Melbourne Assembly LIVE: First home buyers in Carroll’s sights as Labor pledges $1b election sweetener

A global biopharmaceutical company working to identify new treatments for cancer and neurological diseases opened a new research and manufacturing facility in Melbourne’s north on Tuesday.

The facility, owned by German pharma giant BioNTech and located at La Trobe University’s Bundoora campus, will allow industry experts and academics to work alongside each other to research cutting-edge mRNA technologies, including new vaccines. The facility was opened in partnership with the state government.

“We’re backing lifesaving scientific breakthroughs and local jobs, making Victoria a top global destination for medical research,” said Economic Development Minister Anthony Carbines.

Melbourne is now the only city in the world to have research, development and manufacturing facilities for both leading global mRNA producers, BioNTech and Moderna, the American company which developed a major COVID-19 vaccine.

Cara Waters has asked professor Carlos Moreno: “In creating density in our cities, should building heights be limited?”

Moreno said he believed the ideal building height to be between six or seven storeys. However, he also emphasised the importance of parks and greenery.

“I’m not dogmatic. I’ll accept different places where we have the possibility of offering an organic density,” Moreno explained.

Melbourne Assembly is now taking a morning break after hearing from Premier Ben Carroll and Moreno. We will return at 11.25am.

Our city editor Cara Waters has begun this morning’s Q&A session with professor Carlos Moreno by asking an important question about our own city.

“We’re in a housing crisis in Melbourne. Is worrying about whether services are within 15 minutes nice to have, or is this a necessity still, at a time of crisis?”

Moreno says that a 15-minute city should not necessarily be the next goal for a place like Melbourne, but instead there should be a focus on increasing access to services.

He adds that there needs to be improved connection between city’s “historic centre” (the CBD) and Melbourne’s suburbs.

“Movement between the historical centre and the suburbs. This is – in my opinion — the most important challenge for the greater Melbourne.”

Moreno says dispersed and fragmented cities create two forms of inequality – “spatial injustice and temporal injustice” – as residents are forced to spend more of their time travelling to access daily essentials.

“The social vulnerability is, in fact, the convergence: the economic inequities, spatial segregation and time exclusion,” he said.

“When people [are] constrained to live so far without services, we will develop these exclusions. Dignity begins with proximity to services.”

Moreno says building denser cities had three positive impacts:

Carlos Moreno is now discussing how the requirements of a city will change based on the population that live in the local area.

Young professionals will have different needs when compared to young families, as will retirees from university students, he says. This means that modern cities must learn how to adapt.

“We need to identify what is the profile of people that live, and what is the trend of the demography,” Moreno says.

“With the multi-use of infrastructure that exists, it will transform the physical infrastructure into social infrastructure, open for hosting different kinds of activities … for the different people that live in the city.”

Professor Carlos Moreno is continuing to discuss his famous urban planning concept of the 15-minute city.

Here is a little of what he had to say about it.

The 15-minute city is just a nickname, but the most important point in the 15-minute city is the quality of life. We have created, we have proposed, we have implemented a methodology – the high-quality social life methodology.

Professor Carlos Moreno has now moved from his broader discussions of global planning to focus on Australia. He is emphasising that Australia already has a high level of urbanisation – which happened unusually early in its history.

“Australia was urbanised for a long time. At the end of the 19th century, you exceeded 50 per cent,” he says. “You are an urbanised country”.

The professor also touched on the Hoddle Grid design of Melbourne’s CBD. While it was originally designed in 1837 for 1000 inhabitants, it is now home to more than 200,000 people.

It is these historical designs and how they function which continue to impact Melbourne’s population today, Moreno says.

“The question today … is to understand our past. The consequences in the present are related to our past.”

We are now hearing from the world-famous urban planner Carlos Moreno, who pioneered the “15-minute city” concept – that idea that everyone should be able to access daily necessities and services within a 15-minute walk, bike ride or public transport trip.

Moreno, the keynote speaker for Melbourne Assembly’s healthy places and people pillar, presented in partnership with Bupa, said the role of cities was crucial in combating the economic, social and ecological crises gripping the world.

He pointed to how the rise of motor vehicles had transformed cities worldwide, seeing them expand outwards and fragment into different areas.

“I have a place for working. I have places for living. I have places for culture. And for going from one activity to another activity, we need to have mobility. And this was the moment where the world was totally transformed by the motor highway,” Moreno said.

The biggest laugh of the day so far has come while discussing a recent bungle from the premier.

Our state political editor Chip Le Grand asked Carroll about the “tremendous” new policy of free statewide petrol.

Ben Carroll admitted earlier today that he had driven away from a service station without paying for his fuel on Monday. He has since been in contact with the business and fixed the bill.

“I have been contacted by the former deputy premier John Thwaites, who told me, ‘Don’t worry, Ben. I didn’t pay for the petrol, and I also drove off with the nozzle in the car, with the petrol hose together!’ And that made me feel a lot better,” Carrol said.

“It shows that politicians are human beings, and even premiers make mistakes.”

Carroll says international students are a critical ingredient to Melbourne’s success and criticised federal government plans to cut their numbers.

The premier said the Commonwealth will need to increase funding to universities to offset the loss of international student revenue if it proceeds with the cuts.

“Our universities and international students are Victoria’s greatest export,” he said.

“It is a great, wonderful thing that’s part of the economic and social fabric of our state. I made it very clear to the Commonwealth that you cannot go after the university student sector.”

Asked if he agreed with Melbourne University vice chancellor Carolyn Evans’ comment that the student cuts were “arrogant and short-sighted”, Carroll said she had a “valid point”.

“Cutting students can be an easy choice. I’ll always advocate for more international students,” he said.