Tuesday, 12 May 2026

 Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:28): (2493) My adjournment is for the new Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop. I have raised in this chamber three times the question of the rezoning of the Box Hill brickworks. Box Hill brickworks, if anyone needs any reminder, is a contaminated landfill site that has been unoccupied for some 40 years and that the Whitehorse council has never considered giving planning approval to build on because it is considered dangerous. However, late last year, out of the blue, it was rezoned for high-rise residential housing, and yet no clarity on the environmental impacts or other environmental studies was offered to explain how this rezoning could take place. The latest environmental study we have is a 2018 EPA report that says quite clearly, ‘Do not build on this site. It has contaminants, including carcinogens, and it risks leaching dangerous groundwater into neighbouring streets.’ Having asked that in two adjournments and a letter to the minister and not having had a reply on this matter, I now ask the new minister: what environmental studies do you or your department have that clearly show that it is now safe to build on a site that has never been considered safe to build on? Where are the new environmental study reports? What potential breaches of process or due care have you done by going straight from ‘unoccupiable’ to ‘heavily occupied’? What consultation was done in conjunction with that?

It is completely unsatisfactory to the Box Hill community that this is being done under their nose when, as is traditional across Melbourne, landfill sites, particularly contaminated ones, are typically repurposed as public parkland, and that is indeed what 10,000 people in Box Hill who have signed a petition have said: they want this land as open parkland. This is in the context of a suburb where there are already five 50-storey apartment buildings approved and where the population is going to double but there are no matching additions of social infrastructure, open space or recreational areas that will appropriately accommodate the higher level of population. It is not unreasonable, so again I ask the minister: provide the information on the basis of which you and your department, or your predecessors, changed the residential zoning of the Box Hill brickworks site.