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Member Briefing 8/2025

Monday 24, Nov 2025

Welcome to this, our penultimate briefing for the year. In this edition we highlight our final networking event of 2025, share a quick debrief from our successful Perth gathering, and acknowledge the new directors appointed at Wednesday’s AGM.

Best regards

Jeremy Irvine, CEO

Register Now: Melbourne Networking Event – 3.30pm Wednesday 26 November
  • Topic: Back to the Parking Future: Reflections from the Past and Pathways to Smarter, Sustainable Cities.
  • This session will bring together thought leaders to reflect on two decades of change in parking and urban mobility, and share perspectives on the lessons learned, where parking fits today, and how it can support smarter, more sustainable cities in the future.

Featuring: 

  • Dr Rebecca Clements, Research Fellow, RMIT
  • Dr Chris De Gruyter, Senior Research Fellow, RMIT
  • James English, Director, Ace Parking Group and Parking Australia President
  • Lili Rosic, Director Parking Services, City of Melbourne (presentation on Transport Strategy 2030)
  • Dr Elizabeth Taylor, Urban Planning & Design, Monash University

FYI: 

  • Follows the AGM.
  • Registration from 3.15pm. Event commences no earlier than 3.30pm. 
  • Networking post event, then pay-as-you-go dinner nearby at the Hightail Bar (two-minute walk across Collins Street)
  • Members attend at no cost. Non members $100 plus GST.
  • Non-members - if you inadvertently book as a member, we'll amend your booking and send you an invoice for the non-member rate.
  • The event will be videoed and provided in the member-only resource section of our website.
  • Thank you to our sponsor, Ace Parking Group.
Welcome to New Directors and thank you Gary
  • At the AGM, we will briefly farewell long-standing board director Gary Byrne, who is retiring from the Board after six years.
  • We will also welcome our two new directors, Stuart Kerr and Lee Street, who were elected unopposed to the board, along with current director Joe Larosa.
  • Congratulations to Joe, Lee, and Stu on their appointment to the board. We look forward to working with them going forward.
Perth Event Another Success
  • The second of our two 2025 events in Perth was held earlier this month and was another success - with this one kindly hosted by the City of Melville.
  • We appreciated and enjoyed the case studies from the City of Melville, WSP, and AeroRanger, and it was a great opportunity for members to come together at a different time of day (later in the afternoon) to learn and network.
  • A shout out to Mike Emery from the City of Melville and his team for hosting; and for the other WA Advisory Committee members - Bart Staines (Wilson Parking), Michael Doherty (EasyPark) and Michael Gunson (City of Perth).
  • We look forward to future events in WA in 2026.
Catch-up: November Webinar
  • Thank you to Parking Australia board director Emily Carson for her invaluable insights into parking overseas. The webinar, which was held earlier this month, is available for members to access for free on our website: Member Area > Member Resources > Presentations and Recordings.
  • As Emily and I mentioned during the webinar, if you have ideas for topics for both webinars and networking events going forward into 2026 and beyond, we are always happy to consider them. Feel free to email me at ceo@parking.asn.au.
Congestion Levy
  • As noted via our media releases last week, the congestion levy has passed in State Parliament.
  • The Greens voted for the bill, along with some minor parties in the upper house. This meant that the legislation was passed despite the best efforts of the Coalition and other crossbench members. It was a complicated move by the Government to merge three tax bills into one, which then Parliament had to vote on.

While we remain disappointed overall with the result, there were several positive outcomes:

  1. Victoria Gardens shopping centre was not included in the final new leviable area
  2. Queen Victoria Markets was moved from the Category 1 to Category 2 area
  3. Councils impacted by the levy will receive funding under an MOU with the State Government.

You can read our media releases from 17 November and 19 November. We again acknowledge the work behind the scenes of many members and thank the collaborative nature in which our peer associations worked with us on this matter over the last 11 months.