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

Australians generally still regard themselves as living in the lucky country. We have plenty of open space; a clean, fresh environment; plenty of opportunity; and an entrepreneurial spirit, which means we can always punch well above our weight. Most of this cultural characteristic comes from our colonial penal past and also a strong vibrant attitude on the back of immigrant workers that built this country and came here to make a new life in the land of opportunity.

Certainly where we are today did not come from planning or vision. The past rarely gives you a good insight into the future, and nothing could be more true in terms of our urban planning and population growth. For a country of so few people and so great a landmass, we have never really got the population/lifestyle/cities and towns mix quite right. It all just happened by accident or necessity. The reality is that we have only had a couple of hundred years to work this out, unlike other parts of the world, like Europe, that have been at it for thousands of years. This is both good and bad, but should be a case for us to rethink where we are today and where we want to be in the future.

Speaking in broad terms, our cities are choked, our population centres are wrong and our job centres just simply do not work. As a result, our lifestyles and standard of living suffers. If you do not believe me, just ask the millions of people stuck in traffic every day trying to get to work, those that are locked out of home ownership because of overpriced city centres, and those unable to get decent health or education services within a reasonable distance from where they live or the sorts of lifestyle opportunities that most of us expect as being normal.

The central problem here is that there is no one agency, there is no department or government or anyone who really is responsible for a complex mix of economic, social and infrastructure issues at hand. But I believe there is some light at the end of the overcrowded tunnel with the release of the Australian government report from Infrastructure Australia, State of Australian cities 2010. This government is paying much more attention to these problems and, importantly, focusing on how the solutions may look. Part of the solution, of course, is a complex mix of relationships between the three levels of government, the private sector and planning agencies that can alter the way that cities, regions and people develop into the future. It is not necessary to undo the mistakes of the past, but I think it is essential to plan for the future. This planning needs to interact between areas such as education and health, transport systems and food production. These all play an integral role. It is time we had a strong future-looking vision that is based on a strategic plan and which cuts across local government borders and state boundaries. It really is something for all Australians to be concerned about.

Why is this important? If we get this mix right not only will it provide for a healthier, better educated population with a higher standard of living but it will also reduce the pressure that we all face. You only need to turn to the Intergenerational report to look our ageing population and some of the bigger challenges we have got to the year 2050. This message, I believe, is getting through to commentators and representative bodies in this area—and certainly in the findings of the Infrastructure Australia Major Cities Unit report. This report should be essential reading for anyone who has even a passing interest in how we live, where we live and the standard of life in Australia. As the report says, Australia is one of the most urbanised nations on the planet, with 75 per cent—three-quarters—of everyone in Australia living in just 17 major cities of 100,000 people or more. But I think even more startling about this statistic is that the majority actually live just in five cities. Most of our people live in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide or Perth. This is a result of nonplanning rather than poor planning.

The task at hand is for us to decide what we want Australia to look like in 2050. There are plenty of reports and projections that give us a clear idea of the challenge ahead and I believe you need to look no further than two great reports: one, the Infrastructure Australia report on the state of our cities and the other, the Intergenerational Report with its stark warnings on our population makeup. There is a way forward and I believe that in part it is the commitment of this government to once again get involved in the area of urban growth and development, infrastructure development—how our cities will look into the future. I think it is an important area and one that we should tackle with resources as well strategic thought.

The challenge for us is to partner with the states, territories and local government. We cannot do it without them. We need to find consistent, sustainable policies to take us through the next 40 years and ensure the standard of living that we cherish so much—all the opportunities that we have—are shared and that they do not slip away and are not diminished over time just because of a lack of will or planning.