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MOST AGAINST WALLAN QUARRY: LIBERAL MP
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■ Northern Metropolitan MLC Evan Mulholland has spoken in State Parliament about quarrying projects planned for Mitchell Shire. “I want to take the house to an issue in my electorate that I want to discuss, and that is the Beveridge North West precinct structure plan, where a quarry that was not in the original PSP was taken in and then all of a sudden it was there,” Mr Mulholland said. “This is in Wallan, where from what I hear it is looking like that quarry might actually be approved despite strong community opposition to that quarry. “Wallan is a growth area. I know the Leader of the Government would be familiar with it, having her electorate office there, despite it now being in my electorate. “It is a growth area. It is where a lot of housing is going in, and understandably there is strong community concern about what the impacts of the quarry might be. “ I am not against quarrying – I am actually quite in favour of quarrying – but I have sat down with a lot of the community in Wallan and spoken to them about their concerns and attempted to assist them in passing their concerns on to the government. “I just want to note and point out a few things that illustrate, I guess, the ability of the Minister for Planning to make decisions based on the margin of the seat. “The Labor member for Preston seems to have some influence with the minister, who has now heritage listed parts of the Preston Market. “The Labor member for Preston does seem to have influence over what the minister can do and what the minister cannot do. “After staying silent throughout the whole election campaign and having no policy on the Preston Market and having a brush with political death in the seat of Preston, the Labor Party have literally picked up the Liberal Party’s election policy to heritage list the market and put it
● Evan Mulholland, MLC forward as their own. But I guess the point I want to make is: why is the Labor member for Kalkallo not nearly as influential as the Labor member for Preston? And that might just have something to do with the margin of the seat. I do not think it is right that the minister seems to have a difference of opinion based on the margins of different electorates, and that is something that is deeply troubling to me. “I do want to point out in regard to the Wallan quarry issue that it was revealed this week that Mitchell Shire Council actually spent around $1.3 million of ratepayers money opposing the quarry in Wallan. “While I have met with the stop the quarry group, I have listened to their concerns and I have advocated on their behalf, I am quite troubled by that amount of ratepayers money by a local council being spent on a campaign that locals tell me they would have run themselves anyway. “If you speak to people in Wallan and Beveridge, most people are against the quarry, but they also say they would have preferred that money to go to fixing local potholes in council roads, go to upgrades of community infrastructure or maybe go towards Wallan having an aquatic centre. “When you have got, in Mitchell Shire Council, Wallan and Beveridge making up the majority of the ratepayers in that shire but the majority of their rate money being spent up north in Seymour and Kilmore, I can understand locals’ frustration that Mitchell Shire Council is jumping on a campaign and excusing itself of spending legitimate dollars in the town by spending money on a political campaign. “As some of my other colleagues have said in this place, I do not think it is the place for local government to be so involved in political campaigns,” Mr Mulholland told the Legislative Council.
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