Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Sustainable Development and Cities) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to make a contribution to the debate on the Prime Minister’s statement on the global financial crisis. I will not go over all the elements, as I have had the opportunity to reflect on some of the local opportunities that I hope the Frankston City Council and the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council will take up in terms of the stimulus package. Much has been said about the tactical and political responses of the Rudd government, and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and member for Curtin has eloquently outlined that argument. I have also heard a bit about bipartisanship. My understanding of that is that it is not a call from one side to demand an almost one-party-state approach where there is some slavish adherence to a world view put forward by one side of the parliament. Bipartisanship has a sense of shared purpose, of valuing a broader range of input, of mutual adjustment and then moving forward together. I invite the members of the government who have arrived at a rather strange understanding of what bipartisanship means to reflect on that. The reflection might bring a more collaborative manner to their involvement.

What I will do tonight is talk about what I think the global financial crisis requires of all of us, and that is to look forward and see that this time is one where we could reflect on what it is we are trying to achieve. I advise my colleague the member for Kennedy that I am filling in for the member for Cook and take that opportunity to point out what I think we need to do. We need to embrace the three steps to a greener growth economy to improve sustainability. I characterise those three steps as Californication, alignment and transformation: three elements that I think the government should embrace.

Our gift to the next generation must be a greener growth economy and a more sustainable high standard of living. This means an Australia with an economy that builds on secure resources used conservatively and efficiently, where we nurture dependable and improved prospects for future prosperity, where the improved health of our natural systems is what we consistently work for and enhanced personal wellbeing and community vitality. We peer across the Pacific and see our nearest mainland American neighbours living a lifestyle and pursuing ambitions not dissimilar to our own. Peel away the obvious similarities and you will discover a quite different way in which enterprising Californians are going about creating wealth and improving living standards. This experience presents a pragmatic and inspirational case study for Australia that we could wisely emulate. If you need convincing of the opportunities, let me share a simple metric with you: California uses about the same amount of energy as Australia—to power almost twice the number of people and an economy twice the size.

On the energy front, the Californian example demonstrates how, through a systematic, better practice performance approach, gains are being secured on a project-by-project, building-by-building, decision-by-decision basis. Over time, this aggregates into a substantial improvement in energy efficiency and use. New business opportunities have emerged as the performance standards drive innovation. Consumers and investors look for proven and viable sustainability features as key selection criteria to satisfy smart regulatory requirements and to avoid premature obsolescence. Essentially, the Californian example embeds sustainability principles and objectives in the regulatory framework operating at the state, county and municipal level as it relates to property development and land use, production plant and equipment, durable consumer goods, household and workplace appliances and service consumption. These sustainability performance improvements became inculcated in things people do and buy and in decision making, just like safety. Securing these improvements should be our first step. This is the Californication step.

Our next step should be to make sure governments get their own house in order and ‘walk the talk’. This goes to the element of alignment. The public sector’s own activity needs to be more alert to opportunities to pursue sustainability objectives in concert with programs that also pursue other public policy goals. This alignment of public policy objectives recognises that governments can and must chew gum and walk at the same time. A positive example is how the Commonwealth as tenant seeks office space and commercial premises that incorporate sustainability attributes. Governments need to set an example, offer attractive work environments and reduce the operating costs of these premises. Fleet selection and fuel contracts are other areas of some positive action. But these are very obvious opportunities where sustainability considerations are and should be front of mind when it comes to value for money and other routine procurement disciplines. Perhaps less obvious are the opportunities to secure sustainability gains in parallel with other, more explicit public policy goals across government. Embracing this alignment ethos is another way government can pursue a greener growth vision.

The Commonwealth should insist on sustainability objectives being embedded in programs and policies on a whole-of-government basis and as a ‘must have’ feature of any program or project for which it is a partner. Examples include ensuring that transport plans and projects incorporate broader mobility objectives like reducing journey need and distance, and opportunities for optimising public and active transport modes. Facilities and buildings commissioned by the Commonwealth should showcase design features, construction methods and materials, technologies and best-practice-use sustainability attributes. Facilitated activity like that overseen by the Defence Housing Australia organisation, as it accumulates its property portfolio, should emphasise sustainability features in dwelling options. And what a missed opportunity the $622 million National Rental Affordability Scheme is, with sustainability attributes of new housing projects relegated to the ‘nice to have’ project selection criteria rather than being a fundamental requirement of proposals seeking government funding and support. It could not be clearer that a home that incorporates leading-edge sustainability attributes would be cheaper to run, as well as cheaper to rent, under the scheme. A showcase alignment opportunity has been passed over for what the Rudd government claims is an initiative that will ‘leverage private sector investment of up to $13 billion over the next four years’.

A whole-of-government consciousness about policy alignment opportunities to pursue sustainability improvement is becoming more important given the Rudd government’s ‘watch’ of the erosion of the strong fiscal position and positive economic legacy left by the Howard government. What remains of the coalition’s treasure chest must be deployed wisely. A handful of major, high-profile, headline-grabbing ‘plaque’ projects alone will not markedly lessen our environmental footprint or bring about the greener growth gains we need to make. The remaining nest egg of infrastructure funds and our enduring positive fiscal position makes it possible and necessary to reach beyond incremental baby steps and the policy alignment gains I have mentioned, to pursue sustainability improvements that embrace meaningful reform. Australia’s hard earned financial capacity should be applied to secure a great leap through targeted investment in transformational change—to bring about structural, systemic and technological change to greatly advance a greener growth agenda for improving productivity, sustainability and living standards.

This concept was explored and teased out at the recent Australian Davos Connection’s Infrastructure 21 Summit, From Incrementalism to Transformational Change. As ADC chairman, Michael Roux, put it:

Transformational change is required to take a generation step forward envisioning the Australian society of tomorrow. This leap forward will require creative policy innovation, resilient leadership and concerted cooperation across jurisdictions.

While this perspective related more specifically to the infrastructure challenges this nation faces, it is an important approach that extends beyond the infrastructure networks of our future economy into the broader agenda of a more sustainable Australia. Cross-jurisdictional, public, private, corporate and individual collaborative action is required to secure a positive and fundamental step-change in how we go about making operational our vision for an Australia where economic growth and a cleaner environment go hand in hand.

Beyond the built form element of proposals that may absorb much of the available funds, project selection and success criteria would also require a whole-of-system strategy to optimise sustainability outcomes through governance and regulatory reform, asset performance and efficiency standards, demand management, pricing transparency and reform, smart systems use and best practice management models. A relevant example is the coalition’s commitment to ‘replumbing’ rural Australia to make irrigated agriculture more sustainable and secure and to shore up reliable environmental flows. The practical action of piping public and private water delivery systems, lining dams to stop leakage, and taking steps to avoid evaporation should be accompanied by institutional and structural reforms and structural adjustment programs, proper pricing for infrastructure and resource use, smart systems for water management and use, efficient use and demand management incentives, and functioning and transparent markets that encourage resource security, investment and the best use of our scarce water.

Commonwealth funding would then support infrastructure ‘hardware’ but, importantly, also facilitate the transformation of the complementary structural and systemic ‘software’ and the renovation and reform that these need. Assessing candidate projects against this more comprehensive set of interrelated goals would support calls for transparent and objective evaluation of project proposals and evidence based allocation of funding. Whole-system thinking would be embraced. This brings forward the need for broader expertise, like that offered by the Productivity Commission, to the crucial task of proposal evaluation.

An example might involve a rail network enhancement proposal. Such a bid would need to be accompanied by proponent funding undertakings, commitments to improve the management and operation of the system, its interconnection with other transport modes, sustainability dividends, timetable enhancements, signalling investment to optimise current and proposed line use, rolling stock upgrades, complementary land use changes and possible private sector collaborations. The partnerships would be essential for actioning a transformational approach, which would help to ensure Commonwealth funding secured the best of all involved and that the federal government was not viewed simply as a soft touch for cash with no strings attached.

The greener growth Australia agenda and a concerted effort to secure a more sustainable future for Australia, our people, our economy and our natural systems requires this three-step approach. We need a focus on pursuing incremental and gradual gains inspired by the Californian example, sustainability objectives embedded in all activities of government and aligned with policy goals across all portfolios wherever possible and the use of infrastructure funds and the more positive fiscal position provided by the coalition government to leverage transformational leaps forward. This is what the agenda for the future should be. This is the challenge we should tackle and react to in light of the challenges of the global financial crisis.

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