19th of June 2024, 10:48am
Legislative Council of Victoria, Spring Street, Melbourne
David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan):
I rise to make a contribution on the motion before the house, and in doing so I would just like to say that I am aware of my obligation as a member of the Planning and Environment Committee to maintain confidentiality about the committee process. I just want to get that on the record and that I respect that, and of course that does limit the ability to make statements on this issue.
The Kensington Banks housing development was a joint venture between the state government’s office of major projects, the City of Melbourne and Burbank Urban in partnership with Urban Pacific, which has subsequently gone, I believe, bankrupt. This development was sold to people – and not cheaply, I might add – as a safe and as a secure place to live. Those of us who watched this redevelopment of the old meatworks and the old munitions plant that were previously on the site should have perhaps realised at the time that there were some management issues associated with the site when we saw the government basically remove the top 2 metres of toxic soil across that whole 30-hectare site to replace it with clean fill. Unfortunately, that clean fill was largely excavated from the then Crown Casino construction site and it was equally toxic. You could say that the ground on which these people’s homes were built was about as environmentally safe as it was safe from flooding.
People were informed that the site had been elevated to avoid flooding, and the recent Melbourne Water flood modelling did show that the houses on Hobsons Road – that is, on the riverside boundary of Kensington Banks – were indeed safe from the flooding, or the 1 per cent, 2024-modelled flooding. Unfortunately, the developers apparently did not see the need to elevate the remainder of the site adequately to protect the other dwellings from flooding. The recently revised flood modelling from Melbourne Water showing that around 800 houses would be subject to inundation has literally devastated the community, and this is a community in which I have lived for close to 30 years. Residents are now faced with increased insurance premiums, decreased property prices and a precarious, if not ruined, financial future, including negative equity in their own homes.
Contrary to Ms Terpstra’s rather addled commentary, residents who bought into these sites and their lawyers in doing their due diligence could not have detected these changes. The due diligence would have shown that this was land that was not subject to an LSIO, a land subject to inundation overlay, so I have no idea where she was going with that, and I am certainly glad she is not my lawyer. The cruelty of this situation is further exacerbated by Melbourne Water’s claims that the adjoining Flemington Racecourse flood wall will reduce flood levels on the Kensington Banks estate in the event of a 1 per cent flood event. This frankly beggars belief. It fails the pub test, and it adds insult to injury. I know that people will say, ‘Well, this is what’s come from the hydrologists and this is what’s come from the scientists, and you’re just denying the modelling.’ I get that. But the problem is that this was put before the committee after it had finished its deliberations and the committee had no way to interrogate this information. That is part of the reason why we are here today and why I commend the Greens for bringing forward this motion to try and get some clarity and some understanding.
Residents at Kensington Banks rightly have a lot of questions, and those questions need to be answered. They are deeply, deeply frustrated, not only by the sort of laissez faire, ‘You bought the land, you cop the consequences’ approach that Ms Terpstra was enunciating but also by the actions of Melbourne Water in terms of responding to people’s deeply felt concerns – like, for example, telling everyone in the media: ‘If you want to know how you’re going to be affected, you can just ring us. Just ring Melbourne Water and we will tell you how you’re going to be affected.’ Well, what Melbourne Water will actually tell you is what the water is going to be like sort of in your area, but it will not tell you whether it is going to go above your floorboards. If you want that piece of information, you have the privilege of paying an extra $1000. I mean, that is the sort of warmth and empathy that we all look for from our statutory authorities, isn’t it?
Given that level of frustration, you can understand that there is a similar sense of frustration and powerlessness that is being experienced by the many residents in the Rivervue Retirement Village. Forty-seven of those units were inundated in the 2022 floods. The cohort has now grown to about 100 units based on the new flood modelling. Those units were only permitted to be constructed after a complex and confusing review process involving Moonee Valley council, Melbourne Water and VCAT which saw the land subject to inundation overlay actually drop – it was brought down. As the Pagone review into the 2022 flood event noted, the rationale behind this decision appears to have been lost in the sands of time. That is not exactly what you call comforting for those residents of the retirement village – elderly, respected citizens who had often put their life savings into those units were told, ‘Well, yeah, you’re screwed. But you just have to cop it because we don’t know how or why this happened.’
Let us face it, the committee did not have the resources or the ability to undertake a detailed forensic exercise of how the process came to be approved. The committee spoke – and this is all on the public record. Mr Batchelor is giving me a frown here; I hope I am not breaching anything. This is in the public domain – it was broadcast. We sought to find out how this could have happened, how this decision could have been made, and in the end it was this complex, long process involving the Moonee Valley council, Melbourne Water and VCAT hearings. It is appropriate that someone with more resources and more experience gets to the bottom of this question. Let us ask ourselves the question: what do these two developments have in common? I am glad you asked, because it is the central rationale for this motion: how were these catastrophic planning decisions made, and who is ultimately responsible for the lives and the security that have been destroyed?
Given the political underpinnings associated with the formal processes in both examples, it is entirely appropriate for an impartial and independent set of eyes to scrutinise these two cases. Let us take it out of this sphere, let us take it out the red hell and let us actually let experts who can do this forensically explore these questions and let the Environment and Planning Committee move on. No doubt many of the threads that have underpinned this current inquiry into the 2022 floods will be collaboratively explored in the forthcoming inquiry into climate change resilience and adaptation. There are few keener eyes than those of our Victorian Ombudsman, and I hope that this will draw some comfort for the residents of Kensington Banks and the Rivervue retirement village. Accordingly, Legalise Cannabis Victoria will support this motion, and we commend it to the chamber.
[Ends]
