“The delivery of Infrastructure Victoria’s 30-year plan for infrastructure delivery identifies three key priorities for the state, but lacks important details for how those priorities would be delivered,” Master Builders Association of Victoria CEO Radley de Silva said.

“Master Builders supports the three priority areas of the plan: to increase densification in established areas, introduce a comprehensive and fair transport pricing regime and to invest in social housing. But the devil is in the detail, and those are still missing,” Mr de Silva said.

“It includes some good elements, such the airport rail link, North East Link, outer metropolitan arterial roads and some key public transport projects, but there remains a glaring omission with regard to delivery,” Radley de Silva, CEO of Master Builders Association of Victoria, said.

“As we cautioned before, in terms of planning, it offers a soft-focus, politically safe reply to a problem that demands specifics,” Mr de Silva said.

“Master Builders has long supported increased housing densification in already-established suburbs to deal with our growing population, and has consistently called for a coherent and detailed plan to put it in place,” Mr de Silva said.

“Unfortunately, the 30-Year Plan doesn’t appear to offer details for a centralised and strategic planning approach that will actually deliver new housing in existing suburbs. It misses the crucial opportunity to fix our flawed system—a system that currently enables local councils to create separate and inconsistent planning schemes, and that has been proven not to work,” he said.

“It’s clear that increasing housing densification and infrastructure will result in increased congestion, which is an important issue the state needs to deal with,” Mr de Silva said.

“We are encouraged by the Plan’s commitment to the principles of fairness and equity, and we will monitor the proposals for addressing demand, such as user charges, closely to ensure it does not impose undue cost burdens on ordinary people, like tradies, who use their vehicles every day for work, or on people living in outer suburbs who might be penalised for living where they can afford to.

“In terms of funding options, we support investigation into various funding options, but any new imposts or charges, like new beneficiary charges or developer contributions, need to be considered in the context of housing affordability,” Mr de Silva said.

“Victoria’s population now grows faster than any other state. We want to see an investment in future infrastructure to address that. By 2051, the population of the state is expected to reach 8 million and require 2.2 million more dwellings. To meet that demand, we need strong detail on how the 30-Year Plan will be implemented and look forward to working with the State Government in developing their five-year strategy response in 2017,” he said.