Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Cities) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for La Trobe for his question. As the member for La Trobe knows, Australia has been one of the fastest-growing countries amongst the OECD, growing on average by 1.7 per cent per annum over the past decade. One of the challenges of our population growth is that it has not been evenly distributed across the country. We've got big urban areas, such as Melbourne, Sydney and South-East Queensland, which have been growing very fast, and meanwhile we've got other, smaller cities and regional areas that would like to grow faster than they are presently.

To give an example of this, Adelaide last year grew by 10,000 people; Melbourne grew by 10,000 people every 25 days. That puts a lot of pressure on those big centres like Melbourne, and the member for La Trobe understands this deeply, being in one of the fastest-growing areas of Melbourne. But it also means that we've got cities such as Adelaide and some regional areas that would actually like to grow faster. A further challenge is that we've got different growth rates amongst different age cohorts. One of the fastest growth rates is amongst seniors. Indeed, over the next 40 years the cohort of seniors above the age of 65 will grow from 15 per cent of the population to 22 per cent of the population. And, as the Prime Minister indicated earlier today, the 85-plus segment will see a fourfold increase in numbers over the next four decades. That is great news, because people are living longer, as the Prime Minister said. But it also means that we need to be planning accordingly, in order to give those seniors the quality of life that they need and deserve, given their role in building Australia over the past few decades.

How are we addressing some of these population challenges? First of all, we are investing in congestion-busting infrastructure right across the country—$75 billion worth.

Mr Hill interjecting—

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