Slash speed limits to 30km/h in areas with children, Victorian infrastructure plan recommends
Speed limits would be slashed to 30km/h on streets in Victoria frequented by children under a recommendation by the state's peak infrastructure body.
Infrastructure Victoria on Tuesday released its draft 30-year infrastructure plan, which also outlines a plan to boost the state's supply of social homes by 60,000 over 15 years.
The strategy – which is updated every five years – includes 50 priorities across Victoria for housing, energy, transport, health, social infrastructure and the environment.
Infrastructure Victoria recommended local speed limits be reduced to 30km/h in areas visited by children. It recommended then extending this to more local streets over time to improve pedestrian safety.
The report said the changes should apply to streets with current speed limits of 50km/h or less. It said a pedestrian hit by a car at 50km/h has an 85% chance of dying, and a 40% chance at 40km/h. At 30km/h, this falls to 10%, the report said.
Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email
Infrastructure Victoria said seven children die on the state's roads each year, according to data from the Transport Accident Commission.
The draft strategy also includes a 15-year plan to provide 60,000 social homes at a cost of between $19bn and $30bn. Victoria has the lowest rate of social housing in the country, according to statistics by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
The body said the cost of building the new homes could be reduced if supported by the federal government or if the state government built on land it already owns. It also said building on land owned by local councils and not-for-profit housing organisations could reduce the cost.
Infrastructure Victoria's chief executive, Dr Jonathan Spear, said homelessness was on the rise and the state lacked enough social housing to meet the demand.
'Now is the time for government to commit to a 15-year program for Victoria's social housing,' he said.
'Building 60,000 social homes is achievable when delivered over 15 years. It provides secure and affordable housing to Victorians in need. It can also help lower government spending on healthcare and support services.
Infrastructure Victoria pointed to the state government's initial Big Housing Build which is ending after funding 9,300 new social homes.
Under the recommendation, the state government would build about 4,000 social housing units each year for Victorians each year. Under the plan, each new home is estimated to cost between $240,000 and $580,000 depending on size and location.
Sign up to Breaking News Australia
Get the most important news as it breaks
after newsletter promotion
But Spear warned consistent investment in social housing over the next 20 years would reduce homelessness, but would not end it.
'As the population grows, the government will need to keep investing in social housing. This can create a long-term infrastructure pipeline to deliver more social homes over time,' he said.
Infrastructure Victoria recommends the social housing units be built close to jobs, transport and amenities in the state, with eligibility prioritising those who have recently experienced homelessness family violence or have other special needs.
Infrastructure Victoria has also recommended the government build at least 300 Aboriginal social homes each year for a decade, in line with the state's self-determined housing policy.
The draft strategy is open for feedback until 28 April.
The Victorian government will respond to the report's recommendations once the strategy is finalised and tabled in parliament later this year.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
2 days ago
- The Guardian
Worried about the tax on $3m plus super balances? Here's how you'll survive
Imagine you have $3m in super and have just retired, only to hear that Labor plans to hit you with a new tax. Or perhaps you're worried (dream?) that at some point in the near or distant future you might cross that multi-million-dollar savings threshold. Either way, you might be wondering whether the government's proposal to whack an extra 15% tax on earnings on balances over $3m is going to put a major crimp in your retirement plans. Breathe easy, your annual trips to Europe are safe, as are your smashed avocado brekkies. According to Guardian Australia's analysis, a wealthy Australian retiring with $3m in super today would pay an extra $2,355 in tax. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email And that's from annual retirement income of more than $170,000, based on an estimate from Asic's MoneySmart retirement calculator. In other words, the tax represents barely 1% of your income. If that doesn't make you feel better, then remember that the median full-time salary in Australia is $88,400, according to the ABS, and $72,590 across all employees. So you are making nearly twice the median full-time salary – and those suckers are paying income tax! Well, consider this: The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia reckons that a single person with a paltry $595,000 in savings can generate a 'comfortable' lifestyle in retirement with $51,807 in income a year. You're making more than three times as much, even after paying Labor's damned extra tax! What's that? You only have $800,000 in savings? Gosh, how sad. (If it makes you feel any better, that's still four times the median super balance among 65-69 year-olds, according to the ATO). Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion Don't worry, though, you won't be paying the proposed extra 15% tax - remember it only starts kicking in on balances over $3m. And anyway, you can still live pretty well on $67,000 a year, tax-free. That all sounds OK for the small-fry with $3m in super. But what about the serious savers with $5m? How much extra tax will they have to suffer in the name of making the super system 'fairer'? Bad news. They could be paying something like an extra $25,000 in tax under the proposed policy, if they earn the average 7.5% annual return in the year. The good news is that they'll still have nearly $270,000 left over to … wait, can a single retiree even spend that much in a year?
The Guardian
6 days ago
- The Guardian
Student protesters face expulsion from University of Melbourne over pro-Palestine office occupation
Two University of Melbourne students have been recommended for expulsion and two for suspension for taking part in a pro-Palestine demonstration at the university's Parkville campus last October. If the decisions are upheld, the students will become the first pro-Palestine student activists for whom suspension and expulsion have been enforced in Australia since the waves of student demonstrations against Israel's assault on Gaza began in 2023. The students intend to appeal against the decision, with one telling Guardian Australia she believed the outcome had been 'prejudged' by the university, which has implemented anti-protest rules that critics have characterised as 'repressive' and an 'authoritarian' overreach. The students were referred to the institution's disciplinary committee after reports they were part of a group of about 20 who, for about 90 minutes on 9 October, occupied the office of an academic they believed was integral to the university's partnerships with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The protesters were calling on the university to disband its joint programs with Israeli universities, which have been a target of the global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement since 2004. Footage of the occupation, distributed on social media at the time, showed protesters entering the office with their faces covered by keffiyehs, hoods and masks. The university alleged the students had harassed and intimidated staff who worked in the office, damaged property by placing signs and stickers on some university-owned items including a monitor screen, and writing on and placing stickers on personal items of the academic, including a photo. The students said their demonstration had been peaceful and clearly political, that they had informed people working in the office and nearby that they were protesting and had even offered to turn down the music they were playing so others could keep working. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email One student facing expulsion, Niamh*, who spoke to Guardian Australia on condition that her real name not be used, was found by the disciplinary committee to have been present at the demonstration for no longer than 10 minutes. Documents seen by the Guardian state she was not found to have performed any of the specific actions listed by the university as 'harassing or intimidating' the staff, such as placing stickers or graffiti, but that her presence in the room with others was itself harassment and intimidation, and also constituted improper and unsafe use of university property. The committee said they were recommending Niamh be expelled on the basis of 'the seriousness of the breaches and the nature of the behaviour' and her past alleged breaches of the student conduct code. Niamh said she believed this was a reference to her participation in the 'Mahmoud's Hall' occupation of the Arts West building, a demonstration that led to the university agreeing to additional disclosures about its research project grant arrangements. Niamh appeared to have been identified as being involved in the protest in part by the university tracking her location on campus through her wifi login, a tool that has been the subject of an investigation by the office of the Victorian information commissioner. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion She said she believed the activists had been 'prejudged' by the university council, beginning with the then vice-chancellor, Duncan Maskell, circulating a university-wide email the day after the protest characterising it as 'an attempt to harass and intimidate' the academic. Maskell's email was criticised in an open letter signed by 174 university staff members, which said the comments risked impeding procedural fairness and 'enabled the action to be incorrectly framed by major media outlets as antisemitic'. Maskell did not respond to the open letter. In May last year he implemented new university rules banning 'protest that is not peaceful' and prohibiting protesters who were not university staff or students from entering university grounds. On 3 March his successor as vice-chancellor, Emma Johnston, implemented another suite of rules against protests, including that they may not be held indoors and must not obstruct entries or exits of university buildings. The rules would apply to students and staff and also to 'individual forms of action'. The student union and the National Tertiary Education Union have called the new rules 'an authoritarian approach' that erroneously conflates staff and student discomfort with lack of safety. The Human Rights Law Centre, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have urged the university to rescind them. Niamh said Johnston's rules were 'particularly disturbing and hypocritical' and 'a massive betrayal of the values and history of student unionism' given Johnston's own history as the university's student union president in the 1990s, when she advocated for direct action protests including sit-ins. 'Her words are irreconcilable with her actions when some of the worst anti-protest rules are being pushed through under her leadership,' Niamh said. 'I would love to see the university take more of an approach of wanting to sit down with their students and wanting to really hear from where their students are coming from and why students around the world feel this urgent moral necessity to stand against … the horrible atrocities we're witnessing in Gaza as well as the West Bank and all of occupied Palestine,' she said. A spokesperson for the University of Melbourne said it would not comment on individual cases 'to protect the integrity of our disciplinary processes''. 'The University of Melbourne has followed its disciplinary processes in accordance with University policy in response to an incident that took place in October 2024,' the spokesperson said. 'This process has not concluded. The University is communicating directly with individuals involved in disciplinary proceedings. Students have the right to appeal decisions made through the University's disciplinary processes.' Last year an Australian National University student who was expelled and a Deakin University student who was suspended for Palestine-related activism had those decisions overturned on appeal. *Name has been changed
North Wales Chronicle
28-05-2025
- North Wales Chronicle
Police chiefs call for ‘serious investment' amid early prison release plans
The heads of the Metropolitan Police, MI5 and the National Crime Agency were among those who warned that plans to release prisoners early could be 'of net detriment to public safety' in a letter to the Ministry of Justice. They also argued they would need the 'necessary resources' in the upcoming spending review to deal with the plan's impacts and maintain order, The Times reported. 'We have to ensure that out of court does not mean out of justice, and that out of prison does not mean out of control,' they said in a letter sent before the formal announcement. Meanwhile, six of the UK's most senior police chiefs said they needed a larger workforce and called for 'serious investment', in a joint article in the paper. Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, NPCC chairman Constable Gavin Stephens, and the chiefs of Merseyside, West Midlands, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire police cited the 'increasing public demand, growing social volatility … and new serious and organised crime threats emboldened by the online world'. They also said the emergency release of people from the prison system and recommendations in the sentencing review would put more pressure on policing as 'we will inevitably be drawn into the control of criminals who would previously have been in prison'. The policing settlement in Chancellor Rachel Reeves' spending review, due in June, would directly influence whether forces are able to deliver as many begin to 'lose officer numbers and shrink', they said. 'A lack of investment will bake in the structural inefficiencies for another three years and will lose a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform the service.' The sentencing review released last week recommended measures to tackle prison overcrowding. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has agreed to allow some criminals, including violent and sexual offenders, to be released early for good behaviour. She also agreed to scrap short sentences of under 12 months and have more criminals serve sentences in the community instead. A Home Office spokesperson said: 'We are backing the police to protect our communities and keep our streets safe with up to £17.6 billion this year, an increase of up to £1.2 billion. 'This includes £200 million to kickstart putting 13,000 additional neighbourhood police officers, PCSOs and special constables that the public will see back on their streets and patrolling communities, as part of our Plan for Change.' A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: 'This Government inherited prisons in crisis, close to collapse. We will never put the public at risk by running out of prison places again. 'We are building new prisons, on track for 14,000 places by 2031 – the largest expansion since the Victorians. 'Our sentencing reforms will force prisoners to earn their way to release or face longer in jail for bad behaviour, while ensuring the most dangerous offenders can be kept off our streets. 'We will also increase probation funding by up to £700 million by 2028/29 to tag and monitor tens of thousands more offenders in the community.'
