08 February 2011
Mr MORRIS (Mornington) — Three and a half years have elapsed since I first stood in this house and requested that the Mornington Peninsula planning scheme amendment C87 be adopted.
That adjournment request to the then Minister for Planning, who in those days was in another place, ultimately proved fruitless.
Progress was so slow you would have to call it glacial. Twenty‑six months after I first made that request, the Government Gazette announced that the amendment had been rejected by the minister. It had lain on the minister’s desk for 26 months.
It is a great pleasure tonight to raise a very simple matter for the new Minister for Planning in the other place, and members will not be surprised that the subject is the still‑urgent need to provide protection for the Mount Eliza woodlands.
The action I seek from the Minister for Planning is that he commence the process to amend the Mornington Peninsula planning scheme to protect the Mount Eliza woodlands and to deliver on another coalition election commitment.
The proposal has an incredible amount of community support. It has support right across the spectrum. It has the full support of the council, it has the support of the wider community and, most particularly, it has the very enthusiastic support of almost all the people who live in the Mount Eliza woodlands: in December 2008 I presented a petition to the house which contained 1770 signatures in support of the amendment.
Little has changed in the intervening period. We have lost a few blocks, but it is still a salvageable position. When I first raised the issue in October 2007 there were some 1582 out of 1600 lots that were capable of subdivision. Quite a few of those have now been subdivided, but overall the integrity of the area is still intact, and if we take action reasonably soon there is the opportunity to resolve the problem.
If the time that has elapsed has proved anything, it is that the performance‑based controls that are currently in place and are said to work simply do not.
We have the opportunity to protect the Mount Eliza Woodland. That opportunity remains despite the late government’s neglect. We have lost some ground. It is not too late and I urge the minister to act to protect the sensitive slopes of the woodlands for future generations.
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