Finance & Public Admin

Planning Minister, Mr Madden, ALP.

Justin Madden needs to answer questions

Shadow Minister for Planning Matthew Guy has issued a press release declaring that he will today ask the Parliament’s all-powerful Finance and Public Administration Committee to call the Planning Minister, Mr Madden, and the Growth Areas Authority (GAA) to appear before it to urgently explain the proposed Growth Areas Infrastructure Contribution (GAIC) that will have damaging effects on Victorian families."

Matthew Guy says he will ask why taxes not imposed on developers rather than land-owners.

In the press release it says that the Committee has the power to subpoena any Upper House minister or government agency, and that Mr Guy has said the Minister and the GAA should provide full and frank evidence explaining why this tax is being aimed at landholders on the outskirts of Melbourne, and not at those who sought to develop the land.

“The Minister’s public comments to date have been woefully inadequate and have left residents, councils and industry in the dark about this new tax,” committee member Mr Guy said today.

“The only way to make the Minister and the Growth Areas Authority answer in full is to haul them before this Committee and to seek answers under oath,” Mr Guy said.

After eight months, the GAIC is supposedly still in the drafting phase, yet Labor has announced several ‘amendments’ to the tax despite refusing to release any details beyond a handful of information sheets.

“Labor’s failure to keep Victorians informed about this new growth areas tax is atrocious,” Mr Guy said.

“This tax will reap more than $2 billion for the government from residents and the construction industry, yet the government still refuses to tell us the details.

“The GAIC proposal is destroying people’s lives and is creating huge uncertainty in the community.

“The only way to end the uncertainty is to have the Minister and the GAA answer questions in a full public hearing of the Finance and Public Administration Committee, and it must be done as soon as possible.”

To observers it looks like the Victorian government, beleagered by financial problems and massive unpopularity due to its undemocratic, unfair and socially and ecologically harmful land-use planning policies, may be in its last throes and thus susceptible to restraint. But bogeymen often come back just when you least expect it, so let's not hold our breath.

Candobetter Ed. We just hope that Mr Guy and the Liberal Party will join in spirit Federal ALP Member, Mr Thompson, in roundly condemning the growthist population policy which has led to these tragic circumstances and menaces all of Victoria's remaining wildlife habitat in the Green Wedges as well as agricultural land there. It would be very disappointing, to say the least, if the Liberal Party were merely to broker some other carve-up of Melbourne's lungs and wildlife corridors, to keep the ravenous and unsustainable growth lobby supplied.