Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Early this year the Treasury’s 2010 intergenerational report Australia to 2050: future challenges was released. I have spoken about this report many times, and I will continue to raise issues from this very important report, because it shines a light on where we will be as an economy and as a nation in about 40 years time. Among other things, the report projected that by 2050 Australia’s population will be around 36 million. This is a projection based on middle-range population growth, but even the ABS low-growth projection suggests that Australia’s population will grow to at least 30 million by 2050. But it could be much higher, based on modelling. It is important to note that this is not a target; it is merely a projection as to where we might be.

Australia’s capital cities still account for the vast bulk of population growth—in fact, nearly all of it. Almost all Australians live on the eastern seaboard in our major cities. The concentration of population in capital cities is projected to grow from 64 per cent in 2007 to 68 per cent by 2056. Of course, this will be an increase not just in the percentage but in the actual numbers as well, and it is quite significant when you take that as a totality.

From 2004 to 2009, Queensland’s population grew by over half a million people, the largest growth of all the states and territories. This is, of course, why Queensland and other states like Western Australia struggle with infrastructure: because of the very fast growth in population and all the associated problems that come with it. Queensland’s average annual growth rate for 2004 to 2009 is 2.54 per cent, second only to Western Australia. I think it is pretty obvious to people reading or listening to this that these are the two booming states.

The Oxley electorate, my electorate, which is really part of the Western Corridor of South-East Queensland, is part of the statistical area called Ipswich East. This contains suburbs such as Springfield and the Greater Springfield region; older parts of Ipswich such as Redbank and Goodna; the Inala/Forest Lake region; and the western suburbs of Brisbane—the Centenary suburbs. This area of Ipswich East experienced average annual population increases of 7.3 per cent for the period from 2004 to 2009. This equates to nearly 20,000 people over that five-year period, most of whom have probably moved into the Greater Springfield region. This place is firmly among the 10 areas with the largest population increases in Australia.

Here the growth is new, and it is working well; it is welcome growth. But the population growth in Australia’s capital cities and larger regional centres is placing enormous pressure on the sustainability of our cities. The fact is that Australia’s major cities are choked. We need to acknowledge that whether it is in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth or Adelaide—wherever it is across the major cities in Australia where the majority of people live—it is having an impact, including an impact on our lifestyle. Traffic congestion, overcrowded public transport and increased utility charges are just a few examples of the way population growth is being felt by Australians. This is not to cast some poor image of Australia as a small nation of just 22 million; it is just the reality and the fact that, as a nation that is still young, we have not quite grasped the issue of how to deal with population in urban centres.

To make a comparison of what I am trying to say, I will paint a picture for you. Australia has 22 million people. The city of Tokyo has 22 million people. The reality is that development will continue in Australia; that will happen by necessity, and it must happen to accommodate our growing population. But we are not keeping pace in terms of housing. In fact, the National Housing Supply Council’s State of supply report 2010 set out that the housing shortage is currently 178,400 dwellings. That is a lot of people if you start adding that up in terms of families and people that are without. In Queensland there is a shortage of 56,000 homes, and this is exceeded only by Sydney. The projection of houses required by 2029 is 3.2 million additional homes, and I am just not sure that there is yet a collaborative approach in this country that will quite meet that challenge—although I do have to say that this government is working hard to acknowledge that and to meet that challenge.

We can see from these figures that just stopping development is not the answer. Australia does need new homes and new infrastructure, and we need to in some way meet all the shortfalls that we will be facing either at the lower end, the middle area or, indeed, the higher end of population growth forecasts. But these figures are not about a pessimistic view. To me, they present us with an opportunity to build sustainable cities and to look properly at the way we deal with infrastructure and the way we live—the way that we build a home and what is seen as supposedly normal in the way we conduct ourselves.

The building of sustainable cities must become a policy priority for all levels of government and, for that matter, for industry when considering Australia’s development needs. This government’s Major Cities Unit is a step in the right direction. The Major Cities Unit is working with all tiers of government, major stakeholders and the community to provide input on urban policy.

We need to get the balance right. In fact, we need to get the mix right—the mix between development, lifestyle, infill developments, the release of land and the development process, which to my mind currently is just too long. It takes too long from the time somebody purchases a block of land to the time they can bring that through to somebody actually living in a house on it. We need to do better at all these levels.

The Major Cities Unit will also work across portfolios to provide an integrated plan in such areas as climate change, housing, and health and innovation, all of which are linked. This is the real challenge when we talk about sustainable cities. It is not just about lifestyle and having a home; it is about the transport mix, the housing, the jobs and where we work, eat, play and live, rather than just where we might live and then travel to work.

This is a good start. The Major Cities Unit and Infrastructure Australia and a range of other policies that were brought on by this government are a step in the right direction, but more work needs to be done. There needs to be better regulated development, not to stymie growth but to maximise and coordinate its potential. A new estate needs to have coordinated transport and jobs, roads in, roads out and rail. That needs to be done in cooperation with industry to make sure that there are jobs where people live, that commerce has an opportunity to develop and grow where people live and that there are options to allow a greater diversity.

There needs to be recognition that the business-as-usual approach of people living on the city fringes and then commuting to the city centres is completely unsustainable and will fail. It places too much pressure on our road and transport infrastructure, something which I am sure everybody in this place understands fully and appreciates every day. Most state governments have produced plans for the future development needs of their capital cities, and most target infill development—the use of land within a built up area. This will provide between 50 and 70 per cent of new housing in the future. Infill development is good and is one way of addressing development, but it is not the only way and it is not the solution. Large swathes of the inner cities cannot simply be demolished so that high-density buildings can be built. The National Housing Supply Council has found that infill development faces the major barrier of being too expensive. Base land also costs, and the particular challenge of having to accommodate existing structures means that in all of our major cities, except perhaps Sydney, it costs more to build a two-bedroom unit at an infill location than it does to build an equivalent three-bedroom house with a backyard in a greenfield site.

There are many challenges ahead and many more things that we can do. Living in high-density inner city regions may be attractive to some, but is not the only solution for all Australians. There are many families who still want to live within a reasonable distance of the lifestyle of the city and all of the facilities that it brings but want to have a yard and parks—access to a lifestyle that is affordable and also access to work. This can only happen on the fringes of our cities and in the regions. The future sustainability of Australia’s cities must include a need to decentralise, and this is where I think there has been a real breakdown between the three tiers of government.

This is new stuff. In a lot of ways, planning to deal with these issues is no more than perhaps a few years old. In the past cities just grew and developed at their own pace, based on whatever local government authorities decided might happen or where governments might have spent some infrastructure money. The aim should be to get people to work, to play, to study, to go to the doctor and to have facilities and shops all within walking distance of where they live. Leading demographer Bernard Salt calls this plan a mosaic city of self-contained regions, where the majority of people have a 15- to 20-minute commute instead of one hour or more. For people who live in Sydney that is sometimes two hours.

The key to achieving this is to decentralise the jobs. Major employers such as government departments and industry ought to be encouraged to move to suburban and regional centres. There is much more that can be done in this area. I am doing all I can by highlighting the issues here but also by talking to ministers and looking at a holistic approach to how we can achieve this. We can get the balance right, whether we have 30 million, 36 million or 50 million people by 2050. We have a great opportunity to have real control not over the number of people who live in this country by 2050 but over the sort of lifestyle they achieve by that time. (Time expired)

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