Wednesday, 27 August 2025

Department of Treasury and Finance

Budget papers 2025–26

Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (17:29): I rise to speak on the state budget for 2025–26. The state budget of course raises the money that runs the Department of Transport and Planning, and I want to talk about a planning issue. I want to talk about the recently approved amendment to the Macedon Ranges planning scheme for a very large housing development on Amess Road in Riddells Creek. This was announced via a press release on Tuesday 26 August.

This now endorsed plan will develop 130 acres of land in Riddells Creek to create around 1360 new homes, with some lots as small as 100 square metres. In a small country hamlet where people have chosen to go to live for the lifestyle, the government is just going to double the size of the town. There will be 3800 new residents in this development. On one side of the road on Amess Road now there are currently lifestyle blocks that are acreage blocks where people might have a horse or something. On the other side of the road there are going to be 1360 new lots, some as small as 100 square metres. That is a 10-square-metre home. That is not in place with the lifestyle and the amenity of Riddells Creek, and the locals are furious about it. As I said, this development will just about double the town’s population. It will add 3800 new people to a town that is only 4500 people now. This will destroy the country character and the amenity of the Riddells Creek community. The local residents are against this plan, the local council rejected it, but the Minister for Planning has approved it.

A development of this size on the edge of Riddells Creek of course will create a car-dependent suburb, because the government is not putting in place any additional public transport, additional services or car parking in the town centre or at the railway station. None of that is coming before this development comes. They are going to put the development there and then do something. The changes to the plan under the Development Victoria approval include a traffic plan – but that has not been done yet – and include a community centre. But this development is well out of town. What the government need to do if they are going to do things like this is to put in place public transport and put in place the services that will service these additional residents. The local people are really concerned about what this will mean for them with the extra cars being parked in their shopping centre, the parking at their railway station and the additional pressure that it will place on their rail services to Melbourne. There is concern about the additional pressure on local infrastructure, including sporting and recreational infrastructure, as well as services and what it will mean for the character of their town.

The government is just pushing ahead because they have failed on housing. We know that they have fallen behind on all of their housing targets, and they are now just riding roughshod over the people of Riddells Creek without taking into account their concerns and without taking into account the Shire of Macedon Ranges’ concerns. The government are so desperate to get housing out there that they are approving unsuitable developments in regional towns without supporting those towns with the infrastructure and the services that are going to be necessary to service so many new homes. We have seen this happen again with the new development announced at Kalkallo without any additional services or roads there. We see what happens in Donnybrook with the traffic congestion there because the Labor government have not invested in the infrastructure necessary to support the developments.