BRAG

BRAG has always tried to remain unaligned politically but the plans the Andrews’ Government has for centralizing planning, if re-elected, require us to take a stand. The plans are being developed in secret by Labor to ensure that massive changes can be rammed through, if re-elected, to push at least 70% of new medium to high density housing into the middle suburbs of Melbourne. What this means is that you can expect multi-storey blocks of flats in your local street and neither you nor your council will be able to do a thing about it. You will have no right to be advised, object or appeal and the first indication will be when construction commences.

We have noticed many more letters to the local newspapers raising the issue of high population growth mainly due to immigration. A recent survey conducted by The Australian Population Research Institute (TAPRIS) has reported that “74% of voters thought that Australia does not need more people”. The following points set out some of the reasons why we should be demanding better immigration controls by our governments:

Jack Roach, of Boroondara Residents Action Group (BRAG) speaks at 'Restore Residents' Rights', a Planning Backlash Rally organised by Mary Drost on the steps of Victorian Parliament on 8 June 2017. This rally was a huge protest by many residents' and ratepayer groups against the Victorian Government's despotic plan to privatise the planning system in order to provide for an increase in Victoria's population from approx 6m to 10m by 2050, mostly through economic immigration, in order to satiate the greed of developers who have taken over this country and the political parties.

At the Planning Backlash and Boroondara Residents Action Group "Mad as Hell event" in Camberwell on Sunday 29th May, 2016, BRAG introduced the following draft Resident's Rights Bill. To indicate your support please email drostmary[AT]gmail.com. Among other things it calls for the setting of population growth targets within OECD averages. It thus nails a continuing problem of the moving target in previous population policy claims. Australia lacks a civil rights code, unlike Europe. Our civil rights used to be implicit in our publicly owned resources and services, like water, Telecom, and power. This draft Residents' Bill of Rights is truly impressive in its ability to identify gaps in Australian residents' rights.

Since 2002 when Melbourne 2030 was quietly introduced by the Bracks’ government (which was intended to be a 30 year plan for Melbourne to make it a more compact city) there have been another 1 million people in Melbourne and 16 new plans introduced in 14 years. The latest is “Plan Melbourne Refresh,” very quickly followed by “Managing Residential Development,” which is a review of the Reformed Residential Zones. You would think that our planners could come up with a long term plan but obviously they are responding to different agendas set by developers. Planning Backlash invites you and your members to a public forum to voice your concerns about the way development is happening in Melbourne. To be held in the Parkview Room, Camberwell Civic Centre, 340 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Sunday 29th May 2016, 2.30 PM.

Jack Roach of Boroondara Residents Action Group (BRAG) writes that neither our federal nor our state governments can fund the infrastructure required to supply a doubled Melbourne population. The growth lobby, which includes the Labor opposition, is placing pressure on Mathew Guy to reduce residents' rights. The real problem is, of course, the unwise decision to grow Melbourne's population.

"This submission does not follow the suggested response questions but sets out to make comment upon what we see as the necessary strategic planning issues for the future of Melbourne... In our previous submissions on planning, BRAG has pushed for a federal population policy that limits immigration to more sustainable levels like we used to have in the 80’s and 90’s of around the 70,000 to 80,000 p.a. mark and we have not moved away from that stance. The first step in any planning is to have a population policy that is sustainable otherwise planning policy will continue to fail....we believe that the general planning powers must be with local councils who better understand their municipalities and those who live in them. Centralization leads to power and power leads to corruption and this is one of the issues we are now facing with developer donations being used to corrupt decision-making." You may not agree with everything, but it's a pretty impressive democracy submission.

Victorian Planning Minister Matthew Guy is setting up a website http://www.planmelbourne.vic.gov.au asking for residents' feedback on the sort of Melbourne we want in the future. These kinds of websites, however, make it hard to say what you really think. It is probably better to send the Minister a submission re Plan Melbourne saying what you really think, in your own words, rather than responding to the website questionnaire. Email it to Matthew.Guy[AT]parliament.vic.gov.au . As a guide, we suggest that any plan must first have a policy to limit the population growth. To ignore this issue and try to plan for greater growth, would be self defeating.