By Clarke Towson – CEO, INTJ Billing / Spotswood Trailers
Date: 28 July 2025
Victoria’s planning scheme is supposed to be a framework of legal clarity. But embedded within its zoning architecture lies a time bomb — the application of Transport Zone 2 (TRZ2) to land that was never meant to be regulated as public transport infrastructure.
The result? Possibly a large number of parcels — like 7 Cullen Court, Spotswood — caught in a legal paradox where zoning contradicts title, and law contradicts bureaucracy.
The term “ultra vires” means “beyond legal power.” When zoning is applied without proper legal authority — such as the required consent under Clause 23 of the Planning Scheme — it becomes invalid. Worse, it becomes unenforceable. All Council enforcement actions against non compliance by the land owner are thus illegal.
In 1978, the Executive Council formally discontinued Cullen Street and issued Instrument H323270, transferring the land into private hands. The land was no longer Crown land, no longer a road, and no longer designated for public use.
And yet, at some point, and not recognising that the land was private and was no longer a road a planning officer zoned the land TRZ2 — with no new acquisition or public purpose. Was the parcel simply caught up in a bulk amendment process? Who knows. But the result is the same - a zoning classification was placed over the property which is not appropriate.
FOI responses confirm: no consent under Clause 23 was ever obtained. The zoning is ultra vires. Every regulation imposed under it is null.
null Means in Computer Science
In programming, null represents the absence of a valid value. It’s not zero. It’s not empty. It means
nothing has been assigned. It’s a signal that something is missing or was never properly defined.
When governments apply zoning without proper legal authority — like TRZ2 over 7 Cullen Court — it’s the legal equivalent of null.
And just like in software, trying to operate on a null reference causes a system to crash.
In lower-level programming, this crash is known as a segmentation fault — a fatal error triggered when a system attempts to access memory it has no right to touch. That’s what Hobsons Bay Council and the Department of Transport have done here: reached into private land with no lawful access.
Zoning without title-aligned authority isn’t just flawed — it’s a null reference.
And enforcement based on it? That’s your segmentation fault.
Zoning overlays are not law. They are a visual planning tool. Land title — and the instruments that define it — are legal facts. When the two conflict, title and legislative instruments prevail.
If a zoning designation contradicts a title that was lawfully granted, the zoning fails. This is not a loophole — it is the very mechanism that protects private property rights in a democracy.
This case exposes a systemic vulnerability:
Victoria needs a complete audit of TRZ2 overlays on private land, with immediate Ministerial review of any site where:
This is not a political problem. It's a legal one. And legal problems demand legal fixes — not bureaucratic avoidance.
The case of 7 Cullen Court isn’t just an anomaly — it’s a mirror. And when planning authorities look into it, they will see that their maps are not laws. Only the law is law.
“Zoning must follow title — not override it.”
— Clarke Towson
“When zoning is applied without legal consent, it’s not planning — it’s a segmentation fault in the state’s logic.”
“
nullis what you get when something pretends to exist — but legally doesn’t. That’s TRZ2 over 7 Cullen Court.”
“If a zoning overlay has no title-backed authority, it’s not binding. It’s just a
nullpointer floating on a map.”
“
nullin code causes crashes.nullin law causes overreach. Zoning should never be built on either.”
“There’s a reason coders fear
null— it crashes systems. Planners should fear it too, because invalid overlays crash credibility.”
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