By Adam Carey
When Camberwell resident Julie Mulhauser learnt last year about the Allan government’s plan to build thousands of new homes around the busy junction in the heart of her suburb in Melbourne’s inner east, she wanted to get involved.
Mulhauser had already participated in workshops that her local council hosted for its Camberwell Junction “structure and place” plan in 2023, which included a similar, but less ambitious strategy to increase housing density. So she applied to join the government’s community reference panel, in the belief she could add valuable local insight to its housing plan.
Julie Mulhauser suspects state consultation on a housing activity centre at Camberwell Junction was merely a formality.Credit: Joe Armao
She was picked to be part of the reference group of about 20 people for the Allan government’s housing activity centre consultations for Camberwell Junction, but soon got the impression the government wasn’t sincerely interested in listening to its members.
Mulhauser, who has campaigned for teal independent MP for Kooyong Monique Ryan, says the local and state government consultation processes about plans to build more housing in Camberwell were “chalk and cheese”.
“It became rapidly apparent that this was a very different process to the process I had experienced with Boroondara Council,” Mulhauser says of her role on the community reference panel, one of the first 10 locations where the government is piloting changing planning laws to build more housing.
“We had one 90-minute meeting followed by a 2½-hour meeting, but the information provided in the first meeting was literally a Google map and Post-It Notes,” Mulhauser says.
“It was a complete contrast to the council workshop process, where there were a huge range of documents, all publicly available and experts who had a role in researching all the information on hand to answer any questions.”
Reference groups were also told what was “open for discussion” and what was “off the table”, including the need for more homes in the area.
The Allan government wants to build 300,000 new homes in 60 “activity centres” around Melbourne, including Camberwell, and has previously criticised Boroondara Council for anti-housing tactics such as using heritage overlays to block new development.
But state government indifference to local views is not confined to one Melbourne council, a planning expert argues in new research.
Community consultation on major projects has become a cynical exercise in “gaslighting” the public to secure support for a predetermined outcome, the research has found.
Crystal Legacy, associate professor of urban planning at the University of Melbourne.Credit: Chris Hopkins
University of Melbourne associate professor of urban planning Crystal Legacy said state governments were increasingly inclined to use manipulation tactics to win community support for major projects.
Legacy has studied the ways in which governments collude with corporate actors to engineer their preferred outcome on large infrastructure projects.
Plans for toll roads, train tunnels and taller buildings in residential areas are all subject to tightly controlled consultation processes that leave little room for the public to meaningfully influence major decisions, she argues, based on analysis of projects including Transurban’s West Gate Tunnel and the Allan government’s 60 housing activity centres.
People expect to have their views heard on major projects that will change their communities, but democratic participation brings “unpalatable risk that propositions might be down-scaled or rejected”, Legacy’s research states.
“What’s at stake for government and project proponents is delays in project delivery, or projects being cancelled, and that’s costly. So [community consultation] exists in part to ensure that these projects proceed,” Legacy said.
The cancellation of the East West Link toll road 10 years ago, at a cost of more than $1 billion, raised the stakes on winning public approval for big infrastructure proposals.
Since then, engagement opportunities such as public drop-in sessions and community liaison groups have become heavily controlled techniques for gaining approval for costly and contentious projects, while sidelining community opposition, Legacy’s study, published in academic journal Antipode, has found.
“The community engagement processes we see today often act as a smokescreen,” Legacy said. “They promote a facade of participation but are used to protect the powerful.”
The charge of gaslighting is not limited to the Victorian government. Legacy’s research also takes aim at the NSW government’s $5 billion redevelopment of Barangaroo, a prime site on Sydney Harbour.
Patrick Fensham, the Planning Institute of Australia’s Victorian branch president, said consultation too often played out like a political contest, when it should be a tool for gauging the net community benefit of a proposal.
“And maybe we don’t see enough of that. It becomes a sort of bare knuckles contest between community interests and capital interests,” Fensham said.
An Allan government spokesperson said community feedback had shaped changes to building heights in 10 pilot activity centres and around Suburban Rail Loop stations, and led to changes to design and scope on major projects including the North East Link, level crossing removals, the West Gate Tunnel and Metro Tunnel.
Decisions such as including building longer tunnels for the North East Link, and increased open space for the Preston level crossing removal project, all followed community consultation, the spokesperson said.
“Academics campaigning to preserve the status quo should explain to young Victorians, workers and families why they don’t deserve the homes, roads and rail they need.”
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