Mr MORRIS (Mornington) — When I first entered this Parliament almost 12 years ago, one of my first statements identified the threat that the Bracks’ government’s planning policies posed to the distinctive character of the Mornington Peninsula.
More than a decade on, nothing has changed.
This government has orchestrated a sustained attack on peninsula livability. They have trashed the rules on residential development. They have taken two-storey height limits and made them three. They have scrapped reasonable minimum subdivision sizes and replaced them with anything-goes rules that can only result in the slums of the mid-21st century.
They have launched the biggest attack on the amenity of towns and villages on the Mornington Peninsula in the history of town planning controls.
And not content with plotting to convert our bayside towns into densely populated suburbs, not content with consistently failing to protect the distinctive peninsula character, Labor has refused point blank in this term of government to act to ensure that the green spaces on the Mornington Peninsula are preserved for future generations.
In true Labor fashion they are happy to provide strong, legislated planning controls for the Macedon Ranges — the marginal seat there — but not for the Mornington Peninsula.
The Liberal and National parties have proposed that the landscape protection controls in the planning act should apply to the entire Mornington Peninsula.
The government refused to entertain such a notion. So too have the Greens.
Only a Liberal and a National government will protect the peninsula for generations to come.
Legislative Assembly 8 August 2018