Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote): My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Local Government, and the action that I seek is for the minister to investigate avenues available to the state government to prevent the Greens-controlled Darebin council from implementing its proposed parking strategy. My office has been flooded with concerned and distressed locals, and there are many aspects as to why they are concerned—not least of these is the blanket approach used to designate large swathes of the electorate as 2-hour permit-only parking from 8.00 a.m. to 11.00 p.m., seven days a week, and severely limiting the availability of permits. This leaves thousands of my constituents with an impossible choice: being forced to sell their cars or else move out. It is heavy-handed, ideologically driven and out of touch with the reality of so many lives. Consider the example of my constituent Olivia. Olivia is a new mum with a two-week-old baby. Her husband goes back to work very soon and will use public transport for this. They have a car fitted with a baby seat to get from A to B. Olivia’s mum will drive over several times a week to help her daughter. Under the strategy, neither Olivia nor her mum would be able to park in the street for more than 2 hours at a time—a completely distressing situation. To add to the chaos, late last week we were greeted with the news that some of Darebin’s own councillors will be supporting a motion to withdraw the Darebin parking strategy. They claim not to have written the strategy or even to have considered it. In attempting to wash their hands of the strategy they have unceremoniously thrown the CEO under a bus. The CEO is of course appointed by the councillors and takes her riding instructions from them. It is completely unbelievable that these councillors were not briefed on the strategy and were not in fact cheerleaders of its passage. No, they knew about it all right! This bold strategy, as they call it, is aimed at getting cars out of Darebin by shaming and penalising car owners under the veil of the climate emergency. There is virtually no recognition of the complex reasons why people need to use a car. Whether it is a mother with a baby, a tradesperson or a young couple who commute to work but use their car on weekends, this strategy tells them they are not welcome in Darebin. We all want a cleaner future, but this is yet another example of the Greens being driven by ideology and leaving both reality and locals in their wake. Perhaps most insulting of all has been the public consultation, which made no genuine attempt to reach those affected. But the people of my electorate are not so easily deceived. To their credit they have galvanised, and their petition now has almost 6000 signatures. Last week I wrote to the mayor of Darebin to express my concerns, and this week I met with her in person. She has assured me that the proposal as it stands will be withdrawn at the next council meeting. We will see if that eventuates. In the meantime I ask the minister to investigate avenues to prevent the harm that would be imposed by this hardline strategy. To my constituents I say this: my promise to you is to be vigilant. I will continue to push for you to be treated with respect and fairness and to keep your neighbourhoods livable.