Wednesday, 3 June 2026

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (14:18): I move:

That this house:

(1)   notes that:

(a) planning scheme amendment GC270 was gazetted on 31 March 2026 and tabled in this house on 1 April 2026 and allows high-rise and high-density development without adequate checks and balances, including the central involvement of local councils and communities in 26 high-rise, high-density zones;

(b) planning scheme amendment VC300 was gazetted on 19 March 2026 and tabled in this house on 31 March 2026 and allows development up to six storeys without council or community input;

(2)   pursuant to section 38(2) of the Planning and Environment Act 1987, revokes:

(a) amendment GC270 to Banyule, Bayside, Boroondara, Darebin, Glen Eira, Maribyrnong, Merri-bek, Monash and Stonnington Planning Schemes; and

(b) amendment VC300 to the Victoria Planning Provisions.

Let us be very clear what these do. They are called activity centres, but they are actually nodes of high-rise, high-density development where the state government is stripping out normal controls and normal planning rules and stripping out the involvement of councils, communities and people who live in these areas, fundamentally, to have a say in the future of their neighbourhood, of their township, of the properties in and around their own home and of matters around planning for the future of their area, the services and the quality of life in the areas.

We all agree that there need to be more homes. We all agree that the government needs to work to bring forward homes and development. But this government has spectacularly failed in bringing forward developments, and now it thinks it will use a blunt instrument which will destroy the livability and quality of life in metropolitan Melbourne. That is what it is designed to do, and this is the first round. GC270 plus the 10 large trial areas beforehand is a very significant tranche of Melbourne and the suburbs of Melbourne. VC300 is a change that allows the cookie-cutter-style development of so-called townhouses, but they are actually boxes of apartments up to six storeys that will not require normal planning permits, can be built almost to the fence, can strip most of the property of its vegetation and can do that in a way that destroys the quality of life in a particular suburb. You see this happen. It goes into a suburb. The development at first, in one property, makes a modest difference only. But suddenly there are two, there are three and there are more running down the street, stripping out the longstanding vegetation and destroying the quality of life in the municipality. That is where we are heading: these dense nodes, up to 20 storeys in some areas, with different levels in various spots, surrounded by the six-storey zones that will enable the government to push for the development.

The economics of this are not good, and a number of building groups and construction groups have made very clear that the finances of this do not stack up. With the government’s tax regime, in many cases almost 50 per cent of the cost of a new property is taxation, and the government has not addressed this. In fact they have landed more and more and more taxes onto properties, including yesterday. They added more growth areas infrastructure contribution charges onto the GAIC on the edge of the city. They did that yesterday – an almost 3 per cent increase in GAIC across the edge of the city. If you want to make housing more affordable, a new tax on top of it is not the way to make it more affordable. And the windfall gains tax: we heard Ms Payne earlier in the day making some very reasonable points about the windfall gains tax and its impact on council land and the ability of council to develop properties, including houses. The truth of the matter is that 50 per cent of the uplift value is scooped away by the government if a council goes forward and develops some properties in its area. We say we want more houses, and yet we are making it more and more and more difficult.

We had a debate in this chamber the other day about the Clyde South PSP, the precinct structure plan down there that is eight years late because of the delays and incompetence of the state government. If you want to bring forward housing, bring forward housing. Do not block it at every turn like the Labor government has done. The PSP down there is entirely the fault of the Labor government. The PSP in Clyde South is entirely due to the decision of the state government to cause trouble with many of the PSPs. There are huge tracts of land where the state government has not brought anything forward. We know what happened down in Fishermans Bend. Eighty thousand people could be down there. They have been in power now for 14 years, and they have done next to nothing to bring forward opportunities for land in that area. I have picked Maribyrnong and their huge defence site out there, 128 hectares – nothing is being done there. So let us not hear from this government any lectures about bringing forward housing. Let us point to this government’s failure to bring forward housing and point to this government’s failure to remove taxes. In fact what they are doing is increasing taxes, increasing regulation, making it harder and harder and harder to bring forward. They think the solution is to knock over huge areas of the city.

I want to bring something forward today which is quite new. The Treasurer has tabled in this chamber a set of briefs that were there when she came to the role. This brief, on page 136, for those who want to read it, from the tabled documents says:

Whole of Government oversight and significant decisions on housing policy and programs for the Treasurer

Planning: The Treasurer has a key role in overseeing the implementation of the Housing Statement, in particular the 800,000-dwelling target. Several of the Housing Statement initiatives relate to planning.

Then this document briefing the new Treasurer moves to the activity centres program, the ACP, as they call it.

… this program relaxes planning restrictions to enable housing supply growth in well located areas with access to public transport. The ACP should be expanded to an additional 150 train stations and tram line locations –

150 so-called activity centres; these are high-rise, high-density zones –

by 2028 to reach the 800,000 target.

They know they cannot reach their target, so what they are going to do is sweep aside all of the protections and controls in this state so that they will be able to build high-rise, high-density zones in 150 zones. That is what they have identified, and that is how they intend to get to 800,000. That is not 25, not 60 but 150 high-rise zones. That is 20 storeys, 20 storeys, 20 storeys, 20 storeys, 20 storeys 150 times over across the city – no controls, no checks, no balances. This is an authoritarian government – an arrogant government, a long time in power. 150 sites and they are going to strip out everything. It will all be gone. The quality of the city is going to be destroyed. 150 sites –

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: This is out of a document – your government’s document.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Order! All right, enough. Mr Davis is yelling right in my ear and I can barely hear him. It is coming from both sides. Mr Davis to continue yelling; everyone else to keep it down, please.

David DAVIS: Thank you, Acting President, for your guidance. This list is an important list, and people need to understand what is going on here: Auburn; Brunswick train and tram zone; Carnegie; Coburg; Darling – all of these are on the list; East Malvern; Gardiner and Glen Iris – they roll them together but they are actually separate; Glenferrie; Hampton; Hawthorn; Heidelberg; High Street, Thornbury; Holmesglen; Hughesdale; Kew Junction; Middle Brighton station; Middle Footscray station, including Seddon – that is two really there; Murrumbeena; North Brighton; Oakleigh; Sandringham; St Georges Road, Thornbury; Tooronga station; Malvern Village; Tottenham, Braybrook – Central West; and West Footscray station. And that is before –

Michael Galea: But you want to put it all in the outer suburbs instead.

David DAVIS: 150 they want – 150 of these high-rise, high-density zones. The cat is out of the bag. We know it is not about 25 or 60 – it is about 150 high-rise, high-density zones sweeping across the city without control, tearing away heritage – heritage protection is zero in these zones. We know that to be the case. Loss of vegetation – we had one of the government members talking about vegetation in the chamber yesterday but ignoring the fact that actually the main thing they are doing with 150 zones now is they are stripping out every tree, clear-felling every property, clear-felling every tree, removing them and knocking them out. That is what happens. That is what you do. And there are no controls: heritage is not protected and vegetation is not protected.

We want to see what occurs as we go forward. But let me just say: the first step we can take today is to disallow these two amendments in the single motion – two amendments that are a further set of nails in the coffin for a livable Melbourne. I want to thank the many community groups that have communicated with me on this, particularly Livable Victoria. Right across the city, people have spoken to me and other members of the opposition, making points about the quality of life they want to preserve and the democracy they wish to see in place. Even if you do not have a view about the quality of life and livability, you should be worried about people’s local democratic rights. People have a right to participate in decision-making in their own towns. They have a right to participate in decision-making.

Michael Galea interjected.

David DAVIS: Well, let me just explain. I have observed the one in Kew. Here is another key point. I have just observed the Kew one. A planning amendment was put in by the minister. It was swept aside through a section 20(4) action. She did it in her office and did not consult with anyone. The council needed to be strong. In this case the council has been weak, and I put that on the record. The Boroondara council has been weak. They have largely all been weak. Sophie Torney has been weak. All of those ones have been weak on Kew. Let me be clear: a developer brought forward a proposal for the development of 18 storeys and the like. They say, in the government documents, it is 16 storeys. But let us be clear what this is: 16 storeys discretionary – a discretionary height limit. I can tell you what, a discretionary height limit is no height limit at all. If they say 16, it does not mean 16. If they say eight, it does not mean eight, as we saw in Kew. Eighteen storeys, in my old arithmetic, when I went to school, is bigger than 16.

Lizzie Blandthorn: Matthew Guy put 20 storeys in Pentridge – 20. It was us that had to fix it.

David DAVIS: Well, let me just say I am not going to answer for every development that has gone on in the past. But let me just say you want to do 20 in a whole series of places. Would you like me to read where you are going to do 20, as you say?

Members interjecting.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Order! I do not want to stand up again. I will get puffed.

David DAVIS: There are very significant heights here: 20 storeys at Coburg station, 28 storeys at Darling, 20 storeys at Brunswick and 16 storeys at Auburn. I mean, it is absurd. These are not mandatory height limits, these are discretionary height limits introduced by your planning minister’s planning amendment. These are discretionary height limits that will not stick. They will not stick. Discretionary – it will not stick. As we have seen in Kew, this is the first cab off the rank. The 16 storeys has just been blasted away. The council were too weak to do the full fight that they needed to do and say, ‘No, we will not support this. You can go away.’ We cannot stop the minister doing certain things, that is true, but they do not have to provide even the slightest green light to a government minister that is intent on destroying parts of the city in an arrogant way. That is what we have got with this minister, that is what we have got with this Premier and that is the situation we are all facing now.

I want to make some other points as we proceed here. For the Ashburton centre it says eight storeys, but nobody who is half-sensible believes eight is eight. Again, it is a discretionary height limit. It could mean 10, it could mean 12 or it could mean 16 storeys even. But we know from the consultation process how shoddy and shonky this is. We know from people who have been in that process who have come out and spoken, and I have at least three from that process who have spoken at length to me about what occurred over the so-called two-day weekend consultation in Docklands. They held it in Docklands. A consultancy group – I am not going to cast aspersions on them, but they are there as paid guns, hired guns, to do what they are told. They are using AI to generate some of the views. People said, ‘No, no, we don’t want AI generating our views at our consultation. We want our consultation to reflect what we’ve said, not what AI goes out and searches and finds.’ That was one of the points.

The second point is that all through the presentation the consultants were saying there are some who think they are against it and there are a few for it, so it is kind of evenly balanced. And people were saying, ‘No, it’s not evenly balanced. It’s 10 to one against it.’ And this is the panel they’re consulting. This is –

Michael Galea interjected.

David DAVIS: Well, that is what they told me, the three people who were there, one of whom up in the gallery right now. Three people who were there have told me that the overwhelming predominance of people were against the proposals. But the consultants are trying to say, ‘There are a few in favour and a few against; people have got mixed views.’ No, people do not have mixed views. People have overwhelmingly negative views. I have to say people should be very angry about this consultation process. They have not been properly consulted, but planning changes are put in. They are pushing forward – the government is going to do this, and it has to be resisted. One way to resist it is to vote against these planning amendments today. These planning amendments can be disallowed. There is a long history of disallowance by this chamber. What would the government do if it was disallowed today? Well, we do not know what they would do, but let me just say that in the case of Ormond or in the case of Markham estate a good result was achieved because the government moderated its planning proposals. It watered them down. It moderated them in a way that met broader community acceptance. That was this chamber holding the government to account through revocation motions and the government then responding in a more sensible way.

I think this government, to be truthful, has moved on and has become harder line, more resistant and more arrogant. They have been in power much longer of course and they are showing all the signs of a long-distance, long-term government that is tired, arrogant and very far out of touch. So it is possible that if this is disallowed, they will try and remake a version substantially the same, in which case the chamber ought to resist quite strongly. The chamber ought to make it clear that if we disallow or revoke this today, that is a legal decision of the chamber and it should be enforced as such. It is a matter for the chamber of course, but that is what I would say. I would hope that if these two planning amendments were revoked today, that would be a start in the process of the government reviewing its position, thinking more carefully and working with communities and councils.

There was the planning bill that went through last year, the amendments that we dealt with last year and the inquiry, and I thank the people who put submissions into those and made it clear that those amendments were also very, very problematic. So we have got a sequence of these now occurring – the 10 trial zones, the next tranche that we are dealing with today on GC270, the VC300, which actually allows high-rise, high-density right around that area and sweeps right across major tracts of the suburbs. If we are not careful, we will wake up in just a very small number of years with huge damage, and it will not be the kind of damage that actually houses our kids. It will be high-level developments that are expensive. Most of these apartments are $1 million or more for two bedrooms – that is the truth of the matter – and most young people cannot afford those sorts of numbers. One reason they are so expensive is because of the costs embedded in them by this government.

I say this is an opportunity to send a clear message. If you think that if we do not stand up, we are not going to lose our city, you are wrong. The government has 150 in plan – (Time expired)

Interjections from gallery.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Just before Ms Watt starts, this is not an interactive activity, if we can just not clap or anything like that.

Georgie Crozier: The precedent was set, Acting President Bourman, with the treaty.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): That is fabulous, Ms Crozier, but if people could not clap, that would be great.

 Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (14:38): I am rising today to frankly oppose the motion moved by Mr Davis. Whether it is the sheer heartbreak of missing out on yet another rental property or the exhaustion of repeatedly being priced out at auctions, the reality on the ground is stark. Young Victorians are genuinely giving up on the great dream of home ownership, feeling that the market has completely left them behind. Yet while working families and young people struggle just to find a roof over their heads, the opposition is choosing to use this precious time in Parliament to try and block the very planning reforms designed to build more homes. It is just not right, and it shows, to my mind, a complete disconnect from the challenges facing ordinary Victorians.

Our focus in this place needs to be on building homes, not blocking them, and the reforms we are discussing today do exactly that. The Liberals have time and time again stood in the way of housing. It is very easy to care about an abstract concept of a perfect planning scheme when you already have a comfortable place of your own to go home to at night. But how do we tell young people that their dream of finding their own place will just have to wait until we find an opportunity to debate ‘the perfect’ in this place? What we need are comprehensive reforms right now that make it easier to find a place to call home, because it is becoming harder and harder for many Victorians, particularly the younger generation, who face a market unlike anything their parents experienced. The numbers tell us how difficult it is, with the average rental in Melbourne now costing around $580 per week and the average mortgage repayment sitting at around $4000 a month. If you are a household earning a standard median income, you could likely only afford about 12 per cent of the homes currently on the market, and that figure drops to a heartbreaking 3 per cent for low- and middle-income families. Home ownership rates are declining. People born more recently are buying homes much later in life than the generations that came before them – if they can manage to buy a home at all.

The underlying problem we are facing is incredibly simple: housing prices are too high because there are not enough homes to go around. The approach to fix this is clear. To make homes more affordable, we need to build more of them where people want to live. That is exactly why this government launched Plan for Victoria, which sets out a 30-year plan to guide the delivery of more homes in livable, sustainable communities. It is a plan written by Victorians for Victorians, shaped by the largest consultation process this state has ever seen. There were more than 110,000 Victorians engaged online or in person, producing hundreds of detailed submissions and more than 15,000 individual items of feedback. Victorians told us loudly and clearly that we need to build more homes and we need to build them right now, and this government is listening and delivering on that mandate.

What we are doing is exactly what the community asked us to do with the specific planning amendments before us today. The first part of what is being considered is GC270, which is the core component of the train and tram zone activity centre program, delivering capacity for more than 300,000 homes across Victoria’s inner and middle-ring suburbs, ensuring there is growth closer to established suburbs and closer to transport, jobs and services. We have finalised our plans for more homes in 35 well-located train and tram zones across Victoria, and we are actively working to complete another 25 locations close to public transport, reliable jobs and vital services. This program had two rigorous rounds of community consultation throughout 2025, with over 10,000 submissions, survey responses and conversations across 32 community events – some of which I went to in Northern Metropolitan Region – and 17 community reference group meetings. Mr Davis likes to claim that these changes lack adequate checks and balances, but the plans directly leverage the councils’ own strategic work and local consultation processes, including the extensive work done in places like Carnegie, Heidelberg and Coburg. Each of those plans that undertook council-led public consultation have also contributed directly to this program. These planning amendments are guided by Plan for Victoria and are entirely about making the housing system easier and more affordable for working people.

The second part of this revocation motion concerns VC300, which created the Mid-rise Code. This builds on our highly successful Townhouse and Low-rise Code to create consistent deemed-to-comply standards across the state for mid-rise developments between four and six storeys. We removed third-party appeals for a very specific reason, which is to provide absolute certainty for proposals that meet the standard so we can get on and build the homes that we need, instead of letting them get tied up in legal bureaucracy for months on end. The Mid-rise Code sets incredibly high standards for good development, creating homes that are comfortable and energy efficient and fit seamlessly into the neighbourhood fabric. If these strict standards are met, neighbours will still be notified and will still have their say – that is right. However, the project will not be subject to third-party review at VCAT – that is what I am saying. This provides the certainty needed for proposals to meet all the rules so we can get on and build the homes we need.

We will gladly put our record of building homes against the opposition’s record of blocking homes every single day of the week. We have built more homes each and every year since we came into government than those opposite did in their highest year of new home builds. We are the party of the builders; they are the party of the blockers. Yet again today we see them in the chamber trying to block homes. We can look closely at the record in the community – I can certainly do that; I am very, very happy to do that. I could do it all day. When their members are literally stood on the back of a ute protesting two crucial housing projects in Hawthorn, it tells you everything you need to know. They protested 350 homes, which included at least 10 per cent affordable housing, at the former University of Melbourne site, and an additional 206 social and affordable homes adjacent to that site, and the member for Brighton committed to closing down vital housing for rough sleepers at 226 South Road in Brighton East in 2018 and wanted to sell the site off.

In 2024 he also opposed 84 townhouses on the former Xavier College campus just 350 metres from Brighton Beach station, and he actually organised a protest against the announcement of Brighton as one location of the 50 new train and tram zones. The member for Malvern, just to mix it up a bit, tried to block 60 new apartments in Glen Iris in 2024, apartments which included 10 per cent affordable housing. We were championing that housing, located close to schools, medical centres, shops and local parks and built alongside what would have been a new supermarket within 500 metres of a tram stop. I might perhaps bring it to a member of this chamber and talk about a former housing minister who entirely gave the game away – and I recall it happening right here – when she said:

There is no point putting a very low income, probably welfare-dependent family in the best street in Brighton where the children cannot mix with others … or where they do not have the same ability to have the latest in sneakers and iPhones …

This is exactly what those opposite really think about providing affordable housing in well-serviced areas for working families. They just want to lock people out; it is really clear.

It is only a Labor government that is making the housing system easier and more affordable for Victorians looking to buy or rent a home, creating more opportunities and greater diversity for young Victorians and their families. We have set clear housing targets for every local government area in Victoria, giving certainty about where homes will be built and putting councils on notice right across the state, because we want them to be enablers, not blockers. We have extended the off-the-plan stamp duty savings and provided more local infrastructure funding. We are delivering a 10-year pipeline of land for family homes. We are committing to a new building watchdog. We are building more social homes in the region. There is the massive Big Housing Build and an $860 million boost to the Social Housing Growth Fund. This is all about us having access to decent homes in good communities right across our state. The status quo is not an option, and we will not stop working to build the homes that Victorians need.

 Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (14:48): The Greens will not be supporting this motion today, and not because we do not agree with many of the concerns being raised by the substantial number of community members who have reached out. It is because this is not the answer to the concerns that they have been raising. As I have said before, the Greens do not object to increasing housing density around trains and transport hubs; it just makes sense. In this we fundamentally differ from the Liberals, who have outlined their plan to put even more density in the CBD, already one of the densest cities in the country, and contribute to urban sprawl through expansion of greenfield areas to eat up remaining peri-urban agricultural land and precious grasslands. We do not agree with that approach to planning. We believe that having more people close to transport and the services they need, when done well and supported by community infrastructure, improves climate outcomes, reduces loss of green wedges and habitat, reduces car dependency, improves livability and creates opportunities for small business. We also believe that the planning system could do with an overhaul to reduce unnecessary complexity and duplication but also modernisation to meet contemporary challenges like environmental protection and climate change. Indeed that is something that planning experts have long called for.

That does not mean we agree with the direction the government is going with planning, either. We have many concerns about the government’s entire planning agenda and in particular the ideologies that underpin them. Firstly, they continue to do nothing to create more affordable housing. The affordable housing head of power that the Greens secured as part of the Planning and Environment Act 1987 changes has not yet been made use of by this government. Regulations with ambitious targets need to be established urgently to ensure that the activity centre program is not a wasted opportunity to deliver a significant uplift in the amount of public and community housing that we are building. I have argued strongly against the notion that market-led supply will somehow lead to trickle-down affordable housing. Leaving the provision of a basic human right, in this case housing, to the market is destined to fail. The number of people experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity and waiting on the public housing register is a shameful stain on this government, and that is before you consider all the young people who will never be able to afford their own home. Labor’s solution, which is to hand the keys of our housing system and planning system over to property developers, shows how beholden this government is to developer interests, which it chooses to put above those of everyday Victorians.

Secondly, while we were able to secure the establishment of the planning regulations advisory committee (PRAC) – which I will say a bit more about later – and we welcome the additional consultation that occurred in a few more steps taken in developing these planning scheme amendments, fundamentally we believe that communities and councils should have more say in planning decisions. There has never been a good case made for why the centralisation of power around planning will lead to better or even faster decisions. The evidence suggests otherwise, with councils waiting years for planning scheme amendment approvals and poor planning decisions being made because they do not respect the local context.

Thirdly, we need housing and precincts built that are great places to live – not just with decent designs but that are climate resilient, robust and comfortable to live in. Slapdash building at the bare minimum standards that leaves people paying a fortune in insurance, maintenance, repairs and heating and cooling, with little access to green space, in hot concrete and asphalt suburbs just simply is not good enough in 2026. The government’s response, tabled yesterday, to the select committee inquiry into planning conducted last year indicates the government apparently will review the environmentally sustainable design standards in the townhouse code as well as tree and vegetation impacts of the code. But I note the same problems are repeated in the Mid-rise Code, which is the subject of the motion today. Similarly, the turning off of certain environmental concerns in the codified schemes remains a concern in the Mid-rise Code, although as with the ESD standards, the government has agreed to review this. I am just not confident, as it stands, that this will result in any change.

As a further example of where planning is going wrong in this state, while not the subject of this motion, we are deeply concerned about developers using the development facilitation pathway to bypass usual council processes under the guise of delivering public benefits that in many cases are pretty nebulous or that they fail to actually make good on. Note that this pathway has existed for several years now and is already being used to get concessions like height exemptions, including in areas that may be activity centres. The Assemble debacle – I would encourage anyone who has not heard about it to look up what happened in that scenario – is a really good case in point.

One thing I will note is that we have really tried to engage genuinely with the government about some of these planning changes that they are making, and we have done so with the community’s interest at heart. We have managed to secure some changes to planning laws and processes that would not have been possible if we had just sat on the sidelines and said no. For example, we ensured that as part of the Planning and Environment Act 1987 changes the government set up a planning regulations advisory committee with guaranteed membership of councils, planners and planning experts. They form the large majority of the representation on that committee. That group is being charged with reviewing all of these planning scheme amendments, and I understand, I am told, that based on the feedback of this group as well as recommendations from the planning inquiry last year, there are things happening. For example, apparently there are revisions being made to the townhouse code with respect to tree canopy. I welcome that and look forward to seeing that if it does indeed occur. They will also have to review all existing codes and regulations, including the townhouse code and the Mid-rise Code, and provide advice before planning permit reforms are implemented. They will not actually be implemented until October 2027. So there is some improvement there. Hopefully with this process at least these groups are getting some input, we believe. These planning scheme amendments, likewise, that we are talking about today are hopefully not set-and-forget – they can be adjusted, they can be amended and the PRAC will hopefully be able to review them and provide input.

One thing, and I have said this before, is we cannot legislate good engagement. What we have been able to do is get key groups and key voices a seat at the table. Now, I agree with the many community members who have contacted me that all of this – you know, we have tried to make things a bit better – is not good enough. The reality is this is Labor’s planning agenda. We have done what we can from the position that we are in to try and make things a bit better, but it is important to realise we do not get to write the agenda – it is just not the way this works. While it might feel cathartic to give the government a whack by disallowing these planning scheme amendments, it would be nothing other than a minor nuisance to them – and I actually half-suspect that they were looking forward to it so they could make a bit of noise about how we are all a bunch of NIMBYs blocking housing.

What will happen is they will reintroduce the same planning scheme amendments tomorrow. It was the same situation when a different set of disallowance motions were brought before this Parliament. It would not result in a single bit of meaningful change for the communities, and for all the people who have an interest in this issue, it would not change a thing for them. There is nothing in the laws or regulations that we have that stops them from reintroducing the same planning scheme amendments tomorrow. I appreciate that perhaps some others may think that there is a different process that applies. I have sought advice from the clerks. I am told that that is the case, and I will rely on that advice. I think that is sound advice. For what it is worth, the government also believe that they can just reintroduce them tomorrow, and they have told me that is exactly what they will do. Unless the Liberal Party plan to use every one of their general business debate spots from now until the end of the year repeating these disallowance motions – I doubt that is something you are prepared to do – I would ask: what exactly are we achieving today other than a symbolic motion by disallowing two planning scheme amendments? It is effectively a game of whack-a-mole. If we thought supporting this would do what people are asking, it would be a completely different proposition. Sending these planning scheme amendments back to the same office that produced them is not going to fix the issues with these individual planning scheme amendments, let alone put the brakes on the government’s planning agenda, and lead to a complete rewrite in the interests of the community and our environment. The only way to change that is to change who is writing them.

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (14:57): If I can carry on from Dr Mansfield, the only way to change this is to change the government in November. What Mr Davis has brought to the chamber this afternoon is a motion that actually is a reasonable part of what we are talking about around these planning scheme amendments that are affecting so many members of the community and, as he articulated in his contribution, the unreasonableness of the government and what they are doing. As you said, Dr Mansfield, in your contribution, there are not insignificant numbers of people that have contacted you with concerns around this. Yes, there are thousands of people that are contacting us, and I have been to community forums where hundreds and hundreds of people have come out to speak of their concerns around the government’s agenda on this issue.

Mr Davis’s motion is a reasonable approach, as he has highlighted. Many of the members in this house were not here when we did those revocations for Markham. It was a reasonable approach that got an outcome for the community. As Mr Davis highlighted, in our electorate of Southern Metropolitan Region we are not averse to high-density areas. We have got those. We have got those along Southbank, along St Kilda Road and in Forest Hill. In fact the minister Luba Grigorovitch lives in South Yarra. She does not live in Kororoit, which she actually represents – not many of them do.

David Davis interjected.

Georgie CROZIER: I beg your pardon, Mr Davis – 51 storeys. We are very used to high-density areas in our electorate. But what the government is doing is this massive, massive build in areas where there are established suburbs, where there are communities. I want to come to some of the comments that I have got from community members. They are they wanting to do not just the 10 centres or the 60-odd centres that they are speaking about but, as Mr Davis said with that document, the briefing to the Treasurer, 150 activity centres, which I find absolutely horrifying. They are doing that to reach the target that they said they would do of 800,000 builds. That is why they are doing these activity centres. They are panicking, but in the process they are riding roughshod over communities, and they are not giving a say to the communities or to local councils in these developments. The other ridiculous thing about this is that many of these homes in these areas are unaffordable. The Urban Development Institute of Australia commissioned a report, and in that report it spoke of the costs around how expensive the construction is and how expensive these towers are going to be. In fact Linda Allison, the chief executive of the UDIA Victoria, said:

… there has been an assumption that higher density housing in established suburbs would deliver more homes “but the economics just don’t stack up”.

Furthermore:

Delivering new apartment projects in Melbourne has become increasingly unviable, even in locations where demand for housing remains strong.

They go on to talk about how expensive it is. As we have been saying through the debate, largely those costs are increasing because of the taxes that this very government is putting on construction costs, and they are enormous. Forty-odd per cent of costs in construction in housing is because of this government’s taxes. This is a government that, when it came into power, promised no new taxes. Well, we have had 67 new or increased taxes, and those taxes are only driving up the cost of construction and housing. I have spoken to people that are in the sector, in the industry, who are experts in this, and they will tell you exactly why this government’s model is flawed.

In the time that I have remaining I want to just acknowledge some of the commentary around what people are concerned about. One such constituent wrote to me and wrote to his local member Mr Staikos around the concerns that they had where they live in McKinnon. As he said in his email to Mr Staikos and me, and Mr Davis is included in it – and he makes a very good point, actually:

On Wednesday 14th January 2026, we found a small double-sided flyer in our letter box. The flyer measures 14.5 cm wide x 10.5 cm high … This flyer has a QR code leading to a survey to give … feedback, a survey that opened on 20th October 2025 and closed on 30th November 2025 …

So it was too late in that stage 1 process, the consultation. They did not even have an opportunity to be able to do that. They went on to say to Mr Staikos:

… when you wanted to be re-elected most recently, we received so much paper mail from you and your government, our phones were bombarded with texts and emails, and you and your government made every conceivable effort to promote yourselves at any cost.

Now that you and your government want to destroy entire neighbourhoods and communities, which will have a significant impact on ALL of its residents, the first we hear of it is … a flyer which is almost the size of “one sheet of toilet paper”.

I think that says it all. I think that just sums it up – the lack of consultation, the lack of ability for people to actually express a genuine concern around that and how it has played out with this government not even allowing councils. I have spoken to planners within local councils who talk about the issues that they already have. They are already hitting the housing targets through their own programs, and they are worried about amenity around things like drainage, roads and services. We know that in areas there is significant pressure on the system already, and everybody knows that. There are a lot of people that have come to this state in the last decade – over a million people have come to this state – so there is going to be pressure on the system, and yes, there is going to be more housing. But there lies the problem in relation to the government, through their inability to manage circumstance and what they are trying to do. At the same time they are not allowing community members to have their say in the way that they deserve. As people have said to me:

… the one size fits all activity centres proposal the Victorian Government has put forward is unnecessary and will ruin the character and amenity of our suburb … It will be to the detriment of working families who choose to live in housing close to schools and other important public amenities.

The government’s proposals that they are putting forward will not achieve the aim, they say, by destroying the very amenities that the government says that people have a right to live near – and they do; there is no question about that. If you go out into the western suburbs, they will talk about the lack of services and how they feel they have been abandoned by Labor over many, many years. People do have a right to all of those social services – to education and health – but they also have a right to their own areas. When they do go into a community where they have wanted to move to and go into an area where they have perhaps saved up and decided that they want to be, they do not want to see a government coming over the top of them and them not having any say in what their future suburb is going to look like – that it will be torn up and that where they have moved to, what they have invested in and where their home is, which is so important, and that local area which is so important to them and their families is going to be absolutely destroyed. Hundreds and literally thousands of people have expressed their concerns to me and, I know, to Mr Davis and to many of my colleagues because they have never seen anything like this. This is a government that is not giving them a proper say. They did not take this plan to the last election. They had no idea of it. This is a government that is riding roughshod over people, and it is a very dangerous precedent for this government to be setting.

 Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:07): I would like to begin with a quote, a quote that was actually put in this place just a few years ago. And it is a very good quote, I think. it reads:

I believe it is immoral that large sections of our inner cities, flush with good transport, schools, health care and other infrastructure, remain almost flat, with obsolete overlays denying young Victorians a chance to buy their first home where they want to live.

…

We have to do all we can to stop young Victorians in our migrant community from becoming an asset-less generation.

A very good quote indeed – a quote in fact by the current Liberal Deputy Leader of the Opposition in this place Evan Mulholland in a speech in this place just over three years ago. Will the good Liberals please stand up? Where are you? He is not here. Where is he? He is not here.

David Davis interjected.

Michael GALEA: Well, I look forward to his contribution, Mr Davis, because, sadly, the few Liberals who see sense on this subject, who see the generational inequity, have been drowned out by the unctuous likes of Mr Davis in his absolute determined intent to block housing for young Victorians. Again, Mr Mulholland had a very good quote, a very good thing he said, but he has been silenced – that, or he has backflipped. I do not know. I look forward to his contribution in this place today where he can account for himself to the young Victorians as to what he actually believes. Does he actually believe in that still, or does he not believe in anything? What we believe this side is that the status quo is not good enough. For generations governments of both persuasions have put forward grand plans of how we can redress the balance and stop the relentless urban sprawl by shifting more of this state’s growth into established and middle-ring areas. For generations, governments of both persuasions have put those plans in place and not acted on them. This is not that government. This is not that same tired old government that Mr Davis and Ms Crozier want to drag us back to.

This is a government that recognises that we have a serious problem. Young people in this state and multicultural people moving to this state want the same fair go that generations before them had, indeed when we had a Liberal Party that believed in those aspirations. We are at a crisis point with housing. Many experts, including the Grattan Institute, have said that the number one lever that state governments can pull when it comes to providing more housing – fairer, more affordable housing – is planning controls, and that is exactly what this government is doing. At every step of the way we have found ourselves faced with the likes of Mr Davis and his unctuous snobbery in saying, ‘Not in my backyard. You can all live in the outer suburbs.’ We have seen him bringing up these examples of precinct structure plans.

I do want to talk about Clyde, as I tend to a lot in this place. I am very proud to represent the growing outer communities in the outer south-east suburbs, including Clyde North. We are seeing incredibly fast growth there, as Mr Limbrick knows too. In the past four years we have opened six new government schools, invested in two non-government schools, countless road upgrades, bus services and a new community hospital. We are making these investments. We are running as hard as we can, and we are barely keeping pace. If you were to talk to some of our constituents today, some might say that we are not. We are growing simply too fast in our outer suburbs, and it is not sustainable. If you go to them and say, ‘Do you want us to rebalance that? Let’s maybe have some of these inner middle-ring suburbs take more of that load. Or do you want five more Clyde Norths built behind you?’ I think it is pretty clear what they would say. But we know that the Liberals in this place do not care, because this is a motion that is not interested in the aspirations of young Victorians and it is not interested in the livability of our outer suburbs either. If they did care about it, they would be coming in saying, ‘Put all the development there, and here’s the plan for the infrastructure and the schools to do it better.’ But they are not doing that. They are coming in and saying, ‘Put it all out there,’ and they have got no plan at all. I would be very genuinely happy to take any Liberal member in this place on a tour of my electorate. I will introduce you to the school principals at some of these new schools that already have more than 1300 students in some of them. They are right at capacity. As opposed to –

Richard Welch interjected.

Michael GALEA: If you were listening to my speech, Mr Welch, I have actually said we have built six new schools in this suburb. We are continuing to invest as hard as we can. But whilst we do that in the City of Boroondara, we have seen public school enrolment declining because people with kids cannot afford to live in that LGA. The Department of Education and Training has told a recent committee inquiry that there are at least in excess of 10,000 spare spaces in terms of building capacity in the schooling system in Victoria’s inner-ring suburbs. It is madness for any government to be saying that the only solution is to let them sit there and continue putting more and more and more money into the outer suburbs. There is always a place for our outer suburbs to grow, and we will continue to make the investments that we have, including building in Clyde North, where we have announced this year in the state budget three more schools for that area to meet that demand. We will continue to do that, but it is not sustainable to leave capacity sitting there whilst we put all these efforts and resources of government into building something new.

It does not make for a livable society either for us to keep growing endlessly, but it is what we see from the busybody planning vigilantes in the Liberal Party like Mr Davis, who seek out and destroy the housing aspirations of young Victorians. It is an affront, frankly, to the idea of liberalism, it is an affront to the idea of aspiration and it is an absolute smackdown to those few Liberals who dare to speak up, like Mr Mulholland did once. Does he believe in it? Does he believe in anything? He can tell us. It is like Senator Andrew Bragg, who has condemned the likes of his state colleagues, presumably including Mr Davis, for blocking housing. We have a serious problem. The status quo is not enough, and for too long the voices of these people have been drowned out because, for the most part, they do not have the time to go to repeated council planning meetings and to repeated community consultations. They are busy trying to make ends meet and trying to get to a point where they can invest in their first home. It is a very special moment for any young Australian, but they are denied that opportunity too often. This is a government that recognises it and sees the potential calamity of what that generational inequity could lead to for future Victorians. We are not prepared to accept that. The opposition in this place may well be prepared to accept it, but we are not. We are certainly not prepared to accept it when the driving force for this motion today appears to be to shore up the Liberal vote in Kew, in Hawthorn and in Brighton. We know who is holding the strings of power in this party – the NIMBY member for Brighton, indeed, who was protesting against housing being built. They are the ones pulling the strings of this party. The voices of Evan Mulholland and anyone else who once deigned to actually see sense on this are long gone, because the Liberal Party is not interested in you.

The worst part of this is as they say ‘Put it all in the outer suburbs,’ they are then going into those outer suburbs, as Mr Welch just said, and saying, ‘Labor’s not doing enough for you. Labor’s not doing enough.’ Well, we can debate that, we can argue that, we can talk about all the things that we are doing, but when you are going to inner-city suburbs and telling them that you will fix housing by putting it all in the outer suburbs, you are not then turning around to the outer suburbs and being honest about that. You are then going to them deceitfully and saying, ‘Oh, it’s all a Labor problem. We’re going to make it better,’ when you are actually going to make it worse. You are going to make suburbs like Clyde North, like Berwick, like Cranbourne and like Pakenham more unlivable by pushing all this housing out with no plan for infrastructure, no plan for services. As I said, we are struggling to keep pace as it is, despite the huge investments, but they want to pull all those stops away from that and put it on the outer suburbs because, ‘Not in my backyard. We’ve got ours. Stuff you.’ That is the attitude of Mr Davis, and that is what he brings into this place today.

This is a deeply, deeply cynical motion. It ignores facts straight in the face. I do not think Mr Davis has even read these codes, because of his comments about there being no tree canopy. He would know. I am sure he knows; he has read it. He is lying, because it does not say that there will be no tree canopy. There is a minimum of 10 to 20 per cent. You are lying to this chamber.

David Davis: On a point of order, Acting President, this is an offensive statement, and I ask that it be withdrawn.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): I uphold the point of order.

Michael GALEA: I withdraw calling Mr Davis a liar.

David Davis: On the point of order, Acting President, I ask that he withdraw unreservedly.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): Mr Galea?

Michael GALEA: I withdraw unreservedly.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): Thankfully, that concludes that time slot.

 David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:18): Australia is facing a political crisis at the moment and, as Mr Galea pointed out, quite rightly, young people are mad. Millennials and Gen Z people are furious. They go to try and get a rental, and they see queues and prices that are out of their range. They try and buy a house – the median price for a house at the moment is approximately $1 million in Victoria – and they see something that people in Victoria used to do in the past. Their generation cannot do it. Their generation cannot look forward to owning a home. Their generation is lucky if they can get a rental property, and they are mad.

On the demand side, when they hear about more and more and more immigration without building the infrastructure to deal with it, they get mad, and we have seen the political consequences of what is happening with that. The Liberal Party is facing annihilation over the issue. But on the other side as well, these younger people are becoming radicalised. We are seeing just how dangerous this is in Victoria at the moment. They are not looking to the Greens and what they are talking about with rental caps and stuff like that. On the radical left side, we have parties openly campaigning at the moment for expropriation of housing. They do not see things which are quite modest – though I see them as sort of crazy economic ideas – like rental caps and things like that that the Greens are proposing. The Socialist Party see the houses in Kew, Malvern, Brighton and these places, and they see wealth that they are promising to take away from those people. They just straight up want to expropriate it. One of the leaders of that party is openly encouraging squatting in houses and that sort of thing. So you have this radicalisation on the left and right, and it is because of housing.

The state Parliament cannot do much about immigration, although immigration levels are currently not sustainable and we do need to look at the immigration levels in Australia. But certainly on the supply side we can do a lot in Victoria. The Victorian Parliament can do a lot on supply. I agree with Dr Mansfield: I do not like everything that Labor are doing here, but they have at least acknowledged that there is a problem and that we do need vastly increased amounts of housing. One way to do it is to increase density in areas that already have infrastructure. As Mr Galea pointed out – and he is very well aware of the issues, as am I, in the South-East Metro area – they have had massive expansion in these estates, and they do not have the infrastructure to keep up. Earlier this morning we were talking about a documents motion for a railway station in Clyde. They do not have a railway station. The idea of catching a tram is fantasy, but they do not even have a railway station. They cannot live without cars in these areas. They do not have appropriate infrastructure. It is devastating for young people, and we need to act.

Standing in the way of housing – I have heard the Liberal Party talk about this being some sort of Stalinist thing: ‘What about property rights?’ What the Liberal Party is talking about is that people should be able to dictate what other people do with their property. That is not property rights, that is the exact opposite of property rights. It does seem to be something quite peculiar to the Liberal Party in Victoria, because recently I went to a conference, the national housing summit, on 30 April this year, and it was very informative. I was not able to stay there the whole day, but one of my staff was there the whole day. The Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness Senator Andrew Bragg seems to understand these issues very well. I do not like long quotes, but I am going to quote what he said to a question from the audience. The question was this:

What are you doing to deal with your state Liberal colleagues who are more NIMBY than YIMBY?

And this is how he responded:

I’ve been very disappointed with some of my state colleagues for embracing nimbyism. I think it is very selfish, and I think that for the millennial and younger generations, they are very aware that every time an apartment building is vetoed, it’s very bad for them, their generation and their children. I think people have to rise above their individual political interests here, and they have to find a way to get new housing approved.

Then he went on to say this:

I live in East Sydney, where there is a proposed station being built by the state government in which I would say that 75 to 80 per cent of the Liberal Party members in that area are against. But I have been very careful to support that, actually as has Kellie Sloane, who happens to be that state member for Vaucluse, because we recognise how important it was to support infrastructure and housing in our own backyard, literally, because what kind of credibility would we have if we were against it?

He said:

I guess my message is that they just have to rise above any individual interest, and they’ve got to find a way to work with the communities to remind them that, if these houses don’t get built, then the ageing people who largely reside in those LGAs will not be able to live near their family members. So in advancing years when they may not be able to drive or catch public transport, they may be very, very lonely people.

This is what the federal Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness from the Liberal Party said.

What is being proposed here is another huge problem. I have spoken many times and I agree with what the Liberal Party has been saying about taxes in Victoria. They are out of control, and it is a big problem for housing. But you know what, there is another problem that investors face. My vision is that Victoria becomes a very attractive investment destination, that people want to invest in Victoria, and do you know what people hate about investing in places? They hate uncertainty. Investors hate uncertainty. What the Liberal Party is trying to do here today is knock on the head planning scheme amendments that people have already started work on. People have already started work on these things, doing the planning, purchasing property, all of this sort of thing. What are those investors going to think if this goes through, if it is knocked on the head – which, as has been pointed out, actually is not even realistic. I do not know what sorts of promises the Liberal Party have been making to these communities, but as Dr Mansfield pointed out, they can simply just gazette it once again and nothing will happen. But if they were successful here and then knocked it all on the head, are those investors ever going to want to look at Victoria again? I doubt it, because they will just look at Victoria and they will say, ‘Well, you know, we thought it was a good idea. We thought we were going to build these buildings and stuff and people were going to have new homes to live in. But then, you know, the upper house of state Parliament just came along and knocked the whole planning scheme on the head and we lost our money, people went bankrupt and we couldn’t build anything.’ It would be a disaster if that actually happened. It would be a disaster. We want more investors, not less. We want more investment in Victoria.

I just think that if you are going to block the development of housing – any house, anywhere – you need a really good moral case for doing that, because the consequences of not building housing are political fragmentation of the likes we have never seen before. Labor knows it is coming. That is why they are trying to do this. I have said I am not totally happy with what Labor is doing here, but at least they are doing something and trying to get more things built. If this fragmentation continues, and if this radicalisation of young people continues, we will be living in an Australia that none of us recognise anymore. That is a dangerous thing that I do not want, and I think many people in here do not want. I think that the people living in these areas do not want it either, because if we end up on a wild ride either to the left or right of politics, I think that the people that are complaining about these planning scheme amendments today might have bigger things to complain about.

The Libertarian Party will not be supporting this disallowance, but I urge the government to do whatever it can to remove barriers to housing and also, for goodness sake, look at the taxes in Victoria – make Victoria more attractive to invest in.

My biggest problem with all this is I am sceptical that any of this is actually going to get built. I have spoken to developers. The Liberal Party always comes out with these scare campaigns about dog boxes. No developers are building cheap apartments – they cannot make any money out of them. That is what I am concerned about – that none of these developments will actually go ahead because no-one wants to invest in them. That is the big problem here. I think the government have got a lot more work to do if they actually want to attract investors and get any of these things built, because Victoria at the moment, unfortunately, is not a very attractive place to invest in anything, really. I think we need to make some big changes. I will not be supporting this disallowance motion.

 Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:27): I am just going to make a few brief statements around this motion. What we are witnessing right now in Australia is the destruction of a city. It is akin to what happened in the 1960s when basically architectural vandals took control of the CBD and irreplaceably destroyed the nature of the amenity, the style and the beauty of our city. If it was not for some brave individuals in that period standing up and saying no, we would have lost the Royal Exhibition Building, amongst other things. There is a quality to this city –

Members interjecting.

Richard WELCH: I did not say that. If you were actually listening to what I was saying, I was not even going anywhere near that.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): I will just call the chamber to order, please. Mr Welch, continue. Mr Batchelor, you are next.

Richard WELCH: One of the absolute key attributes of Melbourne having been such a successful city – particularly a successful multicultural city and in many respects an egalitarian city – is the equalising nature of the quality of our homes. Until recent times, no matter what background you came from, whether you were in the western suburbs or the eastern suburbs, whether you were an immigrant or locally born, you had a home. Everyone had their own driveway, they had their own backyard and they had a piece of Australia that was their own. I believe absolutely to my core that that was foundational in the success of this city. While Mr Galea says, ‘Well, the status quo is not satisfactory,’ well, you know what, the new status quo where that is no longer the standard for our city is a status quo created by the Labor government over 20 of the last 24 years in government. They caused this problem, and now, having caused this problem, they come in with their size 12 clown feet to say, ‘We’ll solve the problem with even worse urban planning solutions.’

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

Richard WELCH: Spare me. Their justification is housing, but we all know that due to the tax system, which Mr Limbrick is totally correct about, this will not produce affordable housing. It mathematically cannot. That is why these buildings are not getting built. If you really wanted the new housing, if you really wanted that supply, you would have to reform the tax. If you really wanted new housing and you were not just trying to get revenue from rezoning, you would remove the windfall gains tax.

There is all this stuff about urban sprawl. Well, within the confines of our city there is endless Crown land, often owned by councils, that is differently zoned, and if they rezone it to residential to provide the supply, they are subject to windfall gains tax. So do not pretend you are here to create housing, because the core mechanism of supply is that the houses themselves can be built in economically viable quantities, and you are not willing to do that because you need the money. You need the money because you have misdirected our capital to non-productive purposes. You have misdirected our capital. And while you denigrate those in the outer suburbs – they are not fringe suburbs, they are new communities that have been planted and are absolutely entitled to the same infrastructure as every other part of Melbourne. If you had not redirected the capital to these white elephants like the Suburban Rail Loop, if you had not let $15 billion go –

Members interjecting.

Richard WELCH: I will not shout if you do not interrupt.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): Just bring the level down a bit so that the people in the gallery do not need earmuffs.

Richard WELCH: If you had not misdirected this state’s precious capital into these miscreant programs, such as the Suburban Rail Loop, if you had not bled $15 billion to corruption, if you had not wound out our debt to $200 billion, to a point where we are paying $10 billion a year in interest, you would not need the windfall gains tax, and then the problem would be solved. We would be able to put the resources where they need to be and maintain quality of life for all of Victoria. But as it is, you want to infill, as you call it, into the middle suburbs and completely change their character. You are doing so without a skerrick of a plan to uplift the social infrastructure that goes with it. Where are the new schools in the inner city? Where are the new hospitals? Where is the new open space? Where is the parking? Where are any of the resources you say will add to quality of life? It will not. It is an absolute measure of the poorness of this urban planning.

Let us be perfectly clear: we are going to end up with the worst of both worlds. We will not have the resources for the communities in the outer suburbs who deserve it, but we will be overcrowded in the inner suburbs, with no new infrastructure for them. So we will lose and lose, we will still be in debt and young people still will not be able to afford housing. We will have destroyed a beautiful city, not because we could not have done it better, not because there was not available land, not because there was not capital but because we chose to use all of these precious resources in the wrong way. It is this government of 20 of the last 24 years that will have done it.

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (15:34): We are here today in this month’s episode of the Liberal Party standing against people getting houses. It is not the first time we have seen this show, but the stories remain the same. Members opposite continue to, I would say argue, but I suspect the correct word is ‘bloviate’, against young Victorians having the capacity to buy a home in the communities they grew up in, in the communities that they love, near their families, near jobs, near schools. What we are seeing again is an attempt by the Liberal Party to block planning scheme changes that are going to create new homes for more Victorians. We saw it last year in fact. In May last year we were here in what can only be described as the first version of this episode. Mr Davis brought in a motion to revoke the planning scheme amendments that we had moved at the time, including VC267, which was the townhouse code. He got up and told us at that time how terrible it would be if these planning scheme amendments were not revoked, if they were allowed to stand. Similar to the tenor of the contribution from Mr Welch, they got up and they told us that it would not make any difference, but it has.

The changes that we brought in last year, the changes that were in the codes last year that the Liberal Party attempted to block, are making a difference. In fact today we have data that shows that permits under the townhouse code, which the Liberal Party tried to block last year, tried to revoke last year, have jumped from more than 2000 to more than 3100 planning permits issued in just one year. Applications are surging under the townhouse code, jumping from 4800 to 7000 since the townhouse code was introduced last year. Last year the Liberal Party tried to block those planning provisions and applications. They failed, thankfully, and applications have surged.

Here we are again this year: Mr Davis bloviating against progress, Mr Welch continuing his crusade against people living, heaven forbid, in an apartment, and the same thing is going to happen. They are going to stand up and they are going to rail against the opportunity for more Victorians to live in suburbs close to where they grew up, close to their family, with good schools and great parks. They are going to tell you that the sky is going to fall in. The Chicken Little act that we see from those opposite will happen again and again and again.

We know that what Labor is doing in terms of reforming our planning scheme so that more homes can be built and more people have the opportunity to live in communities that they love is going to deliver housing outcomes and going to deliver homes for more Victorians. That is what is most important in this debate: how our votes in this place today help younger Victorians in particular but all Victorians find somewhere that they can live in the communities that they love. That is what is driving Labor’s planning reforms. That is what is absolutely motivating this government. Instead of being blocked from housing, instead of being priced out of suburbs that they want to live in and instead of forcing development onto an urban fringe which struggles to keep up with the pace of growth in terms of infrastructure, despite all of the investments that this Labor government is making in terms of building schools – and Mr Galea has gone through that in great detail – that is the alternative that the Liberal Party wants to put forward.

What Labor wants to do is make sure we have got more homes being built in our inner and middle-ring suburbs and that there are opportunities in our growth corridors but that we have got a balance across the system and that we take advantage of the infrastructure that generations of Victorians have built up, whether it be roads, whether it be trains, whether it be trams or whether it be schools, and where they are under capacity at the moment, as many schools are in the very suburbs that are affected by the revocation motion today, that those schools are filled with new prep classes into the future, because at the moment they are struggling for enrolments. I know there are others that want to participate in this debate, so I will leave a bit of time for that. What we want is for more Victorians to have a home, and the Liberals want to block it.

 David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (15:40): I am going to have to really cut down my comments, given the limited amount of time that is available. Could I perhaps just start out by endorsing the contribution from Dr Mansfield. We have had the pleasure of working, through the committees and various other things, on these issues, and I think we are of a very similar mindset as to how this should move forward. Can I say at the outset that Legalise Cannabis is absolutely cognisant of the absolute priority of providing affordable housing that people can actually get into in locations that are appropriately serviced by infrastructure, public transport and health services.

The government’s approach to the planning problem seems to be primarily to simply push aside councils and push aside concerned residents, as though the simple act of deregulating the process of approvals will somehow make things happen. The reality is that this is not simply muddle-headed; it is in many cases counterproductive. Mr Batchelor talks about the huge growth of townhouse applications. What is not discussed is the fact that those applications are not in inner and middle-ring suburbs. They are overwhelmingly on the outskirts, in the very suburbs that Mr Galea quite correctly identifies as being overwhelmed. So not only do you not achieve the outcome, you make it worse.

Michael Galea interjected.

David ETTERSHANK: Yes, I have read the motion. Thank you for that. Good share. The reality is that what we have seen are a range of amendments that basically serve to undermine public safety and environmental standards.

Ryan Batchelor: Public safety? How?

David ETTERSHANK: Planners are precluded from taking into account flood plains under the legislation that came through last year, as Mr Batchelor is aware. What we are seeing is a situation where the government will not recognise the flaws in this legislation and instead simply reduces this down to a ‘NIMBYs versus YIMBYs’ debate. All nuance is stripped out of the discussion. I am not suggesting that one side or the other is better, to be honest. It is deeply frustrating that we do not seem to be able to have a sensible discussion about population or to have a sensible discussion about growth, and the fabric of our city for the next half a century is being shaped by a half-arsed approach premised upon free market economics and ‘fingers crossed’. At the same time, I am very disturbed that there is a perception that has been given to the community that we can simply pass this disallowance motion and it is all over, red rover, the problem is fixed. Manifestly that is wrong and that is inadequate, and I think it is gratuitous and incorrect to tell the community that that is the way forward. In closing, I would just like to say that whilst we support the concerns that have been expressed, we will not be supporting this motion, because it simply does not achieve its stated objectives.

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (15:43): This is an important motion. It is true that we are in a position in opposition in this chamber where we do not control what the government says and does or its terrible plans across the city. But that does not mean we cannot do anything, and it does not mean we cannot send a clear signal about what the chamber and the Victorian community, and the Melbourne community in particular, feel about these issues. People do not want these high-rise, high-density zones forced upon them, they do not want their suburbs being destroyed and they do not want the undemocratic approach which is inherent in the way the government has gone about these matters.

Today the cat is out of the bag: 150 so-called activity centres – high-rise, high-density zones – is and was the government’s plan. The government are now running a thousand miles away from this as the journalists start to put it to them: why did your documents say 150 zones were needed to get to the 800,000? They said you need the 150, according to the officials, to get to the 800,000. They are not getting to their 800,000, so the government went after the 150 zones. The government is running away from that today. They are running away at a million miles an hour, because they know 150 zones across Melbourne leave very little of the city left. 150 of these zones leave very few suburbs that are not run over in a swathe, having these massive towers up to 20 storeys and beyond put on them without council approval, without community approval and without the slightest scintilla of proper consultation. The community says, ‘No. We don’t want the 60 zones. We don’t want the 150 zones. We don’t want our democratic rights torn away, and we don’t want to lose our heritage in suburbs. We don’t want to lose the vegetation, the ambience of our suburbs and the livability.’

The state government has blocked housing all across the city. They have blocked it on government land across the city. They have blocked it on the edge of the city, with slow processes with the precinct structure plans. They have blocked it on sites like Fishermans Bend. Why on earth, 14 years after the change of government, have they got virtually no new housing at Fishermans Bend? That is entirely on Daniel Andrews and Jacinta Allan and their governments; it is their fault. They actually could have got development at Fishermans Bend in a sensible way, in a pragmatic way, in a way that actually protected communities and built a community in that location. I use that as just one example, and there are many of these across the city. Instead of that, what they have done is they have gone for these high-rise, high-density zones and forced development, overriding councils, bulldozing communities and destroying suburbs and the heritage involved.

Mr Limbrick is correct about the tax. There is no question that the state government has jacked up tax after tax, 66 new and expanded taxes, many of them on property and laying out huge new costs on property, and that makes the properties unaffordable for young people. So it is a bit rich of Labor members here to say the Liberal Party is blocking this or doing that. No, we are actually saying that development is possible – sensible development, practical development. But if you layer tax upon tax upon tax, you make it unaffordable, and that is what young people are finding now. My children and the children of many in this chamber actually confront this, and they understand that the challenge is there. But those taxes have been put on by Daniel Andrews and Jacinta Allan. They are the taxes that are making things unaffordable. And those who also do not want to stand up and say very clearly and very strongly that this is wrong, I think –

Harriet Shing: Housing is more affordable here than elsewhere.

David DAVIS: I tell you what, you can run out and tell that to all the young people, that it is cheap here. I know it is not cheap, and I know that those taxes are biting.

What I also say is that the Greens and the minor parties who wish to oppose these steps, I think, misread this. I think they misunderstand that the community is wanting a clear lead. It is no good for councils or MPs or others in leadership positions to not stand up and not oppose the Labor Party’s arrogant takeover of our suburbs. We actually need to stand up. I have watched this now – I watched it at Kew the other night, and I was shocked that the council was not strong enough to stand up and fight for our community.

Council divided on motion: