Why, oh why, are residents in Glen Eira treated like mushrooms that have to continually be kept in the dark? Why can other councils publish their most recent communications with government/departments with no qualms and in Glen Eira residents are left with no idea as to what is really going on.
The latest example of this comes from Monash City Council, where we learn that in January this year, Kilkenny wrote to all councils informing them of a ‘tool’ that the government had developed in order to assess whether each council was meeting its dwelling targets. Even more interesting is the information that councils must undergo a full planning scheme review by late October 2026. Readers will remember that the last council review that incorporated full community consultation took place in 2016. That is literally a decade since the community has had any say as to how this planning scheme might work and/or what needs to be done. Since 2016, we have had ‘internal’ reviews that basically did nothing nor was any justification provided for some tiny changes.
As per usual questions abound –
- Given that it is now nearly April, will council incorporate full community consultation on the mandated planning scheme review? If so, when will this start? If not, why not?
- What preliminary conclusion has the state government made in regards to Glen Eira meeting its dwelling targets? Will council publish this information?
- Will council publish the tool used to make this assessment and its rationale and methodology?
- Will council commit to full and comprehensive reporting of its contacts with government and the department as other council do?
- Are councillors provided with the hard copy communications between officers and government and/or department? If not, why not?
Below we publish the letter from Kilkenny that was sent to all councils. Please read carefully and consider the questions we have raised.
Glen Eira Debates 
March 28, 2026 at 2:10 PM
The DTP will shortly provide your council with a fact sheet providing ….. blah … blah, no doubt delivered by their bikie mates at a considerable cost to everyone.
15 to 30 billion gone to their union and mates and other assoted crims. According to some tghis would be enough to build new hospitals and schools, all just managed to somehow disappear.
And we are meant to swallow this garbage.
The Age reported to get this amount of money in scale, if you convert 15 billion into 10 dollar notes and then placed them end to end they would stretch around the earth’s equator twice with enough left over to stretch from Sydney to London and onto Heathrow airport for a coffee.
March 28, 2026 at 4:30 PM
It would be good to tell Kilkenny th
March 29, 2026 at 3:25 PM
It is yet another example of how democracy is breaking down in Victoria. That letter is material to how I vote, both at State and local level. GECC should have published it, along with its response. Councils aren’t property developers. They already grant permits for many more dwellings than get built. The development industry doesn’t build what doesn’t make them sufficient money. Much of the Allan Labor government’s policies are counter-productive. They are deliberately pushing the most expensive form of construction, so they’re not interested in affordability. They continue to protect much of the municipality via NRZ, weakening amenity standards for some to protect others’. They haven’t addressed why some areas should be 30x density than others. They haven’t explained why they don’t encourage development in rural and regional victoria while gaslighting us that they care about Victorians. They’re still spending 10s of billions on dollars to encourage car usage while at the same time mismanaging major projects. Rather than providing their silly tool to Council, it should be provided to the public so we can freely criticise it and identify its flaws. One thing GECC can do is radically revise its approach to information and delegation of authority–ensure all information material to how people vote is public, ensure Council has strong policies and that officers are constrained to comply with those policies, and respond publicly to State government pressure.
March 29, 2026 at 7:41 PM
If only they wern’t slaves to the machine.