Mr MORRIS (Mornington) (19:10): (5955) I raise a matter for the Minister for Planning, and I am delighted to see he is in the chair opposite.
Now, the matter I raise relates to a site outside the urban growth boundary, at 60–70 Kunyung Road, Mount Eliza, and the action I am seeking from the minister is that he immediately proceed to conduct a ministerial rezoning of the site to rezone the land to green wedge.
This government brags a lot about protecting the green wedge. We have had lots of words. It is about time those words were put into actions, and we have seen precious little in the way of actions on this site.
On 19 February last year in the house I asked the minister to expedite the approval of the exhibition of amendment C270. The minister responded in the chamber. He said he would look out for it.
Nothing happened.
On 4 June 2020 I asked the minister to call in an inappropriate development and reject it, and by inappropriate—remember we are talking outside the urban growth boundary, surrounded by green wedge—I mean a development of 23 000 square metres, eight four-storey buildings, three three-storey buildings, 272 apartments in total, 115 nursing beds and 362 car spaces, all outside the urban growth boundary.
Again the minister refused.
The council rejected the application, and of course the proponent appealed. So on 14 October I asked the minister again to call it in and reject it, and again he refused to do that.
In his footnote he said that there was an amendment—I do not think he actually said C270, but that is clearly what he was referring to—that was under consideration and that he would make a decision in due course. We are still waiting.
The minister has had this rezoning request on his desk for 17 months.
Mr Wynne: On my desk?
Mr MORRIS: On your desk.
This rezoning is supported by an overwhelming majority of the community. It is supported by an overwhelming majority of the new council as well.
Let us see if this minister is actually fair dinkum, if all the words that we have heard about protecting the green wedge—and we have seen zero actions in Mount Eliza—are fair dinkum or not, because so far the minister has refused on three occasions to take action to protect this land, which is outside the urban growth boundary.
He has got an opportunity now to make up for those three strikes, and I do ask him to act and act as expeditiously as possible to finally protect this land.