Wednesday, 4 February 2026

 Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (17:43): I move:

That the petition be taken into consideration.

I rise to speak on petition 722, which I sponsored and tabled in the Legislative Council on 2 December 2025. This was a paper petition signed by 2414 residents and ratepayers of Mansfield shire, and as such it qualifies for debate in Parliament. The petition asks for the Legislative Council to refer the Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025 to an inquiry so that consultation with rural communities and councils can occur before drastic changes are made to the planning system that will centralise decision-making power in the minister’s office and silence local voices and councils in the development of their communities. I thank the Mansfield Shire Council for starting this petition and all the residents of Mansfield shire who shared and signed this petition and collected so many signatures in such a short period of time.

The petition states that:

The Bill was introduced with no community consultation, imposes a Melbourne-centric model on rural communities, removes our community’s right to have a say and strips our Council of its ability to make decisions that protect the unique country character of Mansfield Shire.

Although this petition refers to the Mansfield shire, it was clear in the period before this bill came to the Parliament that there was widespread, in fact almost universal, opposition to this bill from local government authorities who would be directly affected by its significant shift in the retrospective powers and responsibilities of planning bodies. I received a flood of emails and phone calls about this bill from councils in my electorate – Mansfield Shire Council as well as Moorabool Shire Council, Nillumbik Shire Council, Murrindindi Shire Council, Yarra Ranges Shire Council, Mitchell Shire Council, the City of Whittlesea and the peak body, the Municipal Association of Victoria.

The Labor government has introduced these legislative changes in order to force councils to approve permits faster and to stop local communities from having input into planning decisions in the mistaken belief that this will lead to houses being built more quickly and more affordably. But the bill will not achieve those objectives. What it will do is make the planning system more expensive for councils, it will make property development more chaotic, it will undermine the democratic principle of community control over neighbourhoods and it will reduce public trust in the planning system. This bill is of particular concern to regional and rural councils, who will be forced to comply with the rapid approval timelines but without being able to access the same planning workforce that metropolitan councils can. The bill will also significantly increase the burden on council IT systems and document workflow processes but without increasing any resources, all at a time when rural councils face massive unexpected costs to recover from the destruction caused by this year’s bushfires. All the councils that contacted me about this bill were alarmed at how the changes are being forced through without first properly consulting the councils who will have to implement the new system.

It is no surprise that in designing a bill to shortcut the consultation process for planning permits Labor also took shortcuts when it came to consulting with councils about the bill itself. One major concern that numerous local governments raised with me was the liability for developers to bypass initial council assessment and select their own application pathway. This could lead to frequent unintentional errors or even a developer intentionally choosing the wrong pathway to access an easier assessment process. This is a real concern because there is only a tiny five-day window for council planning staff to assess applications and change the pathway if there is an error. Higher risk planning permit applications may be locked into low-risk pathways and seek automatic approval.

Several amendments were made to this bill when it first came to the Legislative Council. When the Assembly considered those amendments, some were accepted, others were refuse, and yet other new amendments were made by the government to its bill. This inconsistent tinkering shows the bill is still not ready for implementation. We should not move forward with a bad bill that clearly requires more careful consideration and thorough consultation with stakeholders. I urge the house to hear the plea of the petitioners and agree to refer this bill to a committee when the Council considers the Assembly’s amendments.

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (17:47): I am very pleased to rise to speak on the petition brought to the Parliament by Ms Lovell from residents and ratepayers of the Mansfield shire and visitors regarding the Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025 that we as a chamber spent a deal of time considering last year. The parliamentary process is underway, but not yet complete, to consider all of the amendments and the bill is listed for further debate.

The petitioners clearly are very proud of where they live, and they have every right to be. As the petition highlights, the unique country character of the Mansfield shire is something that they should be very proud of. It is a beautiful part of the world. My grandparents retired to a small property about 20 kilometres outside of Mansfield in the 1980s, and I spent probably more time in that region when I was in primary school and in early high school than in any other part of Victoria. It is gorgeous.

This bill is not going to change the unique country character of the Mansfield shire. At its core this bill, which the petition seeks further consultation on, is about ensuring that Victorians have a planning system that delivers them the homes that they need, that we have a planning system that ensures that the goal of the planning system is to facilitate the construction of more homes in a manner consistent with the planning schemes and frameworks that are before us and that the system itself, as has been the case in the past, does not get overrun with processes that lead to outcomes that are not ensuring that Victoria has the homes that we need for the people who want to live here.

The petition makes claims about community consultation. We did have a big debate in the Parliament about the bill, but just on the point, the bill that was before us and will be back before us again, considering amendments moved by the Legislative Assembly, has been through extensive consultation and engagement with councils, with the community and with industry groups and has been informed by the larger consultation process that was undertaken as part of Plan for Victoria before that. That process, indeed much of the government’s policy effort and focus for the last several years, has been on how we make improvements to our planning system. I know that many of us have been involved in many consultation sessions with local councils, with community groups and with industry associations, talking about changes to the planning scheme and how we could improve that scheme. To suggest there has been no consultation with the community on how we improve the planning system in Victoria belies the reality that has existed in this state over the last couple of years.

What we have done for how this bill gets implemented, and that is critically important, is the government has committed to establishing a planning regulations advisory committee to provide advice to the government on development of the regulations and subordinate instruments required to implement the Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill. The scope of the matters that are proposed to be referred to the planning regulations advisory committee when it is established, following the passage of the bill at some point in the future, will include new regulations needed to implement the reforms in the bill, reviewing and remaking of existing regulations and codes, changes to the Victorian planning provisions as needed to implement the bill and the development of ministerial guidelines and directions to implement the bill.

So as we can see, there has been extensive consultation on the policy framework that has underpinned the government’s planning reforms as part of the Plan for Victoria consultations – extensive consultation there. There has been extensive consultation with councils, with industry and with community groups about the scope and direction of the government’s planning reforms and indeed with many of the features of the government’s planning reforms undertaken over the last period, and there is a commitment to the regulation-making process and subordinate instrument process being made under the proposed amendments to this legislation through an engagement and consultative process. Fundamentally our planning system should be facilitating people having a place to live in the great state of Victoria. It should be doing so to encourage those who can help build more homes for us to do so, so that more Victorians have a place to call home in this great state.

 Gaelle BROAD (Northern Victoria) (17:53): I am pleased to speak in support of this petition that has been put forward by Ms Lovell and all those that have signed it. I note that it is focused on the Mansfield shire, but certainly when we considered this legislation at the end of last year I did hear from a number of shires, and I think the same sentiments could be reflected across so many. I heard from Whittlesea shire, from Murrindindi, from Nillumbik, from Moorabool, from Mitchell shire and from the Yarra Ranges. This bill does present a significant overhaul of Victoria’s planning system, handing broad new powers to the Minister for Planning while diminishing the role of local councils and local communities. I am surprised to hear Mr Batchelor talk about extensive consultation taking place, because that is certainly not what was reflected to me as I engaged with local councils who have been left out of these conversations. But I think it is important to consider that this legislation, when it came through in a great rush – and we did sit late into the night – is not due to be implemented until October 2027. At the time, the government rejected our calls for an inquiry to consider this legislation in more detail to ensure that local councils and community groups and planning experts get to provide evidence and share their insights into these changes, because they are significant.

The planning scheme amendments will not follow the normal tabling, scrutiny and disallowance procedures and parliamentary oversight. That will be significantly diminished or removed. Under the legislation that has been put forward, local councils and communities will be largely cut out of deciding the opportunities for growth in their communities, and next-door neighbours in many cases will not be notified of development plans, while traditional owners will. Another issue that was raised with me was growth areas infrastructure contribution, known as GAIC, development contributions can under this legislation be used for purposes outside the area where the funds are raised. It was put to me by a regional council that have significant growth in their area. They are very concerned that those funds could go towards projects like the Suburban Rail Loop. We know the government certainly do not know how they are going to fund that project, and this legislation opens the door for that type of activity. I think it is understandable that the community, over a couple of thousand people, have signed a petition to share their concern, and that is only in one local government area. As I mentioned, so many local councils across Northern Victoria have contacted me to share their concerns.

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (17:56): This is an important petition, and it reflects the deep angst in the community about the government’s approach to planning – its arrogant, overweening approach, ruling councils and ruling communities out of involvement in planning. It is a shocking bill, and I can understand why so many people have signed the petition and that that has triggered debate in this chamber. Two of the members that have spoken from our side are country members, and there are clear issues from municipal associations and country shires. But city councils, city municipalities, are equally concerned, and the bill actually strips away powers from councils and communities. It is not surprising that councils as a whole across the state oppose this bill so strongly, and it is not surprising that a petition like this calling for an inquiry would be put into the Parliament in the way it has been.

We did seek to move an inquiry, and that, sadly, was defeated. Today is 4 February, yet this bill was dealt with in the first week of December. In this chamber we sat late, deep into the night, because the bill was urgent. But actually, as we sat deep into the night, it was clear that the bill could not be passed, because there were amendments and suggested amendments occurring in this chamber. Then it was to go back to the lower house, which it did this Tuesday, and they accepted it and dealt with it today. Indeed there was plenty of time to have had an inquiry, plenty of time to have held hearings and plenty of time to have heard from the community and to have improved the bill or made suggestions for improving the bill, so you have got to think: what is the arrogance of the government that they would try to block an inquiry? They tried to say it was urgent and this could not be dealt with. Of course it could have been dealt with across that Christmas period, yet their lordships, if I can describe them like that, in the lower house decided to flee early and leave early for Christmas because they did not want to wait for the amendments to come back from this chamber. That is how much urgency there was there. They put their Christmas festivities ahead of actually dealing with the bill, and the bill was clearly not urgent. Clearly government Christmas festivities in the lower house were more important than this bill.

I would say: why no inquiry? The government was afraid of the inquiry. That is why they voted against the inquiry. That is why the government did not want to have a period across December and January into this week. We could have tabled this Tuesday just gone, and that would have given plenty of time for improvement of the bill and an opportunity to make sensible changes. But of course the government did not want that. They were afraid of the scrutiny, afraid of the hearings, afraid that bureaucrats and ministers would be called, afraid that documents would be sought and afraid that the bill would be slowly and methodically dealt with by an all-party committee, a committee that had the capacity to do the work that was needed to improve this terrible bill.

In my area there are still serious issues with this bill and what it will do. The community is increasingly aware of what is going to happen, increasingly aware of the height and the density that is being proposed by government. The only reason they are taking these powers is because they want to steamroll local communities. They want to roll through those communities and change the nature of these communities forever, without consent, without a basic participatory democracy operating and without involvement of local councils. Many of the changes are made by this bill, others in other pieces of legislation and others in regulatory changes that have been made by this government. It has got a nasty planning agenda, a planning agenda that is not delivering cheaper houses for young people and not delivering more houses for young people but is delivering destructive outcomes in local communities, where trees are being pulled out at a fast rate, where despite climate change issues they are rolling over those communities and getting a bad outcome for local communities.

 Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (18:01): Local government authorities exist for a reason. Decisions over changes to the public built environment and private developments should be made with informed input from the local community that will be most affected by this decision. But the Allan Labor government has progressively undermined this vital democratic principle in order to assert its own total control over development in Victoria. Local councils should have the power to sensitively manage housing developments, but through this bill Labor will remove local oversight, silence community voices and instead expand ministerial discretion without accountability.

This bill will not produce better planning decisions. Despite Mr Batchelor’s assurances, this bill will change the complexion of Mansfield. It will force a Melbourne-centric cookie-cutter model on rural communities that are totally unsuited for dense developments. It will allow developers to bypass local control and degrade beautiful streetscapes and local amenity that has been carefully cultivated over decades. Once green and spacious blocks are gone they will be gone for good and the open, relaxed feel of country towns will never return. Before Parliament allows these radical planning changes to pass, we should agree to the request of the petitioners and refer this bill to a committee which can thoroughly consult on these changes and make recommendations for a better set of reforms to increase housing supply in Victoria.

I would like to thank Mrs Broad and Mr Davis, who made contributions on this petition in support of the Mansfield shire’s request. I call on government members and the crossbench to support the request of the Mansfield shire.

Motion agreed to.