Local Policies
Protect the Green Wedge
by Retaining the Metropolitan Status
The Greens stand firmly against the proposals to remove the Mornington Peninsula from Metropolitan Melbourne, taking away our Green Wedge status. The Green Wedge provides a series of environmental protections, stopping greedy developers from stripping away our beautiful natural environment. These developers are large donors to the major parties, which has driven the Liberal party to support reclassifying the Peninsula as a part of Regional Victoria, where Green Wedge protections do not exist. A regional reclassification would also see a $31 million tax in the form of a lower payroll tax, a tax which does not affect sole trades or many small businesses. We also oppose giving the Peninsula an entirely new classification, the so-called peri-regional classification, as suggested by the Shire Council. Such a classification does not guarantee the protection of the Green Wedge and would still give a huge tax cut to businesses.
Where appropriate, non-urban areas like the Peninsula can be included in regional funding programs, such as the Covid 19 Infrastructure Stimulus Program, which helped the tourism sector on the Peninsula. The Greens support such programs continuing to work for the Peninsula and encourage the state government to include the area in otherwise regional programs on a need’s basis. We also encourage the state government to expand regional trial programs to cover the whole state, such as the Unsafe2safe car safety program. All of this can be achieved without a reclassification which would take away or jeopardise our environmental protections as part of the Green Wedge and give a huge tax cut to businesses.
Wildlife
1. Development of a wildlife Plan for Mornington Peninsula involving all interested conservation groups to provide ongoing protection of our wildlife and conservation of our flora and fauna. This will include protections for habitat from encroaching development and ensure wildlife corridors.
2. To achieve this there needs to be a review of Mornington Shire planning scheme, in particular the Environmental Significance Overlay. Section 42.01-2 it refers to activities that require a permit which includes the construction of wildlife exclusion fencing.
Key Environmental objectives to be achieved in the Environmental Significance Overlay schedules are to;
-To protect and conserve the environmental systems, biodiversity, native vegetation, habitat areas, land and soil stability, drainage patterns, and stream quality of this area.
-To promote the sustainable development of rural land and integrated land and catchment management, including the retention and enhancement of habitat corridors and wetlands.
The construction of wildlife exclusion fencing is responsible for the entrapment of over 500 kangaroos on a Cape Schanck property for over 12 months. The efforts of community groups have not yet achieved their release. This situation must be resolved and not allowed to be repeated.
Homelessness on the Mornington Peninsula
Victoria has a housing crisis.
Our public housing system has been neglected, with more than 100,000 Victorians waiting for a home, and tens of thousands more experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness. On any night there are hundreds of homeless people sleeping rough on the Mornington Peninsula.
The Greens have a plan to make housing affordable, by putting people before profit.
To tackle the housing crisis, we need to end the special treatment for big property developers. Governments give big property developers tax breaks and special deals, handing them huge profits instead of making sure everyone can have an affordable home.
The Greens will push to end out-of-control rent rises, make property developers pay their fair share for affordable homes and ban political donations from property developers.
We can make housing affordable. Victoria needs a housing system that puts people before profit.
Public Transport
The Greens strongly support having frequent, reliable, and affordable renewable-powered public transport which connects all parts of the Mornington Peninsula. The Victorian Greens’ plan to create a new network of 3,000 solar-powered buses across the state would help connect suburbs on the Peninsula to each other and to the rest of Greater Melbourne. We also desperately need to move away from diesel-powered trains, and transition to electric trains on the Stony Point Line. We support increasing the frequency of both trains and busses.
Coastal Management
We urgently need to stop environmental destruction and this applies to the Mornington Peninsula which is surrounded by coastlines subject to habitat loss, dune erosion, sea-bed degradation. Its a fragile ecosystem that also includes the stunning Westernport Biosphere reserve with its mud flats and salt-marsh vegetation.
The Greens will push the next government in Victoria to centre First Nations people in Caring for Country, create thousands of jobs in habitat restoration which will flow to our coastlines and surrounding systems.
Our plan is for a plastic-free sea, to ban single use plastics, the cups, bags and bottles we find washed up along our beaches and we’ll pay for this by making the big corporations pay their fair share of tax and invest that into coastal and climate action.
Rosebud Hospital Redevelopment Plan
The Mornington Peninsula Greens support the redevelopment of the Rosebud Hospital. The Southern Peninsula population has outgrown the capacity of the current Hospital. The Redevelopment Plan, funded by the State Government has been carefully designed to meet the growing needs of the Southern Peninsula population, researched and developed in consultation with consumers and will provide an excellent, state of the art medical facility for our community. The building costs must now be fully funded to proceed, as a matter of urgency