Red tape slashed to fast-track building new homes
Victorian Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny has announced the 'Single Home Code', which she says will cut red tape and get homes built sooner.
The scheme aims to streamline the approval process for new homes on blocks of land smaller than 300 square meters.
This means that if a new house design meets specific standards, including requirements for set backs, tree canopy, solar access and street amenity, it can be approved without needing a full planning permit.
Neighbours will still be notified and can provide feedback, but if the standards are met, there'll be no VCAT appeals or costly delays.
Ms Kilkenny said the initiative is designed to increase housing density and affordability by making it easier to build on smaller lots.
"This is another way we're making our planning system say 'yes' – yes to well-designed homes, yes to more homes, and yes to people making the most of the land they already have," Ms Kilkenny told reporters in Brighton on Sunday.
"If your proposal meets the standards, you should be able to get on and build."
The Single Home Code, which takes effect on September 8, will apply across the state and follows similar changes in approvals of low rise apartments and townhouses announced by the state government in April.
A long-term housing blueprint, known as Plan for Victoria, was laid out by Premier Jacinta Allan and Ms Kilkenny in February.
The statewide plan features 22 "concrete" actions, including carefully managing the outward sprawl of regional cities and towns to accommodate for more homes.
More than seven million people live in Victoria but the Australian Bureau of Statistics forecasts a rise to 11.5 million by 2055.
The government estimates another 2.24 million homes will be needed across Melbourne and the regions.
In August 2023, all states and territories agreed to the National Housing Accord, a country-wide target to build one million new, well-located homes over five years from mid-2024.
In January the Property Council said Australia was already 15,000 homes behind target.
The State of the Housing System Report forecast that Victoria could be the only state that would come anywhere near meeting its goal, finding it could actually achieve 98 per cent of its National Housing Accord Target of 306,000 new homes by mid-2029.
It forecast Queensland would only get to 79 per cent and NSW 65 per cent of their implied targets.
In July, NSW launched a Housing Pattern Book in a bid to speed up planning approvals.
The Pattern Book, which consists of eight low-rise pre-approved designs and a 10-day approval pathway, is available for anyone to use for $1 for a six-month period.
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Sky News AU
an hour ago
- Sky News AU
‘Failure of leadership': Jacinta Allan accused of putting children ‘at risk' after latest Working With Children Check revelations
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The Advertiser
4 hours ago
- The Advertiser
This gobsmacking four-day working week proposal sets us back 25 years
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The idea that businesses could afford to pay the same for 20 per cent less output, while meeting customer demand and keep costs down for consumers is simply ludicrous. Anyone with a sense of self-awareness knows we face challenging times: poor productivity, major technological change, massive global upheaval, skills and labour shortages and more. Now is the time to work smarter, not less, to keep us competitive and economically viable. This proposal, less than a week before the Treasurer's Economic Reform Roundtable to discuss boosting productivity and improving economic settings, simply fails the pub test. Fortunately, the federal government has been quick to kick it into the long grass where it should remain. The notion that paying people the same to work 20 per cent less means they will be more productive when they do work just doesn't stack up. It unfortunately shows the ACTU is not serious about identifying what is good for Australian workers or the community. At the current rate of productivity growth, it would take more than 25 years to generate enough productivity for business to break even with the proposal. That's a quarter of a century to get our productivity back to where it is now, while the rest of the world powers ahead. This would commit an entire generation's worth of national productivity gains to a union frolic, when so many other urgent and pressing issues need more investment in our country. If the unions were serious about increased workplace flexibility, they could have gone to the Fair Work Commission and proposed it as part of renegotiation of awards. This would open a proper discussion on trade-offs which link flexibility to productivity improvements. We need more flexible workplaces. Employers want it and many employees want it. One obvious area of need is to give both more options to change working times by agreement. Neither business nor workers benefit when rigid hours are forced on them. But this isn't where the ACTU went. They've simply tried to create a media headline by throwing out an unrealistic claim lacking any evidence or realistic prospect. They cited a small academic study whose authors concede they can't verify there would actually be economy-wide productivity gains. This isn't the serious and good faith discussion required at next week's Roundtable. This followed on from the Victorian government plan to give employees a legislated right to work two days a week from home. It seems the union movement and some in government don't want Australians to work at all. They want to turn back time, cut productivity and make Australia less attractive to much-needed investment. It also comes at a time when the country is desperately short of workers with the right skills for our needs. More than 340,000 jobs currently sit vacant - around 100,000 more than normal - and a third of the labour force work in occupations classified as in national supply shortage. Standing down 20 per cent of our workforce capacity will only make the skills shortages cruelling our industries - particularly in regional Australia - that much worse. This is reckless and irresponsible and seeks to prioritise feel-good headlines over sound policy and economic management. It would have serious impacts across the country, in particular in our regions, harming working people, businesses of all sizes and local communities. It also comes at a time when the Australian government is rightly trying to focus on doing the opposite - lifting productivity, which is the ultimate source of higher wages and prosperity for generations to come. The importance of reversing Australia's productivity crisis could not be clearer. The Reserve Bank of Australia, a day before the ACTU announced its "plan", said Australians faced declining living standards because of falling productivity. This threatens to be an intergenerational failure of epic proportions. The leaders of today should not betray the legacy of preceding generations by failing to bequeath an Australia in which each generation can build on the hard work and smart decisions of its forebears. Countries around the world are fighting tooth and nail to improve their competitiveness, including in the race to successfully seize the opportunities created by changing technologies such as artificial intelligence. The RBA is warning us that Australia is on a fast track to going backwards unless we can increase our productivity. We need to take notice and work smarter together to meet this challenge. The ACTU and governments at all levels should be reckoning with these issues and - with the productivity challenge the government has called out through next week's Economic Reform Roundtable - not indulge in luxury beliefs and fanciful notions which will only harm working Australians, their families and communities. The ACTU's gobsmacking proposal for a national four-day working week would take our country's productivity back a quarter of a century, drive businesses to the wall and turn us into an uncompetitive international laughing stock. The idea that businesses could afford to pay the same for 20 per cent less output, while meeting customer demand and keep costs down for consumers is simply ludicrous. Anyone with a sense of self-awareness knows we face challenging times: poor productivity, major technological change, massive global upheaval, skills and labour shortages and more. Now is the time to work smarter, not less, to keep us competitive and economically viable. This proposal, less than a week before the Treasurer's Economic Reform Roundtable to discuss boosting productivity and improving economic settings, simply fails the pub test. Fortunately, the federal government has been quick to kick it into the long grass where it should remain. The notion that paying people the same to work 20 per cent less means they will be more productive when they do work just doesn't stack up. It unfortunately shows the ACTU is not serious about identifying what is good for Australian workers or the community. At the current rate of productivity growth, it would take more than 25 years to generate enough productivity for business to break even with the proposal. That's a quarter of a century to get our productivity back to where it is now, while the rest of the world powers ahead. This would commit an entire generation's worth of national productivity gains to a union frolic, when so many other urgent and pressing issues need more investment in our country. If the unions were serious about increased workplace flexibility, they could have gone to the Fair Work Commission and proposed it as part of renegotiation of awards. This would open a proper discussion on trade-offs which link flexibility to productivity improvements. We need more flexible workplaces. Employers want it and many employees want it. One obvious area of need is to give both more options to change working times by agreement. Neither business nor workers benefit when rigid hours are forced on them. But this isn't where the ACTU went. They've simply tried to create a media headline by throwing out an unrealistic claim lacking any evidence or realistic prospect. They cited a small academic study whose authors concede they can't verify there would actually be economy-wide productivity gains. This isn't the serious and good faith discussion required at next week's Roundtable. This followed on from the Victorian government plan to give employees a legislated right to work two days a week from home. It seems the union movement and some in government don't want Australians to work at all. They want to turn back time, cut productivity and make Australia less attractive to much-needed investment. It also comes at a time when the country is desperately short of workers with the right skills for our needs. More than 340,000 jobs currently sit vacant - around 100,000 more than normal - and a third of the labour force work in occupations classified as in national supply shortage. Standing down 20 per cent of our workforce capacity will only make the skills shortages cruelling our industries - particularly in regional Australia - that much worse. This is reckless and irresponsible and seeks to prioritise feel-good headlines over sound policy and economic management. It would have serious impacts across the country, in particular in our regions, harming working people, businesses of all sizes and local communities. It also comes at a time when the Australian government is rightly trying to focus on doing the opposite - lifting productivity, which is the ultimate source of higher wages and prosperity for generations to come. The importance of reversing Australia's productivity crisis could not be clearer. The Reserve Bank of Australia, a day before the ACTU announced its "plan", said Australians faced declining living standards because of falling productivity. This threatens to be an intergenerational failure of epic proportions. The leaders of today should not betray the legacy of preceding generations by failing to bequeath an Australia in which each generation can build on the hard work and smart decisions of its forebears. Countries around the world are fighting tooth and nail to improve their competitiveness, including in the race to successfully seize the opportunities created by changing technologies such as artificial intelligence. The RBA is warning us that Australia is on a fast track to going backwards unless we can increase our productivity. We need to take notice and work smarter together to meet this challenge. The ACTU and governments at all levels should be reckoning with these issues and - with the productivity challenge the government has called out through next week's Economic Reform Roundtable - not indulge in luxury beliefs and fanciful notions which will only harm working Australians, their families and communities.
Sky News AU
4 hours ago
- Sky News AU
Parents hit back at Premier Jacinta Allan after extraordinary attack on concerns about a ‘school to gender clinic pipeline'
A group of parents with kids suffering from gender dysphoria have hit back at Premier Jacinta Allan after the Labor leader launched an extraordinary attack on parents concerned about the teaching of radical gender theory in Victorian schools. The Australian revealed on Thursday that the Victorian Department of Education had quietly updated its Respectful Relationships program to include content that teaches kids as young as five their biological sex may not align with their gender identity. The report included concerns from a spokeswoman from Parents of Adolescents with Gender Distress there was a 'school to gender clinic pipeline' which was pushing kids towards irreversible medical interventions. Premier Allan blasted the reporting during a press conference on Thursday, claiming the Respectful Relationships program was 'all about protecting kids, strengthening resilience of kids and supporting kids to be who they are across our schools'. The Premier then took aim at the parents' concerns, branding them 'disgraceful, nonsense' and claiming 'transgender kids are 15 times more likely to kill themselves'. In a letter responding to the Premier, the Parents of Adolescents with Gender Distress accused Ms Allan of making 'alarmist and irresponsible claims' in relations to suicide which were not supported by data. 'You made the alarming suggestion of a 15 times higher rate of suicide amongst transgender children. We believe this figure comes from survey data and concerned thoughts of suicide rather than completed suicide,' the parents wrote. 'Data shows suicide rates for transgender youth, while elevated, remain extremely low, and as many also suffer from co-occurring conditions (ASD (autism spectrum disorder), eating disorders, anxiety) which have similar levels of risk, a direct correlation can't be made,' the parents wrote. 'Neither affirmation nor medicalisation impacts this suicide risk or suicidal ideation and there is no evidence that programs introducing unevidenced concepts of 'gender identity' are beneficial to the mental health of children or adolescents. The parent group's concerns are supported by findings from a comprehensive independent review into gender dysphoria treatment in the UK found that 'the evidence does not adequately support the claim that gender affirming treatment reduces suicide risk'. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's website also states there is 'no reliable national data on rates of suicide and self-harm among LGBTIQ+ communities in Australia'. In their letter to Ms Allan, Parents of Adolescents with Gender Distress requested the Premier meet with them to hear about their experiences – noting Education Minister Ben Carroll and his departmental secretary had 'refused to engage' with their attempts to organise a meeting for the past year. In its report on Thursday, the Australian revealed new content had been added to the Respectful Relationships program. The content, aimed at kids in their first year of primary school, includes a case study involving a transgender girl named "Stacey" who wants to play on the boys sport team. The curriculum also seeks to educate the five and six-year-old students about the notion of being transgender, by telling them that 'some people feel they did not get a good match for their body parts, and they do not want to be called a boy or a girl, but rather something that is right for them'. Parents of Adolescents with Gender Distress's letter states the group 'believe these programs which invite children to question their sex, and therefore their comfort in their own bodies, based on stereotypes, create unnecessary anxiety and confusion, particularly for gender-nonconforming or neurodiverse children. 'We hope that in the spirit of inclusivity you could meet with us to hear our personal stories.' Speaking to Sky News Australian on Thursday evening, Queensland Psychiatrist Andrew Amos agreed the content in the curriculum could be 'extremely harmful to kids'. Dr Amos said kids start to develop an understanding of sex characteristics at a reasonably young age, but this is mostly at the level of play. 'The way that kids learn is that they play with ideas, they play with clothes, they play with toys. What's happening, though, is in the school and in the clinic, people with a very strong political idea about what should happen with kids are then pushing them into a pipeline that really will follow them for the rest of their lives and do a lot of harm to them,' he said. 'We haven't got any good evidence that it helps kids and we know that it does significant and irreversible harm to them. 'So yeah, I think it's extremely inappropriate to be teaching five-year-olds, this sort of sexualized idea that you can be born into the wrong body.'
