Victorian opposition accused of ‘race-baiting’ over latest planning policy

A Victorian opposition promise to tighten rules around Indigenous community involvement in planning decisions to speed up the provision of housing has prompted allegations of race-baiting from former leaders of prominent Aboriginal organisations.

Opposition Leader John Pesutto unveiled the policy at the Liberal Party’s state council on Sunday, claiming existing cultural heritage protections created unnecessary uncertainty for developers, acting as a “housing handbrake” on projects, particularly on Melbourne’s fast-growing fringe.

Opposition Leader John Pesutto at the Liberal Party’s state council on Sunday.Credit: Facebook

The opposition is proposing to, if elected, put in place defined, though not yet specified, timelines and fees for cultural heritage processes including decisions and publish an annual audit of cultural heritage approvals linked to housing.

Cultural heritage permits and management plans are needed for activities that could disturb or harm sites important to Aboriginal communities. Those permits and plans are evaluated by designated traditional owners known as Registered Aboriginal Parties.

Asked if he had any data to back his assertion that existing cultural heritage processes were problematic, Pesutto cited discussions with developers about their experiences. Pesutto said he had not yet had similar discussions with Indigenous leaders.

“We’ll be talking to them. I know the deputy leader of the Coalition Peter Walsh speaks with them regularly,” he said.

When asked about the opposition’s plan, Marcus Stewart, an inaugural co-chair of Victoria’s First People’s Assembly, accused Pesutto of pandering to conservatives in his party.

“There is no place in Victoria for Pesutto and his race-baiting politics,” he told The Age.

“His attempt to conflate housing affordability and development with Victoria’s cultural heritage laws is an attempt to appease and throw some red meat towards the extremist right wing in his party.”

Concern about the cultural heritage regime was one of the main reasons given for the opposition’s dumping last year of its support for a treaty with Victoria’s First Nations peoples.

At the time, Indigenous groups blasted the move as dog-whistling. On Sunday, Pesutto rejected that characterisation.

“This does not in any way detract from the substantive cultural heritage processes in place. What we want to do, though, is put some certainty around the process ... people don’t know what they’re dealing with once the process commences,” he said.

“A lot of investors and builders are saying that the costs have to be passed on and they are substantial extra costs that homebuyers are paying because of the delays, and the delays in some cases that I’ve been made aware of are years-long delays.

“Now, we’re facing a housing crisis in Victoria the Labor government’s doing nothing to address it. We’re coming up with a fairly sensible and reasonable approach.”

Pesutto said similar expectations would be placed on Melbourne Water which he said often took an unreasonable period to make straightforward decisions.

Stewart said any proper examination of housing red tape would examine the role of local councils.

“If [Pesutto] was serious about tackling the housing issues he could start by looking at local councils. He could then address the alarming delays in local government approvals which is causing 90 per cent of the issues, not playing punch down politics towards traditional owners,” he said.

Nira illim bulluk man of the Taungurung Nation and inaugural Co-Chair of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, Marcus Stewart.Credit: Chris Hopkins

Andy Gargett, who finished a four-year term as chief executive of the First Peoples’ Assembly in June and is now a director at Labor-linked consultancy Hawker Britton, said the policy was a dog-whistle that would cost the Liberal Party votes in inner-Melbourne seats which voted strongly in favour of the Voice to Parliament in last year’s referendum.

“This nonsense might protect his leadership from the far right internally but will cost him his seat,” said Gargett. “He is on a margin of (772) votes in his seat, while 60 per cent of his electorate voted yes.”

Former Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council director Matthew Storey said it would be difficult to put set time limits on a cultural heritage process because so much depended on the scale of a proposal and its particular location.

“That is no different from environmental approvals,” he said.

“Why is Mr Pesutto picking on Aboriginal cultural heritage as the impediment to development? For some reason he is calling out Aboriginal cultural heritage ... he is dog-whistling to racists.”

Minister for Treaty and First Peoples Natalie Hutchins said the policy could have only a marginal impact with around just 1 per cent of developments requiring a cultural heritage management plan.

“John Pesutto claims to be a moderate but he and his Liberals have once again failed to consult with traditional owners or Aboriginal communities,” she said.

An Urban Development Institute of Australia Victoria spokesperson said the state’s planning system was “notoriously inefficient”.

“Long delays associated with utility authorities, heritage assessment and conservation management are also major barriers to growth area development. All of which are blowing out the cost to deliver new housing,” they said.

Indigenous groups have also previously complained that they do not have the resources to handle the quantity of applications they need to assess.

Asked if he agreed the groups might need greater resourcing, Pesutto said the opposition would look at resourcing issues.

“We want to make sure that the cultural heritage process can work effectively for Indigenous communities obviously, but also where we can reduce unnecessary delay, of course, we will get extra resourcing but we’re not hearing that that’s necessarily the case,” he said.

“What a lot of builders are saying is they simply can’t get information, even sometimes to basic questions. So we’re just trying to iron out some of those problems, which shouldn’t be about really resourcing.”

Pesutto’s leadership received a boost on the weekend after moderates aligned with his faction swept the election to key posts in the party’s administration.

“I’m really pleased with the way the party is functioning at the moment,” he said.

Pesutto took aim at the state government’s inability to address Victoria’s housing squeeze noting that since it announced a target of building 80,000 homes a year, the number of additional houses built had gone backward.

In an earlier speech to party members Pesutto criticised Premier Jacinta Allan for failing to manage the state’s debt and major projects as well as allowing the embattled CFMEU to dominant government projects.

“We will win the next election here in Victoria. But I want to impart this message. It is a responsibility to win the next election because the ship of state in Victoria has drifted into very, very troubled waters.

“I’ve never seen our state face such formidable challenges, and some people say to me from time to time, ‘well, it’s just like 1992’. Well, it ain’t just like 1992, it’s far worse,” he said.