State must pay for Wonthaggi’s EAO blight

ON SUNDAY this week, the State Opposition Leader John Pesutto came to town and announced that a new Coalition Government would “rip up Labor’s Wonthaggi overlay”.

It’s a decent enough sentiment, and coming as it does with a promise to increase the pressure on the Allan Government over Wonthaggi’s planning fiasco, it’s a welcome initiative.

But the reality is that the next State Election is more than two years away, on November 28, 2026, and you’d hope the Bass Coast Shire Council would exercise its option well before then to introduce a new amendment to its planning scheme which would remove the likely unwarranted, retrospective stain of an Environmental Audit Overlay (EAO) from the titles of up to 600 privately owned properties, including long-established homes and titled blocks ready for new dwellings.

Frankly, it can’t wait that long.

We heard the story of a young mum at the weekend, living in one of the affected houses, who is dealing with a child’s brain tumour and doesn’t need this aggravation.

Others are getting pressure from their banks.

And there are more in less harrowing, but equally crushing circumstances.

While the State Government, through its statutory planning arm, the Victorian Planning Authority, bears all of the blame for introducing these EAOs without consulting with individual Wonthaggi homeowners and titled block owners, there’s no doubt the Bass Coast Shire Council dropped the ball on this, by failing to warn affected ratepayers, engaging generally with the community and ultimately going public with its concerns.

It may simply be a coincidence that a week before the draft amendment was released (on August 22, 2022) detailing how the VPA planned to apply the EAOs over a much wider area of the Wonthaggi PSP, the shire’s CEO, Ali Wastie was appointed Chair of the new Alpine Resorts Victoria board by Minister Lily D’Ambrosio on August 10, 2022.

The appointment was ticked off, in another captain’s call by the then Mayor Cr Michael Whelan, without the prior knowledge of any of his council colleagues.

It had to be a general distraction, at the very least, and in future, no highly-paid local government CEOs should appointed to any unrelated boards by government.

So, the Bass Coast Shire Council’s sin is it failed to tell anyone what was happening or to grasp its significance ahead of January 18, 2024 or to respond afterwards and they must do all they can now to help – which they appear to be doing.

But the State Government must pay, not the Bass Coast ratepayers, to put this thing right because the overlays cannot be removed now without the (likely low) risk of contamination being addressed.

As part of the C152 process they promised to consult as follows:

“The Victorian Planning Authority in consultation with the Bass Coast Council and affected landowners, should confirm whether site investigations have been undertaken to an equivalent Preliminary Risk Screen Assessment standard for any Precinct Structure Plan Property Parcels within the proposed Environmental Audit Overlay before finalising its application.”

They simply didn’t do it.