Date: 23rd June 2026

Bayside City Council has filed in the Supreme Court seeking to compel Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny to hand over the ministerial briefs and advice that underpinned the state government’s controversial activity centre planning amendment. This is according a report today from The Age.

The amendment overrides local planning controls across nine Melbourne council areas — Banyule, Boroondara, Darebin, Glen Eira, Maribyrnong, Merri-bek, Monash, Stonnington and Bayside — allowing increased height limits and reduced planning barriers around transport hubs across 25 designated activity centres.

Bayside, which encompasses Brighton, Brighton East, Hampton and Hampton East, is seeking discovery of documents that could shed light on how activity centres were selected and what modelling and advice informed the amendment more broadly. The council says it pursued the documents through letters and freedom-of-information requests and was refused on both occasions.

Mayor Debbie Taylor-Haynes said the legal action was about accountability.

“This legal process is about transparency. Our community deserves to understand what sits behind a decision of this scale that could significantly reshape their neighbourhoods,” Mayor Taylor-Haynes said.

The state government has indicated it will contest the application.

The Supreme Court filing marks a significant escalation in the ongoing dispute between the Allan government and affected councils over the planning reforms. The government has argued the changes will accelerate housing approvals in well-connected suburbs where supply has lagged.