I’d like to remind people that this planning application involves roughly 10% of the area reserved by the Crown for “Racing, Recreation, and Public Park purposes”. Although present and past Governments have privately acknowledged that the MRC should be allowed to control the entire precinct to make money for themselves, they have had to bow to public pressure about improving access and facilities for the centre of the reserve. 150 years late, there is now, finally, some limited acknowledgement of the systematic corruption that has plagued the management of this property.

The ongoing problem with the reserve is that the Trustees responsible for managing it under the Crown Land (Reserves) Act 1978 have abrogated their responsibilities. Its not the MRC that Council should be negotiating with, nor is it the MRC that should be funding improvements to the Reserve. This extraordinary state of affairs has only risen because of political pressure. If the Trustees have leased the Reserve to MRC, as claimed by MRC in their submission to VEAC [16 Feb 2009], then what are the terms of the lease? The public should be informed, because we might discover we have no rights of access under the lease, and that all improvements are for the benefit of MRC. The MRC grudgingly has “agreed” to improvements as a political necessity to ensure support for C60. Past agreements have not been honoured, but C60 wasn’t at stake then. The submission from GERA to Select Committee On Public Land Development highlights just one egregious failure.

The MRC, through their privileged position, has been permitted to charge for entry to the public land in question, for example see the rates in Government Gazette No 80, 18 Oct 1967. Well technically its the “Trustees” doing the charging. So where does the money go? We the public simply don’t know. We do know it hasn’t gone into improving the amenity of the centre of the Reserve for the public. If it hasn’t gone into improving the centre, then it must by Law have gone into improving the remainder, which are the assets MRC hold so dear. Its those same assets sitting on Crown Land that have enabled the MRC to purchase freehold land and terrorise the residents of Lot A when they didn’t want to sell. [I can understand that somebody in continuous residence for 60 years might not want to sell to an avaricious organisation prepared to employ Stuart Morris SC to do their bullying.]

If the improvements as proposed are made to the centre of the Reserve [and note, first in the list on the planning application is “carparking area”, due in no small part to the exigencies of C60] then it is reasonable to ask whether the public will get to enjoy them. Maybe. Maybe not. The MRC has encircled the Reserve. Via fiat, they have absolute control over who enters or leaves, and when. Their recent application for a 7-lot subdivision is to create parcels of land so they can swap some less valuable bits with a vastly more valuable parcel. The Government is right behind this, thank you very much David Davis. [See Land (Revocation of Reservations and other Matters) Act 2009.] Its worth reading the view of the Greens [a different organisation presumably to the one Cr Pilling is a member of] about this because it covers a lot of territory and shows the carelessness demonstrated by Parliament in considering this matter: http://mps.vic.greens.org.au/node/1541

Government and the MRC are above the law, so in due course I expect a lease will be signed for the new Lot 2 (remember the 7-lot subdivision?), delaying for a further 10 years when that will become part of the Reserve and a public park. This is despite clearly not being for the purpose the land is reserved for, and will be “substantially detrimental to the use and enjoyment of any adjacent land”. As it has in the past. The MRC is objecting to 2 conditions in the Permit that Council granted, which are there to ensure the public has a right of access to “their” Reserve. Some idiot many years ago sold Crown land along Booran and Kambrook Rds so the tunnel is one of only two underline accesses to the centre [the other is for pedestrians only, not disabled people] but that access involves freehold land [held by the MRC naturally] with no right of access. And now they’re fighting an encumbrance that would provide that legal right.

One could talk about the temporary wartime fence installed by the Army which the MRC has clung tenaciously to. I don’t understand how they could have survived for the first 80 years without it, given their passion and fervour for it. Under one Agreement [and there have been many] that temporary wartime fence might be gone in 5 years. Or not…depends on the MRC’s risk assessment. Its a bit like the Government reassuring the public about the proposed land exchange…the MRC get to do their own valuation.

Finally, why is a planning application submitted in 2010 being advertised now? There is a statutory obligation on Council to decide on applications within a fixed number of working days. Cr Lipschutz did say in April that the MRC had requested their planning application be put on hold. Which section of the Planning and Environment Act was that request made under? Did the MRC simply refuse to provide the information Council needed to consider the application? Maybe the application has lapsed.

I remain deeply unhappy at the privileged role the MRC has in the ongoing management of the Reserve. They have repeatedly demonstrated that they are unfit for the job. Their answers to various Government Committees have demonstrated that they see the land as being theirs, and that the Public should have no say in its management. The Government agrees, insisting upon racing hacks to stack the Trustees. We are all the poorer for this appalling management regime, and the “bone” that they are prepared to throw us [GE/PP-23061/2010] is meagre compensation

******************

AND AS AN INSIGHT INTO HOW SERIOUSLY THE MRC TOOK THE 2008 ‘AGREEMENT’ TO MAKE THE CENTRE ‘USER FRIENDLY’ HERE ARE SOME PHOTOS OF THEIR EFFORTS –

This slideshow requires JavaScript.