Tuesday, 28 July 2026

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (14:16): Today I want to draw the chamber’s attention to the decisions of Sonya Kilkenny, the Minister for Planning, in Ashburton and Glen Iris, where we are going to see an absolute destruction of the livability and the quality of life in those areas. What has happened here is decisions have been made by the planning minister without proper consultation and without agreement by the council, although I think the council could have spoken up more, which will see six to eight storeys as a base. These are discretionary height limits that have been put in place. A discretionary height limit, I say, is no height limit at all. And the government have shown across the state – even in Boroondara, in the area that I am talking about – a propensity to go well over the discretionary height limit, as they have just done in Kew. So people should understand that eight storeys is just the beginning. They are going to do more. They are going to build larger, and they are going to do it without proper community input. Around the immediate centre there are amendment VC300 impacts, which will see four and six storeys built as of right without council involvement. This is going to be a travesty. There are no services involved here, and the government is doing this without community support. We will see our suburbs changed – changed for the worse, changed forever and changed undemocratically.