that we need to help deliver for more Victorians. But like all good approaches to public policy they are not and should not be ‘set and forget’. This is always – always – going to be an iterative process, and it is going to be crucial as these planning reforms roll out to keep reviewing, checking in and evolving over time to make sure that our reforms are working as they are intended. The government is very clear on this point: where we need to make changes, we will. That is why we have already set up the technical working groups to help design the reforms, and we are going to use them – we are using them – to continue to ensure that the reforms that we have enacted are operating as they are intended. That is how we approach good public policy in this state, and that is exactly the approach that the government is taking here. We have been engaging with councils since these reforms were first announced in September 2023. More than 18 months later, that engagement continues.

To come back to the original point, these reforms are about making sure that more Victorians have the opportunity to have a home in the communities they love, to be close to their families, to be close to the schools where they went to school so that their kids can go to school there as well and to be close to the community groups that they are a part of. These changes help give them that opportunity, and that is exactly why the government is wholeheartedly supporting them today.

Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (15:53): Let me be clear at the outset: the Greens support the government’s vision for more housing, for more affordable housing and for increased density close to infrastructure and services. It just makes sense. We also recognise that there are many aspects of the planning system that could be improved, including to achieve these aims. We are not alone in supporting these things. Councils, planning experts and a substantial proportion of the community do as well, as was highlighted in the recent select committee inquiry. However, the planning scheme amendments that are the subject of this motion do have some serious problems, which I will go on to highlight.

Before that, I want to state that revocation is not going to solve these problems, as much as I know many members in here perhaps, and certainly in the community, hoped that they would. Revocation as a tool is a very blunt instrument; it is like one big eraser. Unlike a piece of legislation coming before the Parliament, there is no opportunity to amend or replace things with preferred options. There is simply no nuance. Not everything about these planning changes necessarily deserves to be revoked. Further, and perhaps most importantly, revocation does not mean that the government will go back to the drawing board, suddenly realise the error of its ways and come up with something better or different. In fact we have been advised that they would simply reintroduce the same planning scheme amendments immediately. Again, unlike legislation, there is nothing in revocation of regulation that compels the government to do anything differently. This presents the possibility of perpetual cycles of gazettal and revocation, which I do not think anyone would believe suits anyone’s interests. So we will not be supporting this motion, despite having a lot of sympathy for the reasons that it came about.

The select committee inquiry that was recently held – an inquiry process that the Greens strongly supported and participated in – shone a spotlight on some of the most significant planning changes this state has seen. What we learned through the process is that consultation with core stakeholders was dismal. Community members who participated in the various so-called engagement sessions felt that they were tokenistic. What was especially concerning was the failure to properly consult with those who are required to administer the planning system – namely, local councils and expert planners. For example, with respect to VC267, also referred to as the townhouse code, councils and independent planning experts did not learn of an extensive list of very consequential exemptions until after the planning scheme amendment was gazetted.

These ResCode changes essentially create a tick-a-box list of requirements that a development must meet, and if they do, they are considered deemed to comply and a council must issue a permit. Such developments are exempt from considering local policies, like environmentally sustainable design requirements, vegetation and tree canopy policies and known flood risks that have not had overlays finalised. They are also exempt from key requirements of the Environment and Planning Act 1987, like having to consider significant environmental or social impacts of a development. These local planning policies and the requirements under the act exist for a reason. They have evolved over a long period of time to reduce risks to human health and the environment of developments, as well as to ensure better development outcomes for communities. There is widespread concern about the impact of these pretty extraordinary exemptions, including potentially unintended consequences.

Since VC267 also exempts relevant developments from third-party appeal rights, ensuring that these changes are thoroughly consulted on and broadly agreed upon by councils and communities prior to their implementation should have been essential. That this was not done is a significant failure on the part of the government. We believe that it is possible to streamline planning processes without losing community say – for example, by having some deemed-to-comply provisions which are developed by the local councils and communities themselves. We urge the government to commit to a review of these planning scheme amendments, particularly VC267, in consultation with councils and communities and to amend them based on the feedback received. I was heartened to hear from Mr Batchelor that the government does not see these changes as set and forget and does intend to continue to consult. We will have to see in the fullness of time whether that is the case.

We are also very concerned about the failure of these changes to ensure that we have climate-resilient housing and communities. As the climate warms we need to ensure more climate-resilient housing, both at the individual housing and building level, and in terms of the broader urban landscape. This is not only important for people’s health and comfort; it is also important for people’s cost of living. Running an energy-inefficient house costs a lot. So much of the existing housing stock in Victoria is, quite frankly, appallingly built for our existing climate. We have leaky, poorly oriented housing made of poor materials. It is freezing in winter and stifling in summer. Individuals and governments are spending a fortune trying to retrofit them to improve efficiency. Why on earth wouldn’t we take the opportunity to get it right at the planning stage?

VC267 effectively reduces the existing environmentally sustainable design standards in the local government areas that cover about two-thirds of Victoria’s population and two-thirds of Victoria’s development activity. Add to that the potential that the new ResCode creates the potential for old-school moonscaping, which is where developers just clear blocks of all trees and vegetation, and we are possibly setting up our state to have hotter houses in hotter streets through these planning scheme amendments. I would strongly recommend the blog of Stephen Rowley, a planning expert who presented at the inquiry, to understand the impact of these changes on tree canopy and vegetation.

Additionally, the planning changes fail to take into account infrastructure provision and future requirements beyond major transport access – for example, schools and healthcare facilities – as they override much of the strategic planning undertaken by councils to determine the most appropriate locations for new housing and do not include a requirement to ensure appropriate sequencing of infrastructure and housing delivery. Once again we urge the government to take on board the feedback from the inquiry, review these planning scheme amendments and ensure that we are not locking generations of people into housing that is costly to run, poorly designed and lacking access to essential local infrastructure.

Finally, these changes are also a huge missed opportunity to deliver more affordable housing. Despite the accompanying rhetoric, these planning reforms are not an affordable housing strategy. We heard plenty of evidence, including from the housing and development industry themselves, questioning whether the changes would even deliver more supply, let alone more affordable supply, especially for those on low and very low incomes. Planning levers can be used to deliver affordable housing, like having mandatory requirements for proportions of social or affordable housing in all new developments. With the right settings this can be a very effective strategy, and it is one that has long been advocated for by those working in housing and homelessness support services as well as unions.

In the inquiry we heard some evidence of a concept called filtering, which is where higher income households buy newer, more expensive housing, leaving older, cheaper housing for those on lower incomes to buy. Eventually everyone gets a house they can afford under this theory. It is a bit like trickle-down economics; we will call it trickle-down housing. While there is some evidence that was provided from overseas contexts that this may occur, in the Australian context there is very little evidence to support this notion, and that is partly due to some really important contextual differences, including the fact that a lot of old stock in Australia gets renovated or rebuilt. Curiously, a paper highlighting this lack of evidence was provided by the Department of Transport and Planning themselves in response to a question on notice that I asked about evidence the government had relied upon to support their claims of affordability.

We are in a housing crisis, and the government should be pulling every lever available to it to address this. These planning changes could have been one such lever, and we ask the government to urgently revise the planning scheme amendments to provide certainty in terms of affordability outcomes rather than relying on the market alone to deliver this.

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (16:02): I rise to speak in support of Mr Davis’s motion that he has brought before the house today in relation to planning scheme amendments VC257 and VC267, which change the Victorian planning provisions. As has been outlined by Mr Davis, these will have significant impacts to the community, and especially to the community that both Mr Davis and I represent, and Mr Batchelor, who has spoken against this. I think it is shameful that he was saying, ‘Trust us, we’re the government; we’ll get it right.’ Well, I will go to that point about how wrong he will be, given the evidence that we heard through the inquiry and given this track record of Labor. I mean, they fail on so many aspects of poor governance and on sending this state into a very bad position economically in so many areas. But I will not go off on a tangent and speak about that, because I do not have enough time. I want to stick to what this issue is about – these amendments.

As Mr Batchelor was speaking in his contribution he was saying, ‘We’ll be consulting with councils and getting it right.’ I have just heard Dr Mansfield say the same thing. I am disappointed that she is not supporting this, given her commentary in the committee and her commentary in the chamber just now about how important it is to get it right and the concerns we heard from many witnesses. If you look back at what was said in the actual inquiry, I want to go back to the Municipal Association of Victoria’s (MAV) evidence. They gave excellent evidence as witnesses and spoke about their role. They are the overarching body for local councils, and obviously there are many councils that have raised concerns around the government’s approach. But in their evidence they stated:

The MAV has closely followed the development of amendments VC257, VC267 and VC274 and their effects on the planning system, councils and our local communities.

They went on to say they support the objectives of the government, as do we all in terms of getting more housing to assist Victorians to be able to live in. As I have heard government members say, living in dignity and having their own house – we all want that objective; we all agree with that objective, and we all want to see more housing. But these amendments do not actually provide certainty for the communities that are there. I was just speaking to Mr Davis before around Forest Hill. If you look at Forest Hill in the Toorak–South Yarra area, it does not have the services. There is no park. Metro Tunnel does not even connect to South Yarra train station.

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

Georgie CROZIER: Mr Batchelor, the point is that there is a significant amount of densification in areas right across your and my electorate, and what we are concerned about with these amendments is further densification, as we see in those areas where heritage and amenity are reduced.

I want to go on. The MAV, in their very extensive and good evidence to the committee, spoke about unintended consequences. In fact they said there were eight unintended consequences. The first one:

… we think the code will actually incentivise the excessive removal of existing vegetation.

And they go on:

… the code will produce materially lower environmental sustainable development standards in 28 local government areas because it switches off the local policies that they already have in place around ESD standards.

Another area that they pointed out was around the speculative appeal rights, which will create inefficiency in councils and erode trust amongst third parties. I mean, these are not said lightly. This is the MAV pointing out their concerns.

The seventh point –

they say –

is that many existing local planning scheme amendments will be void. Local code makes local policies and some elements of local schedules to residential zones irrelevant …

And then they go on about the deemed-to-comply approach, which we heard a lot about in the inquiry. They talk about how ‘deemed to comply’ will require that councils will have to ‘tolerate a lower quality of design’. Why would we want to reduce quality in design? Somebody interrupted and said, ‘Well, there have been failures in the past where dogboxes were built,’ and we do not want this to occur across communities where the amenity and services are not provided.

Again, another issue around what we heard throughout the inquiry was around the consultation – the lack of consultation. It was very selective consultation, and there are many gaps there and a lot of people were watching what was going on, and I think they were dismayed because of the failures and the spin from government members and what was presented by department officials. The MAV’s evidence went on to talk about:

The standing advisory committees were established within Planning Panels Victoria for each of the 10 pilot activity centres …

But they say that the information that was shared with them was limited. I am just reading this:

… while councils were able to make submissions to those committees, it was done so with limited information available and limited time made.

They say it was done ‘behind closed doors’. That is the extent of what the government has gone to here. When MAV are putting this evidence to our inquiry to say, ‘Well, this was the consultation process,’ I think it is shameful that the government members come in here and say, ‘Trust us, we’re working with council,’ when council have said all along that they did not get it right, they did not get the consultation process right and there were so many issues. As one witness said, and I am going to quote this:

‘Once you make a decision and it gets built with planning, it’s incredibly hard to undo’ …

That was what they were taught at university, and he is quite right in terms of this planning process.

We have it as a profession to make sure that the right outcomes and that good planning outcomes are made in the first instance. That is why our submission and work we have done on what we would like to see in terms of legislative change calls for a better process to make sure that those designing the system are working well with those administering the system to make sure that we do not end up living with long-term outcomes that are undesirable for communities and therefore undoing the social licence of the need to build more housing in our housing crisis.

That sums it all up.

A member interjected.

Georgie CROZIER: It is not a laughing matter.

A member interjected.

Georgie CROZIER: Well, I am glad you are not laughing at that, because it is very serious what we are discussing here about the impacts to local community, whether it is amenity, whether it is the tree canopy removal or whether it is the lack of consultation and the lack of engagement with local councils, who have got expertise in this area and yet we have got a government that is just ramming this through. This will have a massive impact on communities, and I have not got time to go through Heritage Council Victoria’s submission, but again they talk about the inadequacy of consultation. They are scathing about where they fitted into the thing.

David Davis: They were not briefed until 1 May.

Georgie CROZIER: Well, they say:

… the Council was not contacted or consulted at any stage in the preparation of the three amendments.

You cannot try and even believe the government when they say, ‘Trust us, we’ll get this right,’ because time and time again when the bodies that are at stake here, who are speaking in good faith, have wanted to have some input, they have been disregarded, they have been brushed over and so has the community. I think it is absolutely shameful that unfortunately those that were on the committee who heard all this evidence, who agreed with the evidence and who have got concerns about the evidence are not supporting this important motion.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:11): We have a housing crisis in this nation, a housing challenge, for young people in particular. For people in my generation it has been extremely hard to buy a home – it still is for many. For people in the next generation it is even harder, and I do not know how many of them will be able to do it. For generations, year after year, decade after decade, we have had report and strategy and outline and vision of the need to do things better. All the while we have had these wonderful ideas and the status quo has remained. This is a government that is actually doing something about it.

Plan for Victoria is one of the longest consultation processes, the most expansive consultation processes, in this state’s history. Through it we have a series of planning amendments which change the Victoria Planning Provisions by actually taking meaningful action. Because doing nothing, doing the same as what we have done for so long, is not going to deliver genuine housing options for young people. It is not going to deliver genuine housing affordability. There are many factors at play. There are many factors outside the state’s control. Planning is clearly within the state’s control. As expert evidence to this committee and outside showed, such as the Grattan Institute’s research, the single biggest blocker for changing this system is planning. We need to take meaningful action. That is exactly what these three VPP amendments do. The alternative is not an option. It is not an option for us; apparently it is for those opposite. It is the ultimate expression of a ‘We’ve got ours, stuff you’ attitude and that mentality that we see from the Liberal Party.

There are so many people who are struggling to find a house, to buy a house. Now, that is not in any way to discount genuine local concerns where they arise. I would note, amongst other things, that the heritage overlays that already exist are not in any way changed by these amendments. But we are not providing genuine choice. We are putting more and more pressure on the outer suburbs to absorb this state’s population growth. They are growing at a hugely fast rate, at a very fast rate. I am proud to represent one such region in the outer suburbs. It is a great place to live. People should have the choice to live there, but they should also have the choice to live in inner-city Melbourne. They should have the choice to live in the middle suburbs or indeed regional Victoria. For too many, there is no choice at all.

The alternatives put forward today by Mr Davis were Fishermans Bend and Maribyrnong. He has not given us a plan for transport links in Fishermans Bend, just ‘You can put all the housing there.’ Never mind that that is going to be nowhere near enough to accommodate the population growth that we are expecting – nowhere near enough – with no transport plan for that location either.

The disgraceful circumstance in which the Liberal Party has sought to put the motion before this house today is as transparent as it is disgraceful in fact. It is a foregone conclusion. We had a committee inquiry that was established the day after this very motion was read in. We know what their preferred outcome was: all that they wanted from this committee was to seek, to provide, to fabricate a justification for what they already knew that they wanted to do.

Let me be very, very clear on this point, because it is important to note in the context of what is a very large debate: the upper house has the power to revoke planning amendments because they operate, effectively, as subsidiary legislation. It has been used rarely in the past in a very localised setting. This motion before us today, if it were to proceed, would be by far the most significant, the most destructive, the most wideranging revocation motion in this state’s history, and a six-week inquiry – and I will make the point again that it was very well chaired, and I very much appreciate the support of the staff as well – is completely insufficient to make that determination, even if it did support revocation, which it did not. The report does not support revocation. For a party which is accusing an 18-month consultation process of being insufficient to then suggest that six weeks is enough is quite frankly farcical. To provide people with six business days to put submissions in to this inquiry is outrageous – and again, that is no reflection the stewardship of the inquiry.

We know that groups such as YIMBY Melbourne, who have campaigned to address this imbalance, have repeatedly said how people who are facing housing stress, who are having those difficulties in getting into the housing market, often do not have the time or the resources to front up to council planning hearings. They do not have much time to participate in this either. Despite that, we saw an overwhelming theme in the submissions that came through – almost all that I could tell of the submissions that referenced young people or people who were themselves young or had kids. In one case there was a very touching story: he wanted his kids to grow up so they would be able to live nearby and they could catch up socially at the pub or wherever else and still have that regular contact. People that mentioned those concerns were overwhelmingly in favour of these VPP amendments.

We had many submissions from many experts and academics and the like. On this side I am very happy to amplify that we also had a very strong submission from the Labor for Housing group, and I acknowledge their work and advocacy in this space. In fact one such thing was discussing the demonisation of density, which felt all the more appropriate given the curious picture that the Liberal Party decided to put on the cover of its minority report. I am not sure if you know what city it is, if any of the Liberal members happen to know.

David Limbrick interjected.

Michael GALEA: I think it is Athens, Mr Limbrick, but I am not sure if the Liberal Party members themselves actually know that. On the other side of the house we actually have seen, in light of this inquiry, a group form, a Liberals for Housing group. It is sadly not represented by any of their members in this place but a group that is fed up with their elected representatives ignoring their views and ignoring the fact that their party once used to claim to stand for aspiration for all Australians and actually speaking up to this inquiry as well. Perhaps not surprisingly, but disappointingly, you will not find their voice echoed in the Liberals’ minority report, nor indeed in any of their members statements in the chamber today. But I am happy to, in some spirit of bipartisanship, acknowledge that there are still some members of the Liberal Party prepared to speak up for providing aspiration and choice for future generations of Victorians, even if those voices are not being represented by their MPs.

In putting this motion forward today, the Liberal Party have made their views clear to a whole generation of Victorians that they are not interested in giving them a choice, that they are not interested in them having the same rights and opportunities that their parents’ and their grandparents’ generations had before them. That generation will rightly damn you for it. But on this side of the house we are proud to support meaningful measures that make a real difference to providing more housing options for more Victorians. This is a condemnable motion. I do not support it.

David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (16:20): I welcome this opportunity to contribute to the debate on motion 905, moved by Mr Davis. I do not intend to reprosecute the arguments within the committee but rather to consider the motion in the context of the committee’s findings. Mr Galea nailed it: the committee did not recommend that the amendments be disallowed. What the committee did – and I remind members that the majority report was unanimously supported – was to objectively and carefully consider the amendments, their intent and their possible effects. That is the process I tried to guide the committee through as chair, and that is the basis on which Victorians gave evidence.

If I can summarise the findings as succinctly as possible, it would be to say that in relation to VC257 the committee found significant problems with the quality of the consultation with communities, councils and the appointed expert panel, but that:

… the controls introduced by VC257 have the potential to give proper effect to the objectives depending on how their local schedules are drafted and where they apply.

The committee made a very clear recommendation that the government review the expert advisory mechanism and consultation methods with planning experts, local councils and communities for the first 10 activity centres and make improvements about both in relation to the next 50 activity centres. The government and opposition members on the committee both supported that finding and that resolution, and I am sure that we all expect that the recommendation will be acted upon.

In relation to amendment VC267 the committee again found significant problems with the quality of the consultation with communities and councils and found that there are risks of unintended consequences. The committee recommended that the government make improvements to the new townhouse and low-rise code introduced under amendment VC267, including by reinstating the clause 65 decision-making guidelines, which are a safeguard that allows decision-makers – for example, council planners – to consider evidence about the risk of floods, fires and other hazards.

Other recommended improvements were to add a landscaping standard and improve the tree cover canopy standard to avoid excessive tree removal and to lift the environmentally sustainable development standards up to the level previously found in 28 local government areas where those standards have been lowered by the code. But the committee did not recommend wholesale revocation. The code can be improved while it is in effect, and again I expect that these recommendations will be acted on. But just as the committee did not recommend that these amendments be revoked, nor did it find that the amendments are satisfactory as they are – far from it. As I have pointed out, the committee found some very significant problems. Revocation is not the only tool for fixing these problems, but these problems are going to have to be fixed, and the committee has provided the government with a practical path to fixing them.

I say to the government as diplomatically as I can: winning the motion in this chamber today does not itself fix the problems with the amendments, nor does it fix the government’s broader problem, which is the erosion of public trust in the planning system and in the government caused by clumsy planning reform. This is not a simplistic YIMBY versus NIMBY war, as the government would have it. The committee heard overwhelming evidence from members of the public, from planning professionals and from local governments that there is widespread support for the government’s aim for very significant infill development. They just want to make sure that it is done well, because our town, our city, is littered with examples of failed planning exercises; that new homes come with basic infrastructure; that it manages flood risk; that it includes affordable dwellings; and that homes are designed to be energy efficient and do not cost a fortune to cool in summer or to heat in winter. These are all reasonable expectations which are not currently met by the standards.

The government can dismiss all of this if it wants and lump all critics of its planning reform agenda as barriers to progress, but how sustainable is that? How will Victorians embrace the housing infill objectives of the government – and those are objectives which I support, too – if the planning system is designed to stop them having a say about the future of the communities that they live in or if the supposed consultation on planning scheme amendments is so poor that participants make their minds up that the government does not actually want to hear from them at all? Does the government stand behind the words in today’s Age article that:

The committee, which looked into three major planning amendments brought in by Labor, was dubbed a “sham inquiry” by the government, which claimed the Liberals were trying to block building more homes.

A sham inquiry – seriously, is that really the government’s position?

I would just like to note for the record that Dr Mansfield and I – and I would like to commend Dr Mansfield on her comments previously in this debate – put a proposal to both the government and the opposition that the motion before the chamber be set aside and that instead we resolve, firstly, to switch back on clause 65 of the planning design guidelines. This would allow councils to at least consider issues such as environmental hazards, public health and maintaining environmentally sustainable design standards – considerations that the planning scheme amendments currently preclude. Secondly, we asked that the Minister for Planning agree to meet with key stakeholders such as the Municipal Association of Victoria and the Planning Institute of Australia to consider key issues of concern identified by the select committee in its report. To our very profound disappointment, both the government and the opposition rejected this modest compromise, this simple path forward.

So there is still a lot of work to do. I imagine there will be plenty more Victoria Planning Provisions amendments coming down the line. I imagine there will also be some reforms to the act. Whether those reforms are designed to smash through or whether they are done in a way that generates public confidence is entirely up to the government. So far we have seen a lot of the former, and I hope we start seeing some of the latter. Legalise Cannabis will not be supporting this motion for the reasons I have outlined. That said, simply defeating this motion and branding anyone who expresses concern as a NIMBY will not insulate the government from further revocations and opposition in the future.

Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (16:27): I thank Mr Ettershank (1) for his contribution and (2) for his very capable chairing of this select committee inquiry. It was not perhaps easy, and he did an excellent job. I thank other members of the committee who appeared in the inquiry: Dr Mansfield, who was very erudite in her contribution and also during the committee stages, and my colleagues Mr Davis and Ms Crozier. But, Mr Ettershank, I will take issue with you. I do think you are very naive – naive in the extreme in fact – to think that the government will fix the multitudes of problems that you have so correctly identified. I like your level of optimism, but I think you are naive. They would have fixed them by now if they were going to. There will be nothing fixed, Mr Ettershank, I am sorry to tell you.

Mr Galea said aspects of this housing crisis were outside Labor’s control. Mr Galea, the vast majority of problems with housing in this state are right within your bailiwick. Forty per cent of the cost of a dwelling is incurred with your taxes – 15 taxes on developers, especially the windfall gains tax, which is not hypothecated, which goes into consolidated revenue. That is the sort of tax that could be providing the infrastructure required around housing developments. But no, you want to put it into consolidated revenue to solve your black hole. The housing crisis has been totally created by you, and you are responsible for this housing crisis. And this ‘Look at me, look at me – we’re doing something about housing’ little thought bubble is not going to solve the problem. We heard on the inquiry that this will not deliver one cheaper house. Not one affordable house will be delivered, let alone the social housing that especially the Greens and the Legalise Cannabis Party are so concerned about – not one will be delivered.

This attack on local government as the major problem in delivering housing in this state is absolutely criminal. Many of those councils that we heard from have approved hundreds and hundreds of developments, resulting in thousands of potential dwellings. But what is happening? No developer is going to put a spade in the ground because the cost of the end product will not be affordable to anybody in the marketplace. You have ensured there is a housing crisis, and you are riding roughshod over the community and over the citizens in these suburbs and throughout Victoria and over councils with this demand that they build X number of houses in the most ridiculous places. There is no proper consultation. Your consultation is a tick-a-box exercise. Many of the councils found out about these things 24 hours before you gazetted them – outrageous performance. You obviously hate democracy. You do not want to have any level of consultation with the public. You do not want elected councillors and elected representatives to have a say. You are despicable in the way you go about things.

Taxation is one aspect of the housing crisis. Another aspect is the extraordinary cost these days of doing any sort of development in building in this state, because you have soaked up all the builders and workers in this state in your out-of-control, overpriced and overtime projects. Why are you leaving, Mr Galea? You clearly do not like what you are hearing.

Michael Galea: I’ll be back in 1 minute.

Bev McARTHUR: Oh, good. So it becomes impossible to build anything in this state because of the cost of employment and the lack of builders that are available because of your huge infrastructure projects, which are out of control. The taxpayers are paying the price, totally.

It is quite extraordinary that you think it is okay to run completely roughshod over the concerns of a community. It is unbelievable that you in the Labor Party would think this is acceptable – that people should not be able to put in a claim against a proposal that is occurring. Thank you for coming back, Mr Galea. It is wonderful to see you. This this is extraordinary. Now people will not even be able to go to VCAT to put in a complaint about something.

I cannot believe also that the Greens would think that it is okay to destroy trees – destroy tree canopy on a massive scale. I thought you loved trees, you people, but no. You might plant a few somewhere else, but right where you are going to have these tall towers – they are not activity centres, they are not Pilates studios or playgroups for children; these are tall towers that you are proposing – there will be no trees. It will be a cement desert. That is what you are proposing. And you know what, we heard from developers that this is going to be marvellous because we will be able to have a proforma building that we will cut and paste everywhere. We will have dogboxes of uniform size and shape and look across the suburbs of Melbourne. You will destroy the amenity of these suburbs that Melbourne is so famous for. And of course we know you hate history, so anything to do with history is a problem. Heritage is out the door. You do not care about history and heritage in this state; you just have no interest in that whatsoever. It is extraordinary that you think this is so important and the minister thinks this is so important, but she was not even prepared to come and justify her existence and justify her plans to the committee.

David Davis interjected.

Bev McARTHUR: She did not even have a good excuse, Mr Davis tells us. Talk about a lack of transparency. We asked for particular documents from the department. They were not forthcoming. There is no transparency. There is a lack of democracy on your side of the chamber. As a result there will not be one new house for all these young people that you claim you are representing, Mr Galea. They will not be able to afford any of these buildings, and we were told that in the inquiry. You are running a dictatorship clearly over the top of the community and over the top of the people of Victoria. And you know what, you are in collusion with three big developers as well. Small developers will not get a look-in in this scenario. You are working with the three biggest developers in this state, and that is shameful. It is an oligopoly situation you are operating here, and that is appalling. This is also, I would contest, a social engineering gerrymandering exercise – nothing less. It is socialism on a large scale. You are relocating people to areas that you currently may not control in the hope that you can move tens of thousands of people into electorates where you might control them.

And you know what, Mr Galea talked about being able to have a choice of where you go. A young person should be able to have a choice – of course they should. But do you know what? Children and young people in the country do not often get a choice. Right now you are soon – or hopefully never – going to impose the most egregious tax on people in the country of all time. That will drive young people away from their areas, away from their homes and away from their communities because there will be no jobs left. There will be no farms left if you keep continuing wanting to tax people out of existence, especially the people that feed you and the people that deliver goods inside the tram tracks of this state. This revocation motion should be supported. Thank you, Mr Davis, for bringing it on.

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop, Minister for Housing and Building, Minister for Development Victoria and Precincts) (16:37): This is a discussion that we are having that is central to an issue being experienced not just within Victoria but around Australia. We have a fundamental and chronic shortage of housing to meet the needs and the aspirations of people who are looking to either find and secure a rental property or move into home ownership. We know that in order to address this shortage in housing we need to do a number of things: not only to make a housing market opportunity about an asset in which to live but also to provide more housing within a city that is going to be the size of London by the 2050s.

Any kind of attempt to simply allow development carte blanche across the city without careful consideration for impact, for the importance of amenity and for opportunity leads to the sorts of outcomes that really embody intergenerational disadvantage or otherwise confer significantly different outcomes on people to further antagonise or aggravate socio-economic difference. This is where the hard work really needs to occur at that interface between supply and demand, growth and affordability. When we released the housing statement it was geared very squarely toward addressing this shortfall. This is occurring in a range of different ways: through planning reform, through the work to make sure we can make better use of vacant government land and through making sure that we can attract the development and the delivery of a variety of different housing configurations, from apartments to townhouses and units. We heard a lot about that today. We heard a lot about it last year when we announced the stamp duty concession, which the Treasurer, the Premier and the Minister for Planning have just announced will continue as an off-the-plan concession for another 12 months from October this year, saving people around $25,000 when getting into the market. But also we need to make sure that we can make better use of household land. Where you have got a building site or a home block of at least 300 square metres you can have a small second dwelling of up to 60 square metres on that block without needing to secure planning approval, and having a planning permit will no longer be a requirement. This is one example of what we are doing to increase the availability of supply.

When we also couple that with rental reforms, with the sorts of opportunities for planning scheme changes for the broader work around infrastructure – and I will get to the Suburban Rail Loop in a moment – we know that what we are doing is addressing that shortfall and addressing that disadvantage. We are taking the steps of early intervention and prevention to make for better outcomes for millennials who want to get into their own home, who deserve to have the opportunity to be able to live closer to where they grew up, because as we expand in number to a city the size of London by the 2050s, if we do not do something about making better use of our land, then we are going to have these vast tracts of disadvantage, not for want of aspiration but for lack of opportunity.

When we do this work it is through a process of consultation. Consultation is not, however, something which can continue ad infinitum until such time as everybody is happy. This is hard work. It is work that involves and requires and invites compromise, and that is indeed what is happening here. Victoria has the highest share of first home buyers in Australia. Victoria has the best affordability for renters in Australia. The PropTrack and the CommSec reports bear this out. As I said, this is work which requires an ongoing conversation with communities, and that is exactly what has been happening. This is about making sure that we continue a process of review, engagement and consideration, and where changes can be made, they will be.

This is also about standards. It is about moving away from the sorts of apartments that we saw being built under the former coalition government – these awful dogboxes that did not have space for a double bed, that had no natural light, that had insufficient noise barriers and that had the worst of all possible outcomes but were counted as stock nonetheless. Giving these things a tick of approval is not delivering more housing; it is consigning people to the very disadvantage that we are looking to address.

This is about homes. It is about opportunities and their careful development through planning decisions of amenity, neighbourhoods and character. It is about making sure that we maintain the sorts of standards that have applied – and properly applied – since we developed and delivered the housing statement. Is this straightforward work? No. Is this easy work? Definitively not. Is this work that needs to continue? Absolutely.

And so we will do that and we will work alongside communities, but we also need to face the reality that without moving to deliver significantly more housing – housing which indeed members on the opposite benches have called for time and time again in their inaugural speeches and in their times prior to Parliament and indeed when and as it might have suited them for convenient and perhaps unrelated purposes – talk from those opposite does nothing but block the sorts of outcomes that people need and deserve in a roof over their heads. We have a lot of work to do, and we can and we should be doing that work together. This is where, again, government is continuing to work hard, work in good faith, work carefully and work iteratively with communities. That is exactly what we will continue to deliver. We need change. Anybody who is looking for a home in Melbourne, anybody who is saving for a deposit in Melbourne, knows this only too well.

There are new standards; the Minister for Planning has been very clear about that. We will continue to work towards making sure that they are delivered in a way that is accountable and that is transparent, and we will work to make sure that as we deliver more housing we are changing the planning rules to ensure that we are delivering more housing and more opportunities in the right places. This will not be about standing on the back of a ute, as a former Leader of the Opposition did in Bills Street in Hawthorn, saying that social housing could not go there because it was not connected to amenity and to services. This will not be about what the opposition has done in blocking housing in Markham estate. This will not be about saying in fact that there should be more housing, just not here. This needs to be about a collective effort to understand where and how we can deliver housing to the right standards, in the right ways, at the right times – not just for us but for our kids and for our grandkids and not just for how we live now but for how we want to live as we downsize. This is about planning and planning well, and it is about having a city that grows and grows in a way that is equitable and that provides good opportunities for people who deserve them – as I said, hard work, ongoing work, necessary work and work that should be occurring with the support of people who are otherwise inclined, as they show only too well from the coalition benches, to block rather than build.

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:46): In the very short time I have, I will say up-front that the Libertarian Party will not be supporting this revocation motion. As was outlined by Dr Mansfield, this is a very blunt instrument that we are talking about here. As I speculated in the last week of Parliament, I said that this entire inquiry was just so that the opposition could come forward with a motion exactly like what is happening today, and that is exactly what they are doing. I will say this: anyone that wants to stand in the way of building new housing in Victoria is showing a lack of moral leadership. It is absolutely imperative that we build more housing in Victoria, and what is happening is we have a generation of young people that are white hot with rage at what is happening, and it is driving political extremism on both sides of the spectrum. At the last federal election we had a Senate candidate from the socialists who built his reputation on occupying houses. They want inheritance taxes and they want to take property away from people, and you will end up with extremism on this side of the spectrum. On the other side you have white supremacists who want to blame everything on immigrants, right? We need to move forward with building more housing. I do not think that what Labor is doing is the best solution, but it is going to provide some more streamlining and will lower some of the holding costs, because things will not be held up at VCAT for years, which will lower costs, and therefore we need to go ahead with it. (Time expired)

Harriet Shing: On a point of order, Acting President, I move, by leave:

That the member be able to consider and conclude his contribution with additional time.

Leave refused.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (16:48): We had a tight timeline on this, a 90-minute slot, and people had understood that we would stick to that timeline, and that is what we are doing. So let us be clear here: we are dealing with a revocation motion for two of the three planning amendments that were subject to the inquiry. The inquiry was undertaken very specifically to dig in and get what evidence we could in the short time period before a revocation had to be chosen or not chosen, and the evidence that was heard at that inquiry was very clear: the government did not consult properly. The fact is that the solution the government has provided is not the right solution. Mr Limbrick says it might provide something. Well, actually the evidence is it will not provide the solution; in fact it will provide a worse outcome in many respects. It will be a situation where terrible damage is done to many of the important features of our city – the tree canopy, which is so important for our city, for the ambience of our city, for the state of our city as it gets hotter; but equally the heritage requirements to actually make sure that our city is protected and key pieces of heritage are protected. But they will not be under these proposals and under these rules that the government has put in place. The evidence was quite clear that that heritage will be lost. This will be an act of vandalism in the city. We will see the destruction of huge swathes of our city, and it will not be to build homes for young people, it will be to build expensive homes in the $1.2 million to $1.5 million to $2.2 million to $2.5 million type zone. And that is what is being proposed here: bulldoze areas of the city, knock over the trees, knock over the heritage buildings and the heritage streetscapes and build expensive townhouses that will be hot and relatively unpleasant.

We also heard evidence of the government’s authoritarian and arrogant approach to rolling over councils and communities. It should have listened, and I have to say the minister’s contribution just now showed that she had simply not read the report and simply did not understand what had occurred at the hearings.

Harriet Shing: On a point of order, Acting President, I take offence to the remark and the assertion that Mr Davis has made on the basis that it is unparliamentary, and I would seek that he withdraw.

David DAVIS: I will not. It is a matter of debate.

Harriet Shing: Further to the point of order, Acting President, I just want to confirm that, having read the report, I am happy to table what I read – Mr Davis, if you would like to see that that happens, on the basis that I did go through it before I got to my feet.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Thank you, Minister Shing. I think we have had enough of this point of order. I rule in favour of Mr Davis. Can we just move on, please.

David DAVIS: This is a dystopian outcome that is being proposed for our city. There will be that loss of heritage, there will be an enormous loss of vegetation and we will see terrible dogboxes built across the city. The VC267 amendment actually licenses buildings without proper controls by councils, without proper input from local communities and without the democratic vent of ability to appeal. That is an amendment that I think many people understand is going to cause tremendous damage.

There is ample opportunity for the state government to bring on additional housing. We did in government actually do that, and we would in government again provide additional housing. There are massive tracts of land that are available.

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: We have quoted three in the report just as examples, and there are dozens and dozens of examples of where land can be brought on.

What is also clear is that the taxation of this government is actually pricing young people out of the market. It is because more than 40 per cent of the cost of a property, a new dwelling, is state taxation, and that is the state government doing that. That is Ms Shing, that is Ms Kilkenny and that is those ministers and the state government after 11 years in power, let us never forget. Suddenly there is urgency now because they have woken up to their botched planning policy over the last 11 years. They have had 11 years in power, and they have botched planning in this state. They have caused damage, and now they want to go the whole hog. They really want to go for the dystopian future. They want to bulldoze vast tracts of our state, and they want to do that in an arrogant way. They want to roll over councils and communities that love their neighbourhoods.

I say people want to see their neighbourhoods protected. I say we need more housing, but I say it has got to be done in a democratic way.

Council divided on motion:

Ayes (15): Melina Bath, Jeff Bourman, Gaelle Broad, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Moira Deeming, Ann-Marie Hermans, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Bev McArthur, Joe McCracken, Nick McGowan, Evan Mulholland, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, Richard Welch

Noes (22): Ryan Batchelor, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Katherine Copsey, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, David Ettershank, Michael Galea, Anasina Gray-Barberio, Shaun Leane, David Limbrick, Sarah Mansfield, Tom McIntosh, Rachel Payne, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell, Harriet Shing, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Sonja Terpstra, Gayle Tierney, Sheena Watt

Motion negatived.