Wednesday, 4 February 2026

 Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:57): (2278) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop. Last year the Box Hill brickworks site, a contaminated landfill site, was rezoned for high-density, high-rise housing. It was a surprise to many because, being a landfill site, traditionally it would be used for parkland. That is the Melbourne way of dealing with that land. Some concerns about contamination were raised. I raised this with the minister through an adjournment asking: can we please see the new environmental reports that you commissioned to justify a rezoning of this contaminated land? The minister’s answer was to direct me to the Suburban Rail Loop Authority contaminated land report. I had a look at that report, and that report simply pointed back to the very same EPA report from 2019 that said that the land contains carcinogens – benzpyrene, which causes bladder and lung cancers, amongst them – and explicitly said this land should not be used without significant work and remediation. Indeed Whitehorse council has never even contemplated allowing any buildings on this site. It needs significant remediation.

As we stand now we have come full circle, because the rezoning is in place. In fact the heights of the buildings that are intended for that site have now gone from 10 to 20 storeys, no doubt to pay for the level of remediation required. But what we do not have and what the community are absolutely entitled to have is: what new environmental study was undertaken to justify a rezoning of a contaminated site to residential? Because there has to be a new study, otherwise you must be breaching all kinds of regulatory and approval processes. I will ask the minister again. The only study that you have referred me back to was the 2019 EPA report that said, ‘Don’t build on it,’ so the action I seek from the minister is: release or confirm if there was any environmental study taken to justify the rezoning of this contaminated landfill site and confirm whether or not you have breached any rezoning governance practice or due process if there was not one.