Tuesday, 9 September 2025

North-Eastern Metropolitan Region

Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:49): (1806) My constituency matter is for the Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop. Box Hill brickworks has been recently rezoned for high-rise development within the Box Hill SRL precinct. This land has been subject to many environmental reviews over the past 20 years. It is in active remediation – it has had a clay cap applied to it and it is subject to a range of environmental protections. Only three years ago disturbance of the soil was considered too dangerous for even the Level Crossing Removal Project to use it as a staging area for the level crossing removal in Surrey Hills, so a local sportsground had to be occupied for three years as an alternative. On all the evidence in the public domain, it is too dangerous to dig. My question to the minister is: what environmental studies were conducted in consideration of deciding to rezone this land for development, and can you make those documents publicly available?