Debate over Public Inquiry in Public Land Sales and Where Dogs Don't Bite

It was with these words that politician, Matthew Guy a member of Victoria Legislative Council opened debate on setting up the inquiry into public land for development (Permanent link on the left)

"We are in the first decade of a new century and already it is clear that communities and Victorians are becoming more and more concerned with the naturaland built environments that surround us.
Victorians are taking a keener interest in the form and style of our city that is our capital, and the character of the country and regional towns that make up our great state.
Importantly Victorians are taking a much more proactive interest in the character of the neighbourhoods in which they live and in the preservation of the existing public open space in those cities and towns.
But since the turn of the century it is clear that public open space has come under attack. It has become a commodity to sell or develop, rather than to preserve.
As land prices have risen dramatically across the city over the last few years, principally near central activities areas, and moreover due to the establishment of a rigid urban growth boundary, the state government appears to have become a land speculator with its public land holdings.
Unfortunately public open space has become more of a line item in the Department of Treasury and Finance’s Excel spreadsheets first and a public, economic and social asset second.
This motion has been put forward for debate today to establish this select committee in the hope that this chamber will view this issue with exceptional importance, because once open space is lost, as we all know, it cannot be replaced.
Further, it is clear that the Bracks government is disposing public land across the state in order to get a quick financial gain with little or no regard to the open space that is being lost forever".

Notting Hill had a mention during the debate too.
Some of it here:

"Another example I would like to draw to the house’s attention is the suburb of Notting Hill. It was Australia’s first preplanned neighbourhood, if you like, the first estate built by renowned builder AVJennings.
It is a quiet, peaceful suburb with kids, families and people kicking the footy in the street.
It is a place where the dogs do not bite.
It is a place where people can live what many of us would regard as the great Australian dream, with a house on a block of land in the suburbs, where the neighbours are all still friendly to each other.
However, Notting Hill is under siege, as residents know. In the last four years they have lost their day care centre, their kindergarten, their primary school and their secondary school.
Unfortunately when AVJennings built the estate it ran out of money, and the public land in the middle of the estate that was set aside to be a park never eventuated.
As I stated, both the primary and secondary schools recently closed. It was those two schools that the community used as public open space. Realising that they were under siege, members of the community rallied together.
They went to the local council and presented a plan for part of the site of the now closed secondary school to be used as public open space, because their suburb does not have any left.
The council went to the government and was told that this was not a problem, so long as the council paid market rates for the land.
This was a wild and ridiculous suggestion, as the government knew no council could
possibly afford to do so. Why would the government not want these two school sites sold to the highest bidder?
It is because, irrespective of the fact that no open space now exists in this small suburb, according to the Melbourne 2030 document the land on which the two schools are located is right in the middle of the Monash University health research precinct.
So it is not just an average surplus-to-government-requirements school sale anymore. It is a couple of plots of public land that are now worth millions upon millions of dollars more than they would be if they were schools stuck out in the suburbs somewhere else.
Land on the edge of Notting Hill is already being sold for high-rise student accommodation. Right next to the old secondary school is land that is being sold to have new office blocks of four or five storeys. So the sale of the high school by this government, so pious about its record in education, is because the government has seen the flashing dollar sign first.
Like Kew Cottages, there is more to this story than meets the eye. I am informed by the residents that the school closed on 22 December last year for good.
By the end of January 2007 it was already deemed surplus to government requirements. It was not even a month later. This means that the Department of Education (DOE) had written to all other government departments and offered the land to them. After receiving replies it had then gone to all other schools in the area and offered it to them and got replies back.
This was all done over the Christmas period. Then it declared the school surplus.
Are we seriously expected to believe that the process to declare this school surplus was
conducted by DOE over the Christmas period, that it contacted all involved and it was done inthe proper way?
There is more about Notting Hill that we need to know about. A German school was approached and it became interested in establishing what is called a co-host school similar to, I am informed, one in Caroline Springs at the old primary school site. Surprisingly, the Department of
Education refused to meet or talk to that school.
When the Germans left a Chinese group came in. The department refused to talk to that group as well.
We are talking about a school site a couple of kilometres away from Clayton and Springvale where those communities have large numbers.
We should not be surprised. As I mentioned earlier, it is becoming clearer to all of us that DOE does not want to talk to any of these people because the monetary value of these sites is more important than the actual use of the school.
I should inform the house at this point that the Notting Hill residents association contacted their local MP, Hong Lim, the member for Clayton in the other place.
The association never received a reply and it did not contact him once but multiple times. It also sent over 130 letters to the then Minister for Education and Training, Lynne Kosky, now the Minister for Public Education.
Ms Kosky appeared to have the same attitude in education as she does in transport because
she did not want to hear about its letters; more than 130 letters were sent to her but she did not reply to a single one.
So Notting Hill is set to be a small suburb with no schools, no shops and now no public open space. The public land has been entirely sold off for development over the last few years because the state government is obsessed with being a land speculator first. It is a suburb that will now have all the hallmarks of Melbourne 2030 — what the minister and this government want — with hundreds of additional people living in the suburb but with vastly reduced open space".


Full debate available at:
http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/council/publicland/Proof%20Hansard.pdf