Too important to play politics

IT IS expected that the Member for Eastern Victoria, Renee Heath, will be able to present a petition to State Parliament this week, signed by 2000-plus people, calling on the government to urgently rescind the Environmental Audit Overlays retrospectively applied to more than 600 existing homes and building blocks in Wonthaggi.

And frankly, it’s been a monumental stuff up by the State Government’s statutory planning arm, the Victorian Planning Authority, that has put us in this position.

It should never have happened, certainly not without direct consultation with the affected Wonthaggi homeowners and building block owners.

So, as an initiative that might put some limited pressure on the government to act, it’s welcome.

However, on the flip side, the Premier, the Planning Minister and our own local Labor MP Jordan Crugnale likely view the efforts of Ms Heath, the Opposition Leader John Pesutto and the Liberal Party as at least partially furthering their own political agenda, including their chances of winning Bass at the next election. We get that.

There’s also the potential for others on the fringe to use the community angst as a chance to recruit support for their own purposes.

But the fact is that by failing to acknowledge they got it wrong, apologising and promising to make good the losses suffered by innocent victims in Wonthaggi, including young mums and dads, retired couples, and other ‘ordinary’ folk, the government has left a vacuum that others are only too happy to fill.

The reality is that once the VPA slapped an environmental overlay on these blocks, they couldn’t be lifted until the risk, regardless of how low, was assessed and that’s what the Bass Coast Shire Council is doing now.

And good on the shire CEO Greg Box for overseeing commendable progress with this work so far.

But, at the very least, the state government must accept the responsibility to remove those overlays as soon as they have reason to do so.

It might be the best thing they can do to help Bass Coast achieve the target they gave us at the weekend of building 18,500 new homes by 2051.