Thursday, 13 November 2025

 Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (13:01): My constituency matter is for the Minister for Planning, and I would like to thank the minister for finally informing the Blackburn community of her intention to transform Blackburn into a high-rise, high-density activity centre. But I note that rather than the planning department and the minister coming clean on what the actual heights of the high-rise in the activity centre will look like, she decided to simply consult the community on the width of the activity centre alone, which was not done at any other previous centre. Meanwhile she sent her Labor colleague Mr Hamer out to dispel misinformation, which in effect has been an exercise in utter gaslighting of the local community about building heights, the loss of significant landscape overlay protections, the genuine redevelopment plans and the loss of tree canopy. My question to the minister is: does Mr Hamer have a formal role in the planning department? And if not, what insider briefings has he received, and why aren’t the same briefings being provided directly to the community?

Sitting suspended 1:02 pm until 2:02 pm.