Thursday, 28 August 2025

Planning policy

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (23:49): (1912) I want to raise an issue for the Minister for Planning, and it concerns issues in the City of Monash and issues in the City of Boroondara. The state government has announced a number of centres – areas, large swathes of land – where it will force density to grow massively, in some cases well over 100 per cent in quite short periods of time, and yet there has been no proper planning for schools, for hospitals or for services on a wider front.

What I want the Minister for Planning to do is to come clean and explain how the government are going to fund these services and how they are going to actually plan for these services. I asked in an earlier adjournment about the need for open space and ovals for a lot of these high-density areas. But what I say is if you are going to put people in like sardines, if you are going to pack them in like one of those cities in South America where the numbers and the density are –

Nick McGowan: São Paulo.

David DAVIS: São Paulo and cities like that – the quality of life is not as good as we are used to. Really what I am worried about here is that the state government shows no sign of having any plan to deal with these services. What the Minister for Planning needs to do is she needs to convene a taskforce with MPs in each area. Ms Crozier and I would be very happy to be active in Monash and in Boroondara, and others in this chamber would be very happy to be active in the south-east and north-east of Melbourne –

Georgie Crozier: And Bayside.

David DAVIS: and Bayside indeed. I know down in Kingston there are increasing concerns. People are very worried about the density that is going in there. But let me just narrow this down to Monash and Boroondara. In those areas the minister needs to –

Georgie Crozier: Stonnington.

David DAVIS: Well, I am just trying to focus on one particular area. It is true, and I made the point the other night, as the President will remember, that Stonnington and Glen Eira have got the lowest amount of open space of any municipality, and yet they are proposing to pack nearly double the number into those areas like sardines. So we are going to be living a very different quality of life. We know what Ms Terpstra said. She said everyone would be happy with it being like Hong Kong or Shanghai. That is what she did say, and I do not think that that is right. I do not think the density is what Australians want. I think Australians want backyards. I think they want proper services. What I am calling on the minister to do is to meet with local MPs, including upper house MPs, to discuss these services that are needed if you are going to double the number of people in a particular zone.