Victoria threatens to strip planning powers from councils not approving more homes
Joe Hinchliffe
The Victorian government will strip planning powers from local governments that don’t get serious about approving more homes, premier Jacinta Allan says.
Allan warned councils that failed to pull their weight towards the overall goal of building 2.24m new homes by 2051 that she intended to “shake things up” to address the housing crisis as she released the final local government housing targets drafted last year. Allan told councils in a statement this morning:
It’s simple – work with us to unlock space for more homes or we’ll do it for you.
If met, the targets would flip the focus of 30 years of housing growth from the outer fringes of Melbourne to its inner suburbs, areas that have benefited from investment in everything from hospitals and public transport to level-crossing removals, but whose housing stock has grown comparatively little. Some would dramatically increase in density.
Boroondara is being ordered to increase its housing stock by 88% by the middle of the century, with 65,500 new homes in an area that currently has 74,600. That area, which includes affluent eastern suburbs of Kew and Hawthorn, was identified by Yimby Melbourne as the most in-demand local government area with capacity for growth.
Nearby Glen Eira’s target is a 93% increase, with 63,500 homes to be built in an area that currently has 68,000, while Darebin is set to add 69,000 – a 98% increase on its existing stock.
These are areas that have recorded some of lowest rates of housing growth in all of metro Melbourne over the past 30 years, a period in which the state grew by 65% but Boroondara by just 24%.
In contrast, outer suburban Melbourne councils like Melton grew 433% and Wyndham by 346%. With targets of 109,000 and 99,000 new homes respectively, those areas would see approval rates for new builds ease, though remain high, while the city of Melbourne itself would have the greatest number of new builds by 2051 with a target of 119,500.
Regional Victoria is slated with a target of 25% of new homes by 2051 under the statewide targets.
Key events
Government says it will confirm 2035 climate target by September
Graham Readfearn
Australia will meet a request by the UN’s top climate official to have countries submit by September this year their climate targets for 2035.
In senate estimates, climate change department deputy secretary, Kushla Munro, said the government was waiting for advice from the Climate Change Authority on the the target.
But she she said the executive secretary of the UN’s climate convention, Simon Stiell, had asked for targets to be submitted by September and well in advance of the next major climate talks in Brazil in November.
Munro said the government intended to meet Stiell’s request.
Australia’s current target is to cut emissions by 43% by 2030, and estimates heard the latest projections suggested emissions would be at about 42.6% lower than 2005 by 2030 and this assumed Australia’s electricity grid would have 82% renewables by 2030.
PM says claims Fowler MP not invited to citizenship ceremony in Reid electorate ‘non-story’
Anthony Albanese was asked about claims from the independent Fowler MP, Dai Le, that she was not invited to an Olympic Park citizenship ceremony, which was attended by home affairs minister Tony Burke and the Labor candidate for Fowler, Tu Le.
The prime minister labelled this “complete nonsense” and “a complete non-story.”
This was a big citizenship ceremony in Homebush, which is in the electorate of Reid. Nowhere else. The electorate of Reid. Not even next to Fowler …
All of the mayors for anywhere that was within [where] people were getting their citizenship, they were all invited.
The PM went on to say it was “unusual” that Le is the MP for Fowler and the deputy mayor of Fairfield as well.
The mayor of Fairfield was certainly invited as was appropriate. It was an arm’s length by the department, and it’s a good thing that people are committing to become Australian citizens.
Butler confident in modelling about bulk-billing rates
Continuing from our last post: Mark Butler said he was so confident in the Medicare plan it would be closer to 100% of appointments bulk billed than 90%.
We have delivered the three biggest annual increases to the Medicare rebate in our three years in government in three decades – since Paul Keating was the prime minister. Leaving aside bulk-billing incentives, we have increased Medicare income for doctors by more in three years than the former government did in nine …
So we’re very confident about the modelling we have put in place. If anything, it’s quite conservative. It suggests it will take some years to get to 90%.
The important thing is this funding takes effect this year. It takes effect very quickly. It’s not scaled up over time. It’s put in place very quickly for practices to make the business decision to return to what most doctors want to do, and that is to let patients come in without them having to think about their credit card.
Anthony Albanese said the government was “very confident” about reaching a 90% bulk-billing rate under the new Medicare plan, after the AMA said this would not be reached.
We’re very confident that we will reach it … This was been welcomed across the board … That’s an indication that we have got this policy right and that’s why we then took that experience and translated it into ensuring that every Australian can have that access.
Albanese criticises Dutton ‘thought bubbles’
Continuing to take aim at Peter Dutton, the prime minister said that all he is offering is “thought bubbles.”
Anthony Albanese questioned whether zonal taxation rates was still Coalition policy, after a previous announcement from Dutton, as well as a second referendum on Indigenous recognition.
These are all just thoughts, spontaneously thrown out there, and I think during an election campaign … this is what he will be held to account on …
Albanese labels Dutton’s Medicare price-match pledge ‘pure politics’
A reporter has asked Anthony Albanese how he can label Medicare “one of the great divides in Australian politics” (see earlier post) after Peter Dutton agreed to match the pledge, therefore making it bipartisan?
The prime minister said it was “pure politics” from Dutton yesterday and, like Mark Butler a moment ago, said it echoed back to when Dutton was health minister:
What we saw from the opposition yesterday was just pure politics. It’s what they did prior to 2013. The 2014 budget papers are very clear about $50bn of cuts to hospitals, very clear as well about what they wanted to do in a GP tax, a co-payment every time people visited a GP, meaning the abolition, effectively, of bulk billing …
All of that wasn’t done while Peter Dutton was somewhere else, Peter Dutton was front and centre and was the health minister, and it was so bad that doctors voted him the worst health minister in their history …
Butler says ‘we’ve seen this film before’ on Dutton’s promise to match Labor Medicare plan
The health minister, Mark Butler, has also been speaking to reporters about the Medicare promise.
The Coalition yesterday said it would match Labor’s plan “dollar for dollar”. But Butler has labelled this a “performance” from opposition leader Peter Dutton:
Yesterday we saw the most extraordinary performance from a man with such a legacy of destroying Medicare pretend[ing] that suddenly he loves Medicare, he wanted to protect it and he’d match the announcement that we made.
Well, we have seen this film before. They said exactly the same thing before 2013. They said they’d back in our health policies then. They said there would be no cuts to health. And what we saw a few months later in a horror budget in 2014 … was a health minister in Peter Dutton trying to abolish bulk billing, cut $50bn from hospitals, and make every single Australian somehow pay as they walked in the front door of a hospital emergency department.
Butler argued Dutton “simply cannot be trusted on Medicare” and asked:
Why on earth would any Australian trust the man who created this mess in the first place to fix it up?
Albanese addressing reporters in Melbourne
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is speaking to reporters in Melbourne on Labor’s centrepiece election promise around Medicare.
Labor has promised 18m extra bulk-billed GP visits a year as part of an $8.5bn investment. The PM echoed earlier comments that Medicare is “the heart and, indeed, the soul of our health system.”
We believe that people should be able to see a doctor for free, and that stands in stark contrast to our opponents, Peter Dutton, who has said there were too many free Medicare services – which is why we are changing and reversing the cuts that Peter Dutton put in place.
He said the tripling of the bulk-billing incentive and applying this to “everyone across the board” will mean more Australians get to see a doctor for free.
It will lift bulk-billing rates to 90% by 2030, providing an incentive as well for more medical professionals to become GPs.
Billionaires amassed more wealth in January than poorest third of humanity owns in January, new analysis shows
Oxfam says that in January, billionaires across the world amassed more wealth than the poorest third of humanity owns.
In a statement, Oxfam said billionaire wealth surged US$314bn (A$493bn) – around A$16bn a day.
It would take 15 million workers an entire year to make as much money … this is more than the combined wealth of the 2.8 billion people who make up the poorest third of humanity.
The analysis was released today ahead of the first meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors in Cape Town, South Africa. Economist Jayati Ghosh said:
Extreme wealth isn’t just growing – it’s accelerating at breakneck speed, putting more and more power into the hands of a tiny few. Failure to act enables more unchecked greed and deepening disparities, allowing oligarchs to expand their vast fortunes and further extend their power over the rest of the world.
More than 50 international organisations, including Amnesty International, Oxfam and Greenpeace, are calling on G20 governments to ensure the super-rich are effectively taxed.
Labor on track for election defeat in new polling
About 55% of surveyed Australians say they would preference the Coalition on a two-party basis while 45% back Labor, according to the Resolve Political Monitor published in Nine newspapers.
AAP reports that the results reflect a continued slide in support for the federal government, despite the Reserve Bank’s rates decision, as six in 10 respondents said a cut would not change their vote.
The health minister, Mark Butler, admitted it would be a tough election but said the choice between opposition leader Peter Dutton and prime minister Anthony Albanese “couldn’t be clearer”. He told the Today Show earlier:
There will be a tsunami of polls between now and the real polling date … they’ll go up, they’ll go down. At the end of the day, we’re focused on putting a vision before the Australian people.
Labor is hoping its centrepiece election promise around Medicare could help turn the tides in its favour.
Benita Kolovos
Kilkenny denies government has shrunk housing targets
Sonya Kilkenny denied the Victorian government had significantly scaled back the plans since announcing the draft targets drafted last year.
Targets for the outer Melbourne council areas of Hobsons Bay, Hume, Manningham, Mornington Peninsula and Nillumbik have all dropped significantly. In Nillumbik, the target went from a proposed 12,000 homes by 2051 to 6,500 – a drop of about 45%.
The state planning minister said it was “always our intention that we work very closely with every single local government to discuss those draft targets”.
[To] work with them, have a look at their existing plans, but also have a look at the capacity within those local government areas. The final targets that have been released today take into account all of that – all of the modelling around capacity for those local government areas.
We also want to make sure that we’re taking the burden off some of those outer growth areas as well, those council areas that really carried a significant part of the housing burden over the last 30 years.
It is worth noting that in the inner city, where the state government wants to see the most new homes built, the targets have remained quite consistent with those drafted last year.
Benita Kolovos
Targets ensure ‘fairness and equity’ across Victoria – minister
Continuing from our last post: Sonya Kilkenny said the Victorian government had never set targets for local government before.
We have never set a target like this before, nor have we ever set a local government target for every local government across the state.
This is about certainty. Now we just need to get on and do it.
The planning minister said the targets also ensured “fairness and equity” across the state.
Benita Kolovos
Councils told to amend planning rules to meet targets
The Victorian planning minister, Sonya Kilkenny, said it would now be up to councils to amend their planning schemes, change zones, standards and building heights to enable the targets set.
It is our expectation that councils will now do that work as they’re required to do, but as the premier has said, where it becomes clear that councils are not doing the necessary work to meet these targets, then the state government will step in.
Benita Kolovos
Allan addressing media in Hawthorn on council housing targets
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, is holding a press conference in Hawthorn, announcing the government’s final targets for local councils to build 2.24m new homes by 2051.
We know that in a housing crisis, the status quo just won’t cut it. It won’t get the homes built that more young people are looking for, that working families are looking for, to give them the opportunity to buy their first home, to start their family and to build their long-term wealth. And that’s why today we are releasing the final local government housing targets that are about how we are going to see more homes being built right across Victoria.
Allan said the government needed to intervene to set council targets to ensure “fairer, more even growth” around the state. The targets followed “significant consultation” with councils after the government released draft figures in June.
As we bought to you earlier, Allan said there are going to be sanctions for councils that don’t abide by the targets:
If you won’t do the work, if you won’t unlock the space, we’ll do it for you. We’ll step in and do this work.
The location of the press conference – Hawthorn – sits within the local government of Boorondara, where the council is being ordered to increase its housing stock by 88% by the middle of the century, with 65,500 new homes in an area that currently has 74,600.
New appointments to Fair Work Commission
Five new appointments have been made to the Fair Work Commission. A statement from employment minister Murray Watt outlines the appointments as follows:
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Kamal Farouque appointed deputy president, commencing on 7 April. He has been a principal lawyer at Maurice Blackburn since 2010.
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Trevor Clarke appointed as a commissioner, commencing on 24 March. He has held various roles at the ACTU since 2009.
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Adam Walkaden appointed as a commissioner, commencing on 24 March. He has been national legal director of the Mining and Energy Union since 2022.
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Jessica Rogers appointed as a commissioner, commencing on 1 April. She has served as a commissioner on the South Australian Employment Tribunal since 2023.
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Adele Labine-Romain reappointed as an expert panel member, commencing on 12 March. She has been head of travel and tourism at Roy Morgan since 2024, and has served as an expert panel member of the commission since 2020.
Albanese says Medicare ‘one of the great divides in Australian politics’
Speaking ahead of a cabinet meeting, Anthony Albanese also spoke of Labor’s pledge for 18m extra bulk-billed GP visits a year as part of an $8.5bn investment in Medicare.
He said this was the “largest commitment to Medicare in 40 years” and that Labor would “always defend healthcare”.
Healthcare, in my personal experience with my mum, is what politicised me and why I am here today as the prime minister.
We know that Medicare is not an add-on or something that is a plaything, it is not something that you can make an announcement of in 30 seconds – which is what we saw from the pretence from the opposition …
Albanese described Medicare as “one of the great divides in Australian politics”.
Between Labor, that understands that Medicare is the heart, the beating heart, of our health system, and the Coalition, who don’t believe that things should be free – whether it is Medicare, a visit to the doctor or free Tafe … on the basis of need is how we go about things.
PM addressing cabinet in Melbourne
Anthony Albanese has touted government investment in the Whyalla steelworks and legislation to protect salmon farming in Tasmania ahead of a cabinet meeting today.
In the remarks, broadcast by ABC TV, the prime minister said the steelworks investment was “very much our Future Made in Australia agenda”. You can read more about the federal investment below:
Albanese also spoke about his decision to allow “sustainable salmon farming” to continue in Tasmania’s Macquarie Harbour.
This announcement sparked anger from conservationists and researchers, who urged for the local industry to be scaled back, after years of lobbying for action to save the threatened Maugean skate from extinction. The PM said:
Aquaculture has a critical role to play and we want those jobs to be maintained.
Four quit WiseTech board
Four people have resigned from the board of Australian software giant WiseTech.
The company advised today that four independent non-executive directors – Lisa Brock, Richard Dammery, Michael Malone and Fiona Pak-Poy – have stood aside.
The statement said this followed “intractable differences” in the board and “differing views” on the ongoing role of founder Richard White.
Their resignation will take effect from Wednesday, when Mike Gregg will also commence as a director. Additional directors may also be appointed to the board “in due course”, the statement said.
The company says it now expects revenue to be “at the bottom end of the guidance range” due to further delays of the rollout of three products.
For some background on the issues at WiseTech, you can read our reporting from last year:
Missing fisher identified as Paul Barning
A multi-agency search has resumed after a person fell overboard while competing in a fishing competition near Newcastle yesterday.
AAP reports that the experienced game fisherman has been identified as Paul Barning. He is the secretary and point score for the Port Hacking Fishing Club.
NSW Game Fishing Association president Steve Lamond, who said he had known Barning for 20 years, described the Sunday afternoon incident as a freak accident. He told AAP:
He was basically dragged overboard, underwater and disappeared. He was tragically lost at sea in the most unlikely of circumstances whilst fishing on his boat.
It was earlier reported that Barning was caught in a fishing line and was attacked by a shark, but Lamond flatly dismissed that suggestion.
I urge all members, their families and friends to refrain from speculation.
