On Sunday, Pesutto rejected that characterisation although he could not say how long the deadline would be for making decisions or what would happen if a deadline was missed.
“This does not in any way detract from the substantive cultural heritage processes in place. What we want to do, though, is put some certainty around the process…people don’t know what they’re dealing with once the process commences,” he said.
“A lot of investors and builders are saying that the costs have to be passed on and they are substantial extra costs that homebuyers are paying because of the delays and the delays in some cases that I’ve been made aware of adding years-long delays.
“Now, we’re facing a housing crisis in Victoria the Labor government’s doing nothing to address it. We’re coming up with a fairly sensible and reasonable approach.”
Pesutto said similar expectations would be placed on Melbourne Water which he said often took an unreasonable period to make straightforward decisions.
Indigenous groups have previously complained that they do not have the resources to handle the quantity of applications they need to assess.
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Asked if he agreed the groups might need greater resourcing, Pesutto said the opposition would look at resourcing issues.
“We want to make sure that the cultural heritage process can work effectively for Indigenous communities obviously, but also where we can reduce unnecessary delay, of course, we will get extra resourcing but we’re not hearing that that’s necessarily the case,” he said
“What a lot of builders are saying is they simply can’t get information, even sometimes to basic questions. So we’re just trying to iron out some of those problems, which shouldn’t be about really resourcing.”
Pesutto’s leadership received a boost on the weekend after moderates aligned with his faction swept the election to key posts in the party’s administration.
“I’m really pleased with the way the party is functioning at the moment,” he said.
“We’re very committed as an opposition to be the alternative government and producing constructive proposals to address issues.”
Pesutto took aim at the state government’s inability to address Victoria’s housing squeeze noting that since it announced a target of building 80,000 homes a year, the number of additional houses built had gone backward.
A response was sought from the government.
In January, the state government said there were only 410 planning permits that required a cultural heritage management plan last financial year – the equivalent of 0.91 per cent of all applications.
In an earlier speech to party members Pesutto criticised Premier Jacinta Allan for failing to manage the state’s debt and major projects as well as allowing the embattled CFMEU to dominant government projects.
“We will win the next election here in Victoria. But I want to impart this message. It is a responsibility to win the next election because the ship of state in Victoria has drifted into very, very troubled waters.
“I’ve never seen our state face such formidable challenges, and some people say to me from time to time, ‘well, it’s just like 1992’. Well, it ain’t just like 1992, it’s far worse,” he said.
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