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

In appropriations bills there are many things we can talk about. In fact, there are many very important issues, including budgets, the economy, the environment, floods, infrastructure, the carbon economy, pricing, exit fees and no doubt a whole range of other issues, all of which I am happy to talk about. But I will focus my contribution tonight on a few issues, all related to sustainability, which I think are very important. The Intergenerational report released in 2010 predicts—and it is just a prediction—that Australia’s population will be around 36 million by the year 2050. This is a pretty important number, and people ought to pay a lot more attention to it than they currently do. The capital cities of Australia still account for the bulk of that population growth, and the concentration of population in capital cities currently sits at around the 64 per cent mark. This is expected to grow to about 68 per cent by 2056. These are big numbers, and very significant, because they mean that all our effort needs to be concentrated almost entirely in the cities on how we manage sustainability, lifestyle, growth, jobs, employment and the environment. As important as regions and the bush are, the real bulk of work in how we sustain this country into the future really needs to involve a lot of thought and effort put into our cities. Simply put, that is where people live, that is where the population is concentrated and that is where the population will continue to grow as a proportion of the rest of the country.

In fact, it already feels to me—and I suspect to most people—that Australia’s capital cities are choked. I will use a simple example of my own electorate. It is not a city based electorate; it is outer urban. It is on the outskirts between Brisbane and Ipswich. Yet where I live we are choked every single day by traffic issues, problems of people commuting to work and everything that is associated with it, including the diminishing value of lifestyle. I do not think we can just take a chance on how we continue this growth and development in the future. I think there is a massive role for the Commonwealth to play with the states and with local government. We need to recognise that the business-as-usual approach of people living on the city fringes and commuting to the centres for work is unsustainable in the future. Sustainable development must become a priority at all three levels of government: at the Commonwealth level, at the state level and at the local government level. I will say a little bit more about that later.

My view for many years—and I have spoken on it many times—has been that there needs to be a new compact, a new agreement, a new accord between the three levels of government about how we manage growth, development and sustainability into the future. State governments have produced plans for future development needs of our capital cities. In Queensland, in particular, we have go the 2020 vision, which does set out a plan. It sets out a strategic approach to developing the western corridor, of which my electorate is a part. It sets out a way to manage growth in the future. It is lucky that that is the case because if it were not you would have even further unchecked growth in areas that would be unsustainable. Most of these plans target infill development to provide around 50 to 70 per cent of new housing. This is for a good reason: it is simply cheaper, it is more sustainable and affordable for the people building them and it also means that they are closer in contact with public transport systems and where jobs are currently located.

Large swathes of the inner city cannot be demolished for new developments. We are finding this every day. I will use the south-east of Queensland and Brisbane as the basis for an example. It is very hard to put in new transport corridors, new rail lines, new roads and new highways because you simply cannot bulldoze people’s existing homes and properties. It is just uneconomical and it is unfair, if anything else. Perhaps that is why we have this trend for tunnels everywhere through our cities. These issues are very serious and they need to be dealt with not just at the local government or state level but they need to have full cooperation. And not just the full funding—I get the difference. State and local government authorities always want the federal government to dig deeply into its pockets to pay for things. They also want to have a say, before the necessity arises, in how we get to those positions where we need to have new roads, new transport corridors and new rail.

Base land costs are too high. I do not think anyone would argue with me on that. Having to accommodate existing buildings means that costs are going to continue to rise. There is a real disconnect between affordability, cost of building and development and where we actually allow building to happen. Often, people are pushed right out to the city fringes as far as possible so that they can afford a home but then forgetting that they have to commute back to work, which might take two hours. So it is a new cost. It is not just a cost for the individual but a cost for the state. It is a cost for our transport systems and it is a cost for people’s lifestyles. It carries with it a whole heap of diminishing factors of quality of life, which I think do not work and certainly will not work into the future.

Living in the suburbs in a stand-alone house with a backyard is still the preferred option for most Australian families. But I would like to think that that is significantly changing. My own views on this have changed in recent years. I think there is real potential and the possibility for development to take place on a real mix of lifestyle options—to give people that one-bedroom studio apartment out in the suburbs where traditionally you would never do that, right through to the larger 1,600 square metre blocks—for families, singles and professional couples and those living in an area where there is a lifestyle, public transport, jobs and entertainment facilities. I call it the coffee factor, but where you can get a decent cup of coffee these days makes a huge difference, because it is about a quality of life. People expect that today.

The old ways of thinking and developing and allowing development in the suburbs needs to completely change. I talk to my local council authorities and councillors about how that mix ought to work a bit better. I think there is a lot of potential for us to do that. It will take some courage and it will take some effort, but I think we have the capacity to do it.

I have spoken on these matters many times, particularly about the issue of decentralising out of the city out into the satellite cities and outer urban areas where people commute regularly for an hour or hour and a half into the city to work only just to commute back in the afternoon. Whereas if you led from the Commonwealth, state and local government perspective and started giving people options to work right where they live—and there are those opportunities currently—I think you would start to see that different mix taking place. Business would follow if government departments went out to the burbs. There were examples of this in the past. It is not a new concept. It has been done in Parramatta, in Geelong, in Mt Gravatt in Brisbane and in other areas where the ATO and other departments such as main roads have gone out to the outer regions. People want to work there because that is where they live. It gives them a better lifestyle. I think we need to take that next step up and pursue those particular issues.

Leading demographer Bernard Salt has called a system where our major cities are broken up into areas of employment a ‘mosaic city’, and I think that is an appropriate way to look at it. You work around transport orientated developments and nodes, and you give people those options. Not everyone has to be in the city to enjoy a city lifestyle, which is obviously what people want—that is what people demand. You could also do that on the city fringes. I think that would take an enormous burden off the Commonwealth, currently, and the states, in terms of building infrastructure and the massive costs that involves. It is a reality that people will move to where the jobs are. That is just the bottom line. People need to work and they will move to where the work is if they can afford it. This is the Noosa principle. If you are a service oriented provider—if you work as a police officer, a nurse or a teacher—you cannot live where you work. If you work around Noosa, who can afford to live there? Certainly not me and certainly not people who are teachers, cleaners, police officers and the like. So we need to consider how we work those types of issues as well.

There is a shortage of housing and I think everyone acknowledges that. I do not think I will get too many disagreements. It is a quizzical problem that we face in this country. There is a consistent shortage of between 50,000 and 80,000 homes a year. No matter how many more development applications are put in and no matter where they are, we just never seem to be able to catch up. Again, I think we really need to look at an integrated approach with the Commonwealth. I do not think there is a possibility anymore—it is not acceptable to me, anyway—that the Commonwealth sits on the sideline of these issues that are normally the purview of state and local councils. I think the time has come for us to play a large role not just in the funding but also in the policy development areas to do with housing.

The National Housing Supply Council’s 2010 2nd state of supply report sets out that the housing shortfall is currently over 178,000 homes. That is a lot of people missing out on a place to live. You do not have to travel too far in any city or, in fact, in outer urban areas to see that people are homeless. Whole families are living in caravans, cars or other pretty rough sorts of places. A lot of families miss out. Queensland alone has a shortage of 56,000 homes. That is only exceeded by Sydney. It is a pretty sad indictment of Brisbane. By 2029 the projected number of additional homes required if we just had a status quo would be 3.2 million. That is a phenomenal figure. I look at it sometimes and I think, ‘Is that possible? Is it real?’ But it is. It is a well-thought-out and researched figure—3.2 million additional homes. If we do not plan around that figure—where they are going to go, the transport and roads—we cannot do it later. It cannot be an afterthought. We have to actually plan it in. If we do not do that, in the future we are going to face even greater pressure on all of our cities and we will see a lowering of the living standard from what people expect.

I want to digress here slightly but in keeping with the whole theme of sustainability. There are many parts to the sustainability question. Certainly energy and fuel are part of that. The serious debate about carbon emissions and carbon pricing which we are having right now is part of that debate. The sooner and the quicker we move to a market based carbon economy, the better off we will be. I think the position that we have put on the table now for Australians to debate and accept is the first instalment of where Australia will be in the future.

I am heartened by the fact that the Prime Minister said we should not have to lead the world in this debate but we should not be left behind. We should put ourselves in such a position that we will not be left behind, because the world is moving to a carbon economy; in fact, it is already well and truly on that path now. We might be a small country in terms of our number of people but we are a big hitter, we have big influence and we have big potential and capacity. We are also one of the biggest polluters per head anywhere in the world.

The fact is that our economy is a coal economy, based on a dirty fuel. I think our clean coal technology is great but it is a long way away. We need to look seriously at all the options. One way to do that is to actually put a price on pollution, a price on what you emit, because right now, today, there is no incentive for anybody, none whatsoever, apart from goodwill. There is goodwill from good, honest, decent citizens of this country who do everything in their power individually and as families to reduce their emissions, which is fantastic, but the really big polluters, the ones who really ought to do something, just do not because there is no incentive. Why would you? There is no cost to it. You just spew out as much as you like and there is no repercussion. The sooner we get to a price, the sooner we get to a market based mechanism, the sooner we get to a logical, sensible, commonplace position, the quicker our economy will be part of an integrated global economy on carbon.

The funny thing about this is that not only do I and people in the government think this is pretty common sense; so do people on the Liberal side—because in fact it was their idea before it was ours. It is purely market based. We are talking about what should be core Liberal Party policy and principle. I am not too sure about the National Party, but at least with the Liberal Party once upon a time the imperative was the national economy, not the political economy. On issues such as ethanol and biofuels, a lot more can be done and there are some good debates to be had out there, but I would ask the responsible government ministers to ensure that Australia has a future in all of those areas.

There are lots of very important issues that we can raise in debates on appropriations. I want to make the point that this government is very much focused on building. We are builders—we want to build an economy. Be it a carbon economy, an infrastructure economy, a transport economy or an export economy, we want to build. We are not going to play the game of destroying and just saying no. I was really disappointed to hear the comments of the previous speaker, which were so opposed to getting rid of exit fees. Why would someone be in support of them? Why would you support exit fees, which are clearly unfair? It is not about cost recovery; it is about profiteering—even the banks admit it. This is the irony of the debate on that issue. Even the banks admit that exit fees are about profiteering. It should really be about cost recovery, fair fees and charges, fair interest rates and giving ordinary working Australians a fair go at having more choices in their mortgages and home loans.

Australia needs to do a whole range of things to meet the challenges of the future. I have laid out a few things that I believe will be part of a sustainable future for Australia. I think Australians actually get it and there ought to be a robust, healthy and vigorous debate on these issues. But I can tell you that, in my electorate, I will not be backing down—whether you want to call it a carbon price, a carbon tax or a carbon anything else. The reality is that this is a future for Australia. It is not a tax on individuals; it is a tax on industry and big polluters. (Time expired)

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