Victoria’s outdated and complex planning system produces a number of delays to processing approvals which blows out costs for developments, and in some cases kills them all together. 

This complexity, combined with local government electoral structures, privileges a vocal minority of incumbent residents with the time and resources to navigate the system. The current system strains our under-resourced local government planning departments, all while increasing housing costs. 

Local government planning must be streamlined, and processes standardised across all councils. This will enable best-practice decision-making and will enable better city-wide planning and inter-council collaboration.

Third party objection and appeal structures must also be reformed, in order to prevent planning system abuse by niche interest groups, at the expense of development's largest stakeholder: people who want to live in an area but can't.