Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Victorian Minister for Planning, Matthew Guy, and Caulfield MP David Southwick are embarrassed over their support for the proposed $1 billion development of Caulfield Village, in my electorate. This so-called village is a wind tunnel. It is a backflip for both the state Minister for Planning and the local conservative member, David Southwick, who vehemently opposed this project when it was announced in October. The development will attract over 2,000 residents and burden the area with 35,000 square metres of office and retail space. This represents a huge loss of open space in the area adjacent to the Caulfield Racecourse.

Mr Guy, as a member of the then opposition, supported Mr Southwick, the aspiring member for Caulfield, whose assessment condemned the development as 'a monstrosity that will destroy Caulfield's amenity and identity'. They pledged to stop this project from proceeding.

The Glen Eira City Council in my view was wrong to approve this unwanted $1 billion development. This development is half the size of Crown Casino. The casino cost $2 billion to complete. Do the quiet streets of residential Caulfield really need a virtual half-casino development, with all the traffic and associated behaviour that will be inevitably attendant to such a development? Caulfield residents are having the nature of their suburb fundamentally changed with the active support of the conservative state members and councillors aligned to them, despite promises before elections that they would actively oppose it. Cranbrook Road is already so busy that you cannot turn between 7 am and 9 am into the residential streets. The new development will further clog up traffic as people try to cut through and park. Some of the parking proposals are both insufficient and undesirable and will spill into residential streets. Smith Street is going to be partially closed and will remove the main connecting road between Station Street and Normanby Road, which will clog the roads. It will be next to impossible to park at the Caulfield station, which is one of the main commuter traffic stations into Melbourne and very important for lessening car traffic going into the city.

The Baillieu government has said that the area along the river in South Bank will be a growth corridor. But the state government has no plans to commit to new schools in the South Bank-South Melbourne area, despite the fact that the Minister for Planning said that this would be a growth zone. Martin Foley, my friend the state member for Albert Park, has written to the state Minister for Education requesting that the government fund a study to provide in the 2011 budget a search for a new campus for the students of the South Bank, Port Melbourne and South Melbourne areas. Already for the Port Melbourne Primary School there will be nearly 900 students in that area. The state government has announced that it intends to establish an inner growth corridor in Fishermans Bend. How can the Baillieu government justify investment in a new growth corridor when it does not sufficiently invest in schools in the area?

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