Community-led. Not minister-led.

Two recent examples make the pattern visible. The Mt Scopus / Gandel campus process, and the proposal for twenty-storey towers next to Gardiners Creek, both advanced through facilitated planning channels with sharply compressed consultation windows and limited published reasoning.

These aren't isolated incidents. They are the product of a planning regime that allows ministerial call-in powers, SRL precinct overrides and facilitated rezoning to short-circuit the statutory community process — and the Box Hill experience is now the test case.

• Move legislation in the first sitting week to require a 90-day binding local consultation on every state-significant planning decision in Box Hill.
• Restore full third-party appeal rights for affected residents.
• Mandatory written reasons published for every ministerial call-in or override.
• An independent planning ombudsman with the power to pause decisions where consultation has demonstrably failed.

A Community Participation Mandate codified in planning law — applying to Box Hill and to the seven sites currently flagged for facilitated rezoning across the state. It would have changed the Mount Scopus relocation process, where the school moved to Caulfield while the community was still asking what was happening.

• Plain-language community impact statements for every state-significant decision.
• Guaranteed 90-day window — not 28-day, not 'as soon as practicable'.
• A standing Box Hill Community Reference Panel, with terms of reference written by the community itself.
• Binding response from the decision-maker to substantive submissions, in writing.

This is a guard-rail, not a brake on building. Box Hill needs new homes, new services and new infrastructure — and we will get more of all three, not less, when the people affected can see the decision being made and have a real chance to shape it. Consultation that can be ignored isn't consultation. It's a press release.