Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Urban Development and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In between the Daily Telegraph’s latest castigation of parliamentarians—this time it says we are too lazy to walk to work—and the Howard government’s blindness to the impact of global warming, I had the opportunity to meet with Mr Stephen Ingrouille from the Going Solar environmental consultancy and to talk about his proposal. He argues that climate change is leading to rising sea levels and increased weather extremes such as drought and megafires. We have increased particulates in the atmosphere which lead to a phenomenon known as global dimming and could have a profound impact on our ability to produce food. These problems, coupled with increased oil prices and poor urban design, are likely to lead to significant social disruption and breakdown.

Problems associated with our over-reliance on motor vehicles include resource depletion, spatial demand, global warming, global dimming, pollution, congestion, loss of amenity, social exclusion, waste creation, heat island effect, road trauma and, most particularly, the destruction of habitat and cultural values. To overcome these seemingly intractable problems, Mr Ingrouille proposes the setting up of a joint government task force to address the problems of greenhouse gases created by the transport sector. To this end, it is essential that we start reassessing our reliance on the motor vehicle, along with the building of roads and the allocation of valuable and scarce space for roads and parking. His proposal is to establish a sustainable cities authority that will work in conjunction with existing federal, state, territory and local government bodies and agencies to seek out and encourage innovative and sustainable transport solutions. In effect, this will be a ‘better cities program’ that also aids rural and regional areas.

We are essentially stuck in dysfunctional cities. The federal government presently funds the construction of roads but does not fund public transport. The federal government circumvents its responsibility by nonchalantly palming responsibility off to the states. Naturally, the states need to lift their act; however, given the enormous resources available to the feds, surely the buck stops here. The solution is not to throw money at the problem; rather, it is about the initial design of our new suburbs—I saw a figure of about $60,000 per household in the south-west just for roads to those blocks of land—and the renovation of our existing suburban areas. This task is currently outside the expertise of our existing agencies.

Under this proposal a sustainable cities authority would ultimately have offices in every state and territory. The SCA would work with existing departments in each region, including transport, tourism, infrastructure, planning, environment, sustainability, health and regional development. Each regional SCA would interact with and seek advice from local technical and community organisations, as well as other relevant government agencies. Whilst the ALP is not committing to this proposal, we believe it is essential that we engage with the wider community in order to expedite the efficient outcome for the community, as opposed to the federal government’s current ‘hear no evil, see no evil’ approach, which has all but ignored the built environment since coming to power more than a decade ago.