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

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to move this motion here tonight and I look forward to the ideas raised by both sides of politics to help combat the very real issue of our ever-increasing urban stability problems. Australia is one of the most urbanised countries in the world, with more than four out of five Australians living in urban communities. What is more, between 2001 and 2006, our capital cities contributed 78 per cent of the nation’s economic growth. But we should be under no illusion when it comes to the monumental task that is before us. The population boom in places such as Western Australia and my home state of Queensland has seen our major centres caught out in terms of providing the necessary infrastructure to keep up with the increase in demand for resources, housing and transport—but, mind you, not without some warning.

This fact will no doubt leave the federal opposition thinking of what more could have been done over the past decade—the lost years for infrastructure—and I will be very interested in what they have to say on this motion tonight. The reality is that future planning will always be remembered as one of the great tasks not done by the previous, Howard government. They just did not want to deal with the exponential population growth and they had no plan for the future. Close to 12 years of inaction and neglect on this issue have created a number of very real and critical problems for the nation which need to be addressed as a matter of urgency. An integral part of finding the solution must lie within the re-emerging concept of strategic urban planning. But the key point is that, before you can fix a problem, you must accept that it exists and then give your attention to it.

Urban planning is an essential part of dealing with Australia’s future growth and addresses important areas such as jobs, housing infrastructure and sustainable transport. If the nation is to have an agenda for prosperity, both economic and social, we must search for long-term solutions. But we must also understand that, to achieve these goals, there needs to be a renewed focus and commitment to making this a significant policy issue across a range of key portfolios, which include transport, housing, employment participation and the environment, at a federal, state and local government level. This is important because urban planning has the potential to foster quality planning, which will create the new, sustainable communities of the future—the communities that will benefit socially, culturally and economically.

We need governments working in partnership and towards a number of sustainable goals in order to see a substantial focal shift in levels of funding for essential urban infrastructure. This is now being done. It is being done by this government and it is being done through the COAG process. That is why I applaud the Australian government’s introduction of Infrastructure Australia and the recently announced $20 billion Building Australia Fund. I also want to congratulate the Australian government on the announcement of the Major Cities Unit to fill the gap between policy frameworks, funding mechanisms and infrastructure delivery.

Today our major centres must deal with the complexity of government departments, all of which can have a direct impact on their economic, social and environmental performance. A more integrated approach is what is needed. We need to identify opportunities where federal leadership can make a difference to the prosperity of our cities and the wellbeing of their residents. In particular, we need to develop strong and productive partnerships with our major centres and Infrastructure Australia, which will be prioritising billions of dollars of investment in infrastructure around the country. The recently introduced Major Cities Unit, which operates within the infrastructure minister’s department, no doubt will be central to this relationship. I again applaud the minister for his leadership and vision in this area.

I would now like to draw the attention of the House to the Prime Minister’s address to the ALP Queensland state conference over the weekend, especially when he mentioned that advanced infrastructure was critical to building a stronger economy. This continued commitment by the Rudd government to infrastructure has already led to the establishment of the $20 billion Building Australia Fund for future infrastructure needs and the groundbreaking Infrastructure Australia body. Infrastructure Australia’s immediate task will be to audit the nation’s infrastructure shortfalls and produce an infrastructure priority list to guide billions of dollars of public and private investment properly. Its infrastructure audit will be completed early next year, providing us with a national infrastructure priority list by March 2009. Infrastructure Australia will also review the extent to which governments can better facilitate infrastructure investment, including through public-private partnerships as well as better planning and approval processes.

The task ahead of the government is considerable; I have no doubt of that. The OECD ranks Australia 20th out of 25 countries when it comes to investment in public infrastructure as a proportion of national income. For over a decade the previous government failed to act in the best interests of Australia with respect to infrastructure. This will not occur under the Rudd Labor government. This government has the policies, the projects, the vision and the initiatives that will deliver for Australia’s future planning needs. They are not based on an election cycle but on the national interest and on what is needed in our urban and major centre areas. The policies we have put forward are more than sound and I congratulate the Rudd government for putting them forward.

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on this motion moved by the member for Oxley, who is a Queensland based member. His seat of Oxley is adjacent to the Ryan electorate, which I have the great honour of representing here in the parliament. When I first signed up to speak on this motion on behalf of the people of Ryan and the federal opposition, I thought that it would be a positive, optimistic and bipartisan motion minus the blame game. But then I came into the parliament and heard the member for Oxley straightaway launching himself into an attack on the previous government—that is, ‘The Howard government was responsible for everything that went wrong in Australia and everything that went wrong in Queensland.’ I am very disappointed. I say to the people of Ryan that, although the new Labor government has a Prime Minister from Queensland and we would have thought there would be much more for Queensland, unfortunately all the indicators so far are that the Prime Minister from Queensland is not going to deliver for Queensland. As I said, when I saw this motion I looked at the words and it talked about working together, an agenda for prosperity and long-term solutions, but the people of Ryan know that that is not the case with this government.

I want to talk about Queensland, and the first thing I want to highlight for and remind the people of Queensland about, especially the people of Ryan, is that there has been a Labor government in Queensland for almost 20 uninterrupted years. We talk about the long term and about vision and planning; I would have thought that they would be planning well ahead. I am disappointed that the member for Oxley seems to be leaving the chamber and not listening to a critique of his motion, given that I am happy to speak on this motion on behalf of the people of Ryan in the spirit of bipartisanship.

The Labor government in Queensland has been in power for nearly 20 years uninterrupted. When we talk about the long term, I want to draw the attention of the people in Ryan to Moggill Road. Moggill Road is a state road and it unfortunately has been brutally neglected by the Queensland Labor government. There is a great disconnect between council planning and infrastructure investment by the state government. In the suburbs of Bellbowrie and Moggill, indeed in all of the western suburbs of the Ryan electorate, the residents know that it takes almost an hour, or an hour and a half at times, to get from the far reaches of the Ryan electorate into the city. The problem is that Moggill Road is one giant car park.

This motion talks about urban planning, dealing with Australia’s future growth, specifically infrastructure in Queensland, and broad participation from all tiers of government, but what do we have in Queensland? Now we have a Labor government here in Canberra and, lo and behold, there is talk in the Queensland press that the federal Labor government are not going to honour their commitment to a full upgrade of the Ipswich Motorway. They were forced by the media to backtrack and to do a backflip because they knew full well that that was a tough ask for them to actually deliver. Now that they are in government, they are not going to deliver.

We all know that there has been an explosion of growth in Queensland and some 4½ million residents are going to be living in Queensland by 2025-26. It is going to exceed the growth of Victoria, so we therefore have to plan ahead. No-one disputes that; that is a motherhood statement. The disappointing thing about this motion by the member for Oxley is that it has nice, fine, wonderfully crafted words. The first part of the motion is a motherhood statement which nobody could disagree with. But, when you see what is happening at the heart of the federal government with Labor in power, they are clearly not going to honour their commitment.

On behalf of the people of Ryan, I would like to know what, as a Queensland based federal member, the member for Oxley will do. What will this Queensland based member of the federal government do to promote the interests of Queensland? What will he do for the people of Ryan? What will he do for Moggill Road, which is under the jurisdiction of a Labor government? We really want to know what he will do. We know that unfortunately a lot of money is being wasted by the Queensland government; it is going down the drain. I am just disappointed that clearly the Queensland government is not going to put the interests of Queensland first. It has again let down the people of Ryan and it has let down the people of Australia. Unfortunately, the $65 million in borrowing will just go down the chute. (Time expired)

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I congratulate the member for Oxley for moving this motion on urban planning. I am deeply interested in the future of our cities and I am pleased to be able to contribute to debate on this topic. Questions about the appropriate role of government are central to any discussion about our cities. My view is that government must be involved in and must lead with the planning of our cities. In 1965 Gough Whitlam rightly said, ‘Urban planning necessarily means public planning.’ Governments do not merely have a role to play in urban planning; they have a duty to actively plan for the future of our cities. This extends to the federal government as well as to state and local governments.

It is ironic that in modern Australia, where four-fifths of the population live in urban centres, the enduring images of our country are of the outback and wilderness. The Australia in which most of us live and work is better reflected in two large aerial photographs I have in my office. The first is an aerial shot of the Melbourne CBD and surrounding areas. Although changes to the inner city have dated the photograph, many features are recognisable—the centres of power, the major transport nodes, the inner urban residential areas and the major health, education and cultural institutions. The other is a photograph given to me by a high school in my electorate. It is also an aerial shot and it is focused on the school and the surrounding suburbs in south-east Melbourne—low-density housing, parks, local schools, a small shopping centre, residential streets and a number of major arterial routes. These two photographs illustrate what I think are some of the interesting features of our cities: the concentration of major institutions and centres of power in the inner city; the enormous changes that have taken place in the inner cities over the last 15 years and the relative stability of the established suburbs; the prosperity, security and seeming homogeneity of suburban areas; and the division between inner urban and outer suburban areas.

More than most other areas of policy, urban planning calls for an active role from government because we have a collective interest in the form of our cities. Planning and other government activities provide the framework within which private decisions about land use can be made. All governments have legitimate policy objectives in areas like economic prosperity, social justice and environmental sustainability. These objectives can be facilitated by the structure of our cities, or they can be undermined. The Commonwealth has substantial involvement already in a range of policy areas that raise questions of urban planning. Decisions about industry and innovation, migration, public transport, road funding and infrastructure policy and our response to climate change all affect the form of our cities. I am hoping for greater direct Commonwealth involvement in urban planning.

To act as though urban planning is not a federal issue does not lessen federal implications; it simply results in poor policy outcomes. We have seen an example of this problem arise over the last five years with the housing affordability crisis. The crisis is real, it is happening and it is adversely affecting thousands of Australians. Home ownership remains a cherished aim for most Australians, yet today it is out of the reach of so many. The present crisis could have been ameliorated with acknowledgement and action by the Howard government. Instead, the Howard government had no response and it abolished the position of housing minister in 1996. In fact, there was little indication that the previous government made any decision with reference to the implications for our cities.

In contrast, Labor has a long and proud tradition of Commonwealth involvement in urban affairs. Throughout the Chifley, Whitlam, Hawke and Keating governments, the Labor Party led the way. The Keating government had the Building Better Cities program, which was scrapped by the Howard government on coming to office. The recent announcement by the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government of the creation of a major cities unit in his department is part of this tradition of Labor policy on urban affairs, as is the establishment of Infrastructure Australia and the Building Australia Fund, which were announced in the budget. The Rudd Labor government is addressing the future needs of our cities and our economy. They are inextricably linked and to ignore this link, as the previous government did, is to fail in the responsibility of national leadership.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion regarding urban planning and the need for better urban planning for our major cities in particular. There are some elements in this motion that are quite credible and reasonable. But, if you are arguing that the government does things, including planning, better than the market, you should take a trip to Sydney and examine this thesis. The armies of departmental urban planners, with their restrictions and regulations, have produced quite a chaotic and difficult situation for people, particularly those living in outer metropolitan areas of Sydney. I would like to make a few suggestions to improve the wording of the motion. Point (1)(c) of the motion says ‘urban planning fosters quality planning’. I suggest ‘urban planning can foster quality planning but not always’. Where the motion says that urban planning produces good ‘social, cultural, economic and environmental benefits’, I suggest ‘urban planning can produce good social, cultural, economic and environmental benefits but not always’.

When it comes to the government taking over all of the decision making on urban planning for our cities, in my view less can often mean more. States have planned too much and for too many requirements, and there are too many restrictions. The states that restricted and planned the most have lost development to rival states. I come from New South Wales, and two of the members sitting in the chamber tonight come from Queensland. No developer will tell you that they are looking to invest in properties for urban development in New South Wales at the moment. They are interested in Queensland and Victoria because of their better regulatory environments. Let us not kid ourselves about that.

The contention in this motion that government always produces a better outcome because it has departments to look at things is one that neither the major developers in Australia nor many people in my electorate would accept. Indeed, the community in north-western Sydney has had to suffer through a very poor, ill-thought-out series of policies from the New South Wales state Labor government in the form of green zones. As part of a draft plan for the future of north-west Sydney and the north-west development area, the government, after very limited consultation, decided to impose green zones on the properties of the local residents in those areas. Restrictions were placed on private properties, limiting livestock and undermining their rural usage and the ability of residents to sell or develop their land. These restrictions have disadvantaged members of my community and significantly devalued these properties. The minister, Frank Sartor, was forced to back down in a very embarrassing and ugly episode once he realised the heat of the situation that he and his army of bureaucrats with their planning nightmare had created in north-west Sydney.

We know that we have a housing affordability crisis. I and all of the major charities in my electorate can tell you that we have a rental affordability crisis. We need to develop more land for housing and rental stock. The north-west sector of Sydney provides great opportunity for this development. The minimum lot sizes of 20 hectares and 40 hectares, which apply in the northern part of my electorate and further out, need to change. We need to have smaller sized lots. We need to develop the area for housing. That would be a good urban plan. But the attempt to create green zones shows that many of our urban planning departments have become captives of the conservation movement. I was very fortunate to witness a planning expert present some criteria about planning overseas and in Australia. If you take a map of the entire continent of Australia and condense all of the urban land within it into a circle, you will see that it represents a very small circle on that map. So the contention that we are running out of land shows another planning failure by our urban planning areas in state government departments.

People in my electorate of Mitchell would not contend that government does urban planning better than the market. There is a need for government to play a role in many areas of planning, but if you look at one of the fastest growing areas of Sydney, Mitchell, which I represent, and if you look at the failures of planning infrastructure—

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 8.30 pm, the member is interrupted in accordance with standing order 41. The member will have leave to continue speaking when private members’ business is resumed.