Cut red tape to create development opportunity
Industry leaders have revealed the latest trends shaping the state and have aired new revelations over the battle to keep the MotoGP in Victoria.
Among the panellists at the Herald Sun’s Future Victoria summit was Villawood founder and executive director Rory Costelloe, who said housing affordability could “easily be achieved” if we cut “red tape” and freed up supply.
“Right now, we don’t have enough chippies, don’t have enough subbies, we don’t have enough housing choice, we don’t have enough land,” he said. “If we can get that up and running, we could get houses on the ground and far more competition.”
Amid the worldwide technology boom, Swinburne University of Technology Innovation and Enterprise vice president Dr Werner van der Merwe said the idea that students just get a degree and specialising in that area forever was “dead”.
“Instead what we are seeing is the opportunity to go on a lifelong journey of learning,” he said.
NBN Chief Strategic Transaction adviser Will Irving said the telecommunications giant was engineering a network designed to give Victorians “much more reliability” at home.
Crown Melbourne chair Martin Pakula told the crowd the hotel giant’s $200m redevelopment, revealed in the Sunday Herald Sun, would ensure the tower was “match fit” for the state’s packed events schedule. Mr Pakula, also Australian Grand Prix Corporation chair, revealed more than 200 trees around Albert Park Lake would have had to have been removed to have given Victoria a chance of retaining the MotoGP.
Transurban chief executive Michelle Jablko said the tolling giant had put its pricing on Google Maps to make tolls more transparent amid the cost of living crisis.
“In our Linkt app today you can look at it and say last month this is how much I spent, this is how much time I saved … so that value is really clear to you,” she said.
Melbourne Airport chief executive, Lorie Argus, promoted a $4.5bn expansion of Melbourne Airport’s international terminal, but warned that Victoria desperately needed Airport Rail. “I think Melburnians are tired of talking about it,” she said.
Article: Herald Sun, Melbourne by Carly Douglas, 26 Feb 2026
