Thursday, 19 March 2026

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (18:51): (2436) Tonight I want to raise a matter for the Minister for Planning. There have been two announcements made this week. A series of high-rise, high-density zones have been announced, with up to 16 storeys in my own area, in my own suburb of Kew, for example. But I am particularly worried about the conurbation that is being created between Oakleigh, Hughesdale, Murrumbeena and Carnegie. These four areas have got massive new height requirements, with the minister this week announcing a 16-storey height limit, with virtually no planning controls, in Oakleigh. Similar height increases are proposed in the other suburbs. In those four nodes there is up to 16 storeys in Oakleigh, 10 storeys in Murrumbeena and 12 storeys in Carnegie and Hughesdale, and in each of the areas there is a massive zone of 800 metres, with a maximum of six storeys, with virtually no checks or balances on the quality of the arrangements and the support that goes in. There is no evidence of increased infrastructure; there is no evidence of increased parkland. There is no evidence of any of those basics that you would expect. What is the government going to do with schools? What is the government going to do with health services? What is the government going to do with parking? All of those have not been dealt with by these changes, and the government is going to ride roughshod over the local communities.

What I want the minister to do is to come on a long walk with me from Oakleigh all the way back to Carnegie. You can walk most of the way quite close to the railway line, and you can walk through the suburbs, the towns, as it were, on the way. They all join up under the government’s proposal into one massive high-rise density arrangement. It is a massive conurbation that is being created there. It is an ugly outcome for the community. This is very different from what was proposed earlier. I note Mr Dimopoulos promised in 2018 that places like Murrumbeena should not have more than three or four storeys. That is what he promised. Caps were put in for Carnegie and Murrumbeena under a previous Labor planning minister – mandatory caps so that you could not go over four storeys in those areas – but now the government is proposing 16 storeys. It is the same government and the same local member. He said not more than three to four storeys. Now he is supporting 16 storeys in some of these areas. It is 10 storeys in Murrumbeena, 12 storeys in Carnegie, 12 storeys in Hughesdale and 16 storeys in the Oakleigh area. This massive density is all going along, and the member for Oakleigh has misled and deceived his community.