Archive: A Vote for Labor is a Vote for Suburbia
Last Updated 21/3/07
NO Joanne Duncan's Final Response Means Only One Thing: A Vote For LABOR Is A Vote For SUBURBIA
The opportunity was there to say 'yes', but Joanne Duncan confirms Bracks government still says 'no' to protecting Macedon Ranges
NO Labor Says NO Again In Response To Liberal Protection Proposal: Lies, Damned Lies and More Lies?
NO Joanne Duncan's Final Response Means Only One Thing: A Vote For LABOR Is A Vote For SUBURBIA
The opportunity was there to say 'yes', but Joanne Duncan confirms Bracks government still says 'no' to protecting Macedon Ranges (14/11/06 - SP)
At last Thursday's Meet The Candidates Forum in Gisborne, MRRA reminded Joanne Duncan of some of what she said in parliament on 12 May 2004 (as recorded in Hansard):
"Planned and appropriate development that protects the unique character of our towns, appropriate densities and the protection of farmland are what is needed to make sure that the reasons we move to this area in the first place are preserved for future generations."
"Macedon Ranges has always been seen as needing special protection. Assistance to the council in preparing the strategic basis that would deliver this protection is needed. I ask the minister to work with the council in bringing about this level of protection."
Given that the Bracks government's line since April 2005 is it won't help, and it is up to Council to do the work - and that Macedon Ranges is already protected - the questions MRRA asked of Joanne were: 'when did you change your mind, and why won't the Bracks government protect Macedon Ranges?' Joanne's response went something like this: It's up to Council to do the work, you wouldn't like it if the Minister told the Council what to do, MRRA is upset because it doesn't like these answers, the government is acting responsibly, Council is being consulted about the Bendigo Regional Plan. As MRRA pointed out, the Bendigo Regional Plan has been 3 years in the making, and no-one in this community has ever been consulted about it.
Most of Joanne's 6 minute speech was, disappointingly, a blur of figures supporting claims of Labor having delivered, with a hurried reference at the end to 'planning and climate change need consideration' the only recognition of major water and planning issues affecting the Shire
MRRA Says:
The Bendigo plan isn't State level protection. As far as we can tell, it's the government's Melbourne 2030 growth plan for the Bendigo (Calder) corridor. MRRA's understanding is the plan contains (contained?) "accelerated growth rates", even higher than the inappropriately high growth rates released by the Department of Sustainability and Environment in 2004 (Victoria In Future). This plan certainly isn't the protection from too much growth and over-development the government promised us, or what MRRA, Council (2004) and the Macedon Ranges' community have been calling for, and Ms Duncan should know that.
Joanne should also know is that it isn't just MRRA that doesn't like the government's 'weasel-word' answers or the suburban invasion that is over-running Macedon Ranges under this government's watch. Little wonder planning and climate change were added almost as an after-thought; there is no amount of spin that can cover-up the government's blatant broken promises on this one. Never let it be said the government didn't have opportunities to deliver its promises, or wasn't given a chance to change its mind. MRRA has tried for almost 3 years to get the government to make good its 1998, 1999 and 2004 promises to protect this environmentally sensitive, State significant area.
It's not as if existing local members Joanne Duncan (Macedon), Geoff Howard (Ballarat East) and the government have never recognised the problem or never agreed with what MRRA is saying. They have; that much is obvious from the Hansard extract and the promises/commitments the Bracks government has made. They know Macedon Ranges needs strong protection to survive as an area of State significance. The fact is, they've changed their minds.
In 1998, MRRA met with John Thwaites who agreed to protection, and in 1999 agreed to include Statement of Planning Policy No. 8 - Macedon Ranges and Surrounds, as State policy. In 2004 MRRA met with Planning Minister Mary Delahunty, who agreed to protection. In 2005 MRRA met with Planning Minister Rob Hulls - our press release after that meeting summed up the Minister's backflip nicely: "No Money, No Help: Macedon Ranges You're On Your Own". In September 2006 MRRA asked for a meeting with the Premier and Ministers for Planning and Environment. The answer was NO: there will be no change to State policy, Macedon Ranges is already protected by Green Wedges (which is not true - there are no Green Wedges in Macedon Ranges), there is nothing to be gained from a meeting.
Historically, Macedon Ranges was protected by explicit State policy (as were Yarra Ranges and Mornington Peninsula) and strong, prescriptive planning schemes. All protection was lost when the Bracks government approved Macedon Ranges' new, Victoria Planning Provisions planning scheme in June 2000, a scheme where our former State policy languishes as local policy (and we all know how easily local policies are ignored). Yet in 1998 and 1999, before approving the new scheme, this government promised to put back protections the Victoria Planning Provisions took away. It hasn't done it, and now not only refuses to do it, has decided to say it already has.
Last Thursday, MRRA gave Joanne Duncan (and the Labor government/party) one last chance to stand up for Macedon Ranges and its community. But she/they didn't, again turning away, apparently preferring the party line over the wishes of the people.
While the Kennett government introduced the increasingly despised Victoria Planning Provisions, the Bracks government has the distinction of being the first government in 30 years to not protect Macedon Ranges. As a result, Victoria is about to lose one of its three State significant areas, all formerly protected by State policy. The Bracks government has given two of those three areas State level planning protection (Yarra Ranges and Mornington Peninsula); Macedon Ranges alone has missed out. Equal significance, unequal protection.
In MRRA's view, the Bracks government has another (suburban) plan for Macedon Ranges, but it doesn't have the bottle to come clean and tell us. It doesn't have to. By simply not providing protection, by doing nothing, the suburban agenda will happen (is happening), because we just don't have any way of stopping it, because this government won't give us what we need to stop it.
MRRA isn't indulging in bashing the government or bashing Labor here, the fact is the Bracks government has made it absolutely clear it will not protect Macedon Ranges. It will not protect our towns or our water catchments, our rural land or our landscapes. That leaves us to draw but one conclusion:
Macedon Ranges is ear-marked by the Bracks government to become a suburb of Melbourne, and so...
A VOTE FOR LABOR IS A VOTE FOR SUBURBIA
NO Labor Says NO Again In Response To Liberal Protection Proposal: Lies, Damned Lies and More Lies? (18/11/06 - SP)
MRRA Says:
Here we go again...
The Bracks government reacted as we've come to expect to yesterday's Liberal Party announcement that, in government, it would act quickly to put planning controls in place at State level to keep Macedon Ranges rural, and protect the area's State level environmental significance.
Planning Minister Rob Hulls said, incredibly, that the Liberal plan offers less protection because the Liberals would scrap Melbourne 2030! (Herald Sun, 18/11/06). What a joke. While parts of 2030 were supposed to protect our catchments, rural land and focus growth in nominated towns, it has turned out to be a horror story, with the regional network corridor between Melbourne and Bendigo instead becoming a hell-for-leather suburban growth corridor (with growth and development driven by the Bracks government), and with those parts of 2030 that Melbourne hates (e.g. activity centres, jammed up and multi-storey development) floating to the top in Macedon Ranges as well.
As for the Minister's statement (Age, 18/11/06) that the Liberal plan would "open the floodgates for uncontrolled urban sprawl to the very foot of Mount Macedon and beyond"... We have a NEWSFLASH for the Bracks Government: YOU HAVE ALREADY DONE THAT, and that's what is upsetting so many people.
Mr. Hulls went on to say "The Macedon Ranges are already named in the State planning policy, alongside the Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley, as an environmentally sensitive region with significant recreational value". NEWSFLASH #2: Tell us Mr. Hulls, just how do we put that single policy statement 'on the ground'? HHmmm? Those other places have the tools they need to IMPLEMENT that and other State policy, and they have their own rules. Your government has given us nothing. See comparison Yarra Ranges/Mornington Peninsula/Macedon Ranges.
The Bracks government hasn't delivered its own series of promises to protect Macedon Ranges and seems in such a state of denial it is spinnnnning uncontrollably to cover up its irresponsible abandonment of a State significant area. Unbelievable.
Remember?
“Labor will protect Melbourne’s green belts and sensitive areas such as the Dandenongs, Macedon Ranges and Mornington Peninsula” Labor Position Paper On Planning Policy, August 1998
Labor will make Macedon Ranges’ Statement of Planning Policy No. 8 a State Policy, Minister Thwaites, December, 1999
Bracks government is committed to protecting Macedon Ranges and will act, Minister Delahunty, April 2004
Remember?
"Hundreds voice Macedon Ranges planning concerns" (16/9/04) and
"Meeting calls for limited Macedon Ranges development" (23/11/04)...
NEWSFLASH #3: We remember it... we remember it all too well.