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

I want to start by thanking Stephen Hodge and the Cycling Promotion Fund for their hard work and the assistance they have provided me for tonight’s motion. Cycling is more than just riding a bike and that is the message I want to leave on people’s minds tonight. Cycling offers an effective way to increase overall physical activity levels in the community. It obviously provides for better public health. It is an alternative to motorised transport. It is an effective method of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It reduces congestion. It increases the ability of people to save money by reducing their fuel costs and a range of other things. There is the potential for cycling to actually make a real difference.

Australians young and old love to ride. We have all done it at some point in our lives. Some have forgotten how and others have continued to do it. You never forget how, but some have just forgotten how to get on. Cycling is Australia’s fourth most popular recreational activity; 72 per cent of all children participate in cycling. Cycling amongst girls has jumped 16.1 per cent between 2003 and 2006 and this provides evidence that it really is a popular pastime as well as a sport. Very importantly, areas which have invested significantly into creating more cycle friendly environments, with encouragement and promotion programmes, have seen the largest increases in cycling participation. That is a key point.

Building community infrastructure and improving community amenity has the potential not only to increase cycling but also to create local jobs, and to increase skills and social capital. In particular, I note that investment in cycling and walking is not a cost but an investment in social capital. It enhances community liveability and community safety, and it provides a legacy of health and wellbeing. Overall, it provides for better communities. Connected at integrated streets, cycling provides better services and public spaces that encourage people to walk or to just meet their neighbours. It fosters social interaction and it provides opportunities to reduce crime. It really is more than just about the walking or the cycling itself. I am very proud to say that the Rudd government has invested $40 million in bike paths projects nationally. It is going to build 174 projects which will create almost 2,000 jobs and traineeships, which is very worth while. It is not just the Commonwealth government but also local and state governments that have invested in cycling. For example, I note that local and state governments are investing in 72 projects in New South Wales, 23 in Queensland, 35 in Victoria and so on. There is cross-government investment and it needs to continue.

Cycling not only is about increased mobility but also is a recreational activity. It also increases people’s levels of activity and boosts regional tourism. It can be a really cost-effective way for people to commute and it can change people’s habits of a lifetime. Certainly on the health and physical activity side, it has been acknowledged by everybody that cycling can make a real difference. But people might not understand that a simple 30-minute-a-day trip on a pushbike can actually make an enormous difference and that it can actually halve the chance of people becoming obese or diabetic. It is a cheap way to save on the endless health bills in this country and right around the world.

What are the trends? What are people doing? It certainly makes sense for us to focus our efforts on increasing opportunity. It is all about opportunity. It is all about giving people that opportunity to get out and cycle. In fact, most people participate in non-organised, non-team type sports. That is the largest area. People are quite happy to cycle. In this country, cycling is now bigger overall than the top 10 sports combined.

It is a fact that we are now all living longer. In the national interest and in the interests of social inclusion, an ageing population means that our environments will need to adapt to encourage mobility as we get older. So we should be building appropriate infrastructure to make it easier to walk, to get around and for people to be active in their older years. Certainly there is plenty of evidence of that needing to happen.

I want to make a few comments about the economy and tourism. More bikes are sold each year than cars, with 1.2 million bicycles sold in 2008. The bicycle industry contributes $900 million to the Australian economy. Cycle tourism boosts regional tourism in those areas that need it the most. In places like South Australia, where for 10 years they have had the now well-entrenched Tour Down Under, in which we saw Lance Armstrong this year, we have seen this making a huge contribution. I know that next year’s Tour Down Under will be bigger and better.

I finish where I started by saying that cycling is more than just riding a bike. It is about your health, it is about transport, it is about community and it is about environment. We need governments and the community to invest in all of those things.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to join the debate on the National Bike Path Program and I acknowledge the very common sense and practical contribution made by the member for Oxley. The motion notes that:

… building community infrastructure or improving community amenity has the potential to generate local jobs and increase skills and social capital—

and that—

… investment in cycling is regarded as a cost effective way to increase mobility and physical activity… and boost regional tourism.

The motion goes on to note that it supports:

… awareness programs, initiatives, organisations and individuals that promote cycling as a way of getting fitter, having … fun.

I am comfortable with the broad range and the general thrust of the motion because it highlights some regional development opportunities that I believe we have not fully explored as a nation, particularly to improve the health of our communities and to provide economic and tourism opportunities in regional areas. All the reports that we see on almost a daily basis point to a nation which is getting fatter and a nation where the health impacts of long-term disease related to inactivity are a major concern for us and costing our nation a fortune, yet we have piles of strategies saying we should be investing more in infrastructure to support healthier lifestyles. I think the most important aspect of the motion today is that we actually need to see action coming out of state, federal and local governments.

I have spoken previously about the East Gippsland Rail Trail and emphasised my support for the plan to rebuild the Latrobe River timber trestle rail bridge, which is a real opportunity for the federal government to create five jobs in the immediate construction phase and to support ongoing employment in the tourism industry and the smaller regional centres associated with the rail trail. The motion before us highlights the very important point that we need to provide opportunities for people to exercise safely. It comes back to the saying ‘If you build it, they will come.’ If the facilities are there for people to exercise safely, I am confident they will use them.

That brings me to the Latrobe City Bicycle Plan and the situation in the Latrobe Valley. I note the presence of the member for McMillan, who obviously has a very good understanding of the Latrobe Valley region and probably has a better appreciation than most of what could be done in the Latrobe Valley with improved cycle links. There is a need to develop better access—to link the Latrobe Valley communities, which are only 10 to 15 kilometres apart and ideally situated to capitalise on commuter traffic. We would get small vehicles off the road, reduce fuel costs and provide what would be a low-cost sporting opportunity for people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, of whom there are many in the Latrobe Valley region. Towns such as Moe, Morwell, Traralgon and Churchill and the smaller regional centres would benefit enormously from improved cycle networks and infrastructure and a cycle friendly environment.

The Latrobe City Council has made moves in that regard and I note that there was funding announced only a couple of weeks ago by the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government of $140,000 for the Latrobe City Council’s Bicycle Plan to construct some shared pathways in the region. Unfortunately, $140,000 is not anywhere near what is required in the long term. Without wishing to sound churlish, there needs to be a multimillion dollar investment in new cycling facilities to promote healthier lifestyles in the region, to improve safety and to improve the liveability of the region by connecting these large and smaller communities. It is hard to think of a regional centre anywhere in Australia more ideally suited to a major investment in cycling infrastructure. So I commend the member for Oxley for putting the motion before the House tonight.

One area that concerns me greatly, and the member for Oxley did touch on it, is the need to provide a safe cycling environment. We have a situation where bikes and cyclists are very exposed, with only limited protection, interacting too closely with vehicles on roads which were often not constructed to accommodate bicycles on the shoulders. If we get ourselves into a situation where we are providing improved infrastructure, where there is a dedicated cycle path and children can ride to school safely, you will find that parents are more comfortable with allowing their children to ride to school. So there are issues which need to be accommodated at a local planning level and also more significant funding costs which will require some federal and state support.

I refer briefly to the La Trobe City 2007-10 bicycle plan. I congratulate La Trobe City for having the vision to work towards encouraging greater participation in all recreational pursuits, particularly cycling, and to promote active living and participation in community life. It has got a plan for making sure that the road networks and the bicycle path networks are integrated with the footpaths and the public transport options, which will provide real opportunities for the people of Gippsland and the La Trobe Valley to exercise in a much safer manner. If we are going to wait for the state government, I am afraid we will be waiting for a very long time. The Brumby state government in Victoria has failed miserably in this regard. It recently released its $115 million Victorian Cycling Strategy, which could have been renamed the ‘Melbourne cycling strategy’.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Oxley for moving this motion. Most of us would be aware that Bernie is himself quite a keen cyclist, as am I. I know probably as well as anybody that building cycling infrastructure is an investment in health and wellbeing and community liveability.

I had not been on a bike since I was at primary school, which was about 40-something years ago, and a friend of mine asked me to join a ride from Sydney to Canberra to present a petition for Work Choices. I agreed to do that ride, so I got on a bike again for the first time in 40 years and rode once around Parramatta Park, which is about three kilometres, had to push the bike up the hill and had sore muscles for two weeks. Six weeks later, I rode the 300 kilometres from Sydney to Canberra and was well and truly hooked. I have been riding consistently since then. I have lost about 15 kilos, my heart rate has dropped about 25 beats and I have become a person with much more energy and focus than I had before. I now not only a ride a lot but also race in the masters’ competition.

I recently went online to get a photo of myself riding because I wanted one for a particular website. I looked at the shots of the A- and B-grade riders. They were riding round corners and looking really tough, pedalling like mad, gritting their teeth and sweating. I thought, ‘Great, there will be one of me.’ So I went down to D-grade, which is me—men’s D-grade, mind you—and there I was: I was going around the corner, I was hanging off, my knee was sticking out and my shoulder was down. It looked absolutely fabulous: I was gritting my teeth and pedalling like mad, and behind me were two guys in their 70s riding along as if it was no problem at all!

That is well and truly my experience of cycling: because it is easy on the knees, you never forget how to do it and it is easy to get back into it, people in their 70s and 80s are still competing. In my electorate, I have Keith Oliver in the over-65 category who has won well over 15 world championships; Geoff Stoker who won four world championships in the masters’ games and the recent world cycling games and broke two world records two weeks ago; and a group of men called the ‘legends of Parramatta Park’, all of whom are well over 65 and one who is in his 80s, who have ridden from Brisbane to Sydney and from Melbourne to Sydney with me—a distance of well over a thousand kilometres.

About eight of them joined me recently for a ride from Canberra to Sydney. Even in their 80s, they still race up every hill that has a name and compete in the sprint for every town sign. Even if you are riding 1,000 kilometres, you still have to sprint if there is a town sign and you sprint up every hill that has a name, and they can still beat me if they attack as a group, even in their 80s.

Cycling is an extraordinary activity that people can continue to do for their life. For many riders, as they get older, riding on the roads is no longer the option it was when they were younger. I am sure that Bernie rides on the road regularly—and so do I—but a lot of people as they get older, and women in particular, are looking for a much safer option and they are looking for those paths. In my area the M7, which is one of the best pieces of cycling infrastructure in the country, provides people the opportunity to ride as commuters, recreationally or in training on the one path. The water pipe, which is a cycling path built on the old water pipe through Prospect, is another one. Until recently it was 25 kilometres without a road. There is construction going on at the moment and we are fighting for its reconnection, but 25 kilometres without a road is an amazing piece of infrastructure.

We have many new paths being opened up in Parramatta. There are two new ones that have been funded by the federal government: one across the mangroves on the Parramatta River and another one that links Parramatta to Blacktown. These are incredibly important pieces of infrastructure that make it possible for people to get back on their bikes and do so safely.

I cannot commend this motion enough. We all talk about health; it is one of the big issues. Preventive health in particular is incredibly important, and providing people with facilities where they can exercise easily and in a fun way is unbelievably important. I commend the motion to the House.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too would like to commend the member for Oxley for putting forward this motion. As he rightly pointed out, cycling is a sport that people can enjoy regardless of their age. I did not realise that the member for Oxley was such a fount of knowledge on cycling with his endless run of facts that he was able to provide us with. I certainly commend those facts.

On the North Coast we have a great environment and the opportunity to enjoy that environment by cycling is something that should not be missed. I think that further investment in cycling infrastructure can only help to make this sport grow. Where you have a very competitive tourism market I think that there are huge opportunities for communities to improve their appeal to tourists and visitors by offering better quality cycling infrastructure. Whilst there is cycling infrastructure around, all too often when you get to the really busy bits, the cycleway disappears and merges onto the main busy road. Quite often you will have a good cycle path for 50 per cent of the distance but then you have dangerous traffic conditions for the remaining 50 per cent. I think it is important that we become a lot more proactive in ensuring that our cycle paths conform to a cycling strategy, if you like, and when you get to those difficult areas of high traffic, the cycleway and the safety that it provides should be preserved. I think that is a very important point.

The health aspects of cycling cannot be overestimated. We have heard from previous speakers about the importance of cycling in relation to combating obesity and in relation to combating diabetes. I guess one of the really great things about cycling is that you can get fit without really noticing it—especially on downhill runs. The opportunity to actually enjoy your exercise without it becoming a grind is something that has a lot of appeal to people—especially when the whole family can participate, you can have a great day out with the family, and you can all be getting fit and enjoying cycling.

I have a vision for the east coast: with an ever-growing population, we should have an east coast cycle path to enable people to cycle safely from Victoria right the way up into Queensland. I think it would be a huge tourist mecca. I think it is something that would draw people from around the world. Australia has so many wonderful coastal vistas to be enjoyed; if we were able to connect much of the existing cycle infrastructure, fill in the gaps over time—and it would be a long-term process—and provide the ability for people to start in Victoria and ride way up into North Queensland, I think it would become one of the great cycling trips of the world. I think it would be an attraction for many international tourists as well as an attraction that can be enjoyed by locals. Just as many people travel the world to enjoy great rail journeys, I think that an east coast cycle path would be a massive point of difference between Australia and many other countries.

There are also the environmental aspects of cycling. For every kilometre that someone cycles instead of using a car, there is a benefit in reducing CO2 emissions. There is a lot of debate going on in this House in relation to the pros and cons of an ETS, but one thing is certain: if you ride your bike rather than taking the car, you are going to improve the environment by reduced consumption of resources and by reduced CO2 emissions.

I commend the motion. I think it is appropriate that we redouble our efforts to invest in cycle infrastructure. I certainly welcome the government’s investment in cycling infrastructure; it is something that we should be looking to continue into the long term. It would be particularly beneficial on the North Coast, where we have a thriving tourism industry that is always looking for new attractions. A cycle path that is currently under construction and which is getting longer and longer each year means that tourists visiting the area have an incentive to come back year after year to see the progress of the project. It is creating jobs in the construction phase and through tourism as thousands upon thousands of people enjoy the benefits of that cycle path.

I commend the member for Oxley, the member for Gippsland and the member for Parramatta for their contributions to the debate. I think it is a very worthwhile debate. I think that cycling is a sport that we should be supporting. We certainly should be attempting to make cycling as safe as it can be. Mixing bicycles with cars is always risky for the cyclist and I think that the more opportunity there is for the separation of bicycles from cars the safer the sport will become and the more attractive it will be to people of all ages.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Good evening, colleagues. May I commend the member for Oxley and all those others who have spoken on this recreation, wellbeing, health topic of shared pathways and bikeways. I could not think of a better place on earth to have a linear bikeway than between Latrobe on the north-west coast of Tassie—paralleling Bass Strait, all our rivers and all our townships, by the way—right the way through to Wynyard, which would be about 100 kilometres of magnificent bike track. We are actually on the way to achieving that through terrific collaboration between our local councils, the state government and, especially, the federal government. I do want to thank the federal government for its contribution. We have allocated about $3 million so far to shared pathways along the north-west coast and also into Strahan and Tullah on the west coast, which is now part of my electorate of Braddon.

Devonport itself has magnificent pathways already along the beautiful Mersey River—on the Victoria Parade—and parallels Bass Strait before going on to the Don River and back to Bass Strait. It is absolutely magnificent there. What we would like to do is to join that up with a place called Turners Beach, which is a little further along the coast, and then into Ulverstone. At the last election we committed nearly $800,000 to a bikeway between Turners Beach—a beautiful coastal residential and holiday area—and Ulverstone, which is by the beautiful Leven River. That is nearing completion now, so people will not have to make the dangerous journey along the highway. They will be able to take a cycle path and walk their way from Turners Beach into Ulverstone—a lot of people live at Turners Beach—and enjoy the pathways which already exist in Ulverstone.

Then if we take a couple of hundred more steps, wouldn’t it be magnificent to have a bikeway into the beautiful township of Penguin, which is on Bass Strait? But our next allocation—a total of $1.78 million—is to Burnie itself, for a bikeway from Emu River at a little section called Wivenhoe, right the way through to Cooee, which has a very Australian name. It will go right through to Burnie, which has totally re-invigorated itself after the decline of the pulp mill and has really invested in its future and its people. It is a vibrant city now and I would love to get Peter Garrett back to enable him to sing and talk about the cleanest city in Australia rather than the dirtiest. Anyway, Pete, take that on notice! It is a terrific bikeway that is going to be developed there. Then, if you go to Somerset—again, it is by Bass Strait—you find a beautiful little township. We allocated $200,000 there for a wonderful community bike path, particularly giving access to people in wheelchairs. It also has terrific fitness equipment along the way.

To complement all this, you then move onto the magnificent township of Wynyard. It is great to doorknock there, because it is flat. Wynyard is a beautiful place by the Inglis River. It also borders Bass Strait. We have allocated $139,000 to extend some of the tracks there. Then you make your way down to the west coast—and hopefully those who have bought raffle tickets in my raffle will win a ticket down there—to Strahan, a beautiful, cosmopolitan and international town with great access to the south-west and the Franklin. We are allocating $300,000 to Strahan to develop a bike path there. And then there is the little tucked away township called Tullah. It is often forgotten about. It has the Wee Georgie Wood Steam Railway, a fantastic ride. We have allocated some money, with the council, who are putting in something like $900,000 overall, for the development of shared pathways.

The story here is that pathways are the go. That is quite a good slogan—if you want to use it, you can. They are great for recreation and great for well being. Importantly, they are great for the community. Do you know what? Not only are we reclaiming our waterways and our rivers now but also reclaiming our communities by being together, getting out and saying hello and how do you do. You cannot experience that better than by coming to Braddon on the north-west coast of Tassie and the west coast. And I forgot King Island: they have got some funding, too.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is rare to hear the member for Braddon waxing lyrical about his favourite place, Tasmania, and all of the parts of Tasmania that now have bike paths. You are looking at the former chairman of the Pakenham Shire Council bike path committee. Around 26 years ago, my first major responsibility at the Pakenham Shire Council was to take on the role of the chairman of the Pakenham bike path committee. Like the member for Braddon, we had a grand vision for our community and cycling into the future. We put that down on paper. There was to be a ridge line that went from Pakenham all the way to Upper Pakenham. There was going to be a shared pathway that went from Pakenham. You would be able to ride up there and go all the way to the pony club at Upper Pakenham. This was going to be the most glorious ride.

Then a developer came along and he decided that he was going to put houses on the land that we were going to put our path on. We took it to VCAT and we lost. That ridge line now, instead of having a bike way, shared footpaths and a beautiful opportunity for people to interact from the hills to the town, now has houses and no access for bikes to Upper Pakenham. They only way that we will be able to do it in the future is to build the path on the side of a road, with half the beauty that it would have had. We lost the fight. So I learnt early that in politics you do lose some times.

I congratulate Mr Ripoll, the member for Oxley, for his foresight in bringing this motion before the House. I was a young boy in Koo Wee Rup—not Cooee in Tasmania but Koo Wee Rup in Victoria. We had open drains and we had a horse named Darkie who pulled a cart and moved forward every 10 foot through the voices of the men working with the cart. One of those men was Percy Osborne. I only knew him as Percy. He looked after Darkie the horse. The council depot was just down from our place. It was fairly exciting to be out there with Darkie and Percy Osborne. As a young guy, I did not know who Percy Osborne was. This guy on the cart cleaning the drains was a great bike rider who rode with Sir Hubert Opperman. It was only explained to me as the years went on just how important this man was who lived in Koo Wee Rup with me.

What have we done in our electorates? We have heard all about the joys of bike riding from all the experts who have been here today. I am surprised that the member for Braddon did not come in in Lycra today to make a real presentation. We have now fantastic rail trails from Leongatha to Foster. These are great trips. They include: Wonthaggi to Kilcunda, Mirboo North to Boolarra, Warragul to Yarragon and Warragul to Drouin, a brand new path that the state government put in as part of the infrastructure program. Now there is a great path that you can walk or cycle down all the way fro Warragul to Drouin. We need some money from the government for a double road to go right through there, but we have this most magnificent bike path. It is very important to us.

What can I shout about? I can shout about Kathy Watt because she comes from our area and I am a very close friend of her mother. She is an important person. We have two local sporting champions. The McMillan winners were Stuart Smith from Leongatha and Brenton Jones, a mountain biker from Jindivick. Also in my electorate there are many people over 55, a lot more than in most electorates. Many of them are taking up cycling as recreation. But it is quiet recreation.

It does not matter where you travel today, you will see cyclists. I like to drive to Queensland once a year to see my sister. Wherever you go on the road north, whether you go up the Newell Highway or you go up Highway 1, you will see groups of people of every age having their breakfast meeting after a ride or taking their morning activity on a bike. Caloundra is a favourite place of mine—not that it beats anywhere in Tasmania—and in Caloundra I would see dozens and dozens and dozens of people on their bikes. I have been having a break up there and I saw them undertaking this activity.

Cycling is growing out of all proportion across the whole of Gippsland. From the descriptions I have heard today, we are not on our own in Gippsland. Obviously this is happening right across the nation. It is good for Australia. It is a sporting area where we punch above our weight, always have and always will.

Mal Washer (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.