Governments are prioritising road infrastructure projects, arguing population growth drives demand despite COVID pandemic induced immigration collapse, and not associated housing, public transport, soft infrastructure and sustainability outcomes, conflicts with the 2015 Paris Agreement and Victoria’s commitment to zero emissions by 2050. Recent research attributes these planning failures, to institutional path dependency, problem definition limiting outcomes, governance failures and collapse of planning theory. However, the origins and resilience of intersectoral conflict requires an historical understanding. 

Drawing on Graham’s (2008) ethos, eidos and praxis, mapping research method, to examine collective actions’ socio-political and ideological framings establishes a credible basis for identifying twelve key ‘storylines’ through a critical historical discourse study over 50 years.  This study, pinpoints six ‘Critical Discursive Moments’ (CDM), arriving at the recent past, examining how instruments, originally established to protect the environment facilitate extreme intersectoral conflict that constitutes a form of ‘symbolic violence’, through misrepresentation and misrecognition of environmental impacts