Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises that Australia's state and territory capitals and other major cities are home to more than two in every three Australians;

(2) notes that the population of most Australian cities is projected to increase in the coming decades, creating additional challenges in managing planning, congestion and urban amenity;

(3) recognises that the Parliamentary Friendship Group for Better Cities was established in 2014 with the aim of working together to make Australia's capital and major cities more liveable, resilient and productive;

(4) congratulates the Prime Minister and the Government for recognising cities policies as a priority of government through the appointment of a Minister for Cities and the Built Environment; and

(5) encourages all Members to continue to give strong support to the wellbeing of Australian cities.

As the Prime Minister says, there has never been a more exciting time to be alive than today and there has never been a more exciting time to be an Australian. Introducing this motion, I echo his comments and add that there is also no better time to be living in an Australian city. I say this because never have cities had a greater policy focus than today.

Australia has always had a highly urbanised population by world standards; however, for several decades now this trend has been accelerating. Broadly speaking, we have seen a stagnation and decline in rural and remote populations and a growth in the population of regional centres and major cities. Australians are voting with their feet and moving to larger cities and towns, mirroring a trend seen in virtually all developed nations. At the same time, successive waves of new migrants to Australia have chosen to settle in our major cities to be closer to their communities and support services.

These population movements are gradually changing the character of our large cities. The average Australian city of the mid-20th century was a city of freestanding suburban houses with a backyard. For example, in Brisbane, Australia's third largest city, modern apartment blocks did not begin to appear until the 1960s. While owning a house and a yard has its obvious advantages, the low population density that comes with urban sprawl creates other problems. The per capita cost to government of providing basic services such as electricity, water and sewerage is higher. It becomes uneconomic for government to invest in rapid public transport, meaning communities are reliant on road transport. Commuting times become longer. In recent decades in Australia, our largest cities are beginning to reach the practical limits of urban sprawl. For instance, the greenfield outer suburbs of Sydney currently under development are up to 50 kilometres from the CBD. Faced with such constraints, more and more families are now choosing to trade away the space of outer suburbia for the convenience and amenity of higher density inner city living. But higher density living has its own challenges. While the per capita cost of providing utilities is lower, the lack of space makes town planning even more important. Public transport systems need to be efficient and affordable. Adequate space must be set aside for essential services such as schools and hospitals.

Australian cities are beginning to encounter these challenges. For example, in decades past the New South Wales government closed and sold off numerous inner urban school sites in Sydney due to low enrolment. Now they face an acute lack of space to provide public education to residents who have embraced high-density living on the Lower North Shore, the inner west and the Sydney CBD. The good news is that, whilst these may be new challenges for Australian cities, they have been successfully managed by urban planners in heavier populated cities overseas for many decades. Residents of global cities such as New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore enjoy some of the highest living standards in the world because their governments have had the foresight to invest in the infrastructure necessary to manage population density. There are lessons that Australia can learn from these urban success stories.

I spent a decade serving on the Brisbane City Council, dealing with issues of planning for the future needs of a growing city. During that time and much of my time since, I have been giving thought to how we can do things better to ensure that our cities are well equipped. Better planning requires a coordinated approach between local, state and Commonwealth governments. In recognition of this reality, last year I joined with the member for Scullin and the member for Melbourne to establish the Parliamentary Friends of Better Cities. Our group has been working together with key industry bodies on aspects of cities policy to make our capital and major cities more liveable, more resilient and more productive. Tomorrow we will be hosting a function to hear from the CEO of Infrastructure Australia, Mr Philip Davies, regarding his vision for better infrastructure delivery for Australia's capital and major cities.

I am even more pleased that the work we have done has been acknowledged by government and that a dedicated minister has now been appointed to manage cities policy. It is something for which I have been advocating for many years. I am confident that the new minister will build on the work of our group to meet the challenges and harness the opportunities that the future will bring.

If you want to move to a city, choose Brisbane. It is the best city in Australia—Australia's new world city.

I commend the motion to the House.

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Nickolas Varvaris (Barton, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There will be some bipartisanship on this. It is good to see that we have the blue team finally—after about 30 or 40 years—actually understanding that they must take an interest in the fate of the cities. They must take an interest because—as the member for Ryan has said—not only does the bulk of Australia's population live in cities but you need to understand the agglomeration benefits cities have that drive productivity. It is the bringing together of these specialised and diverse skills that has always been the engine of innovation and productivity, and that is why cities are punching above their weight in terms of the generation of wealth. Let us hope that they understand that mobility is the key to unleashing this agglomeration benefit. Public transport and the profound understanding that we need to integrate land use and transport planning must be at the heart of this proposition.

It is good to see that the coalition have followed Labor in appointing a minister for cities. Labor has a very proud tradition: we had the Whitlam government with its urban renewal projects; we had the Hawke-Keating government with its Building Better Cities program; and we had the Rudd-Gillard government with its Major Cities Unit, under the leadership of the member for Grayndler. We have been in this place for a long time and we are genuinely very pleased that there are some signs that we have finally got a coalition government along this path.

But I must demur from congratulating the Prime Minister on his particular appointment to this portfolio. I ask: why on earth did he not appoint the member for Ryan, who has demonstrated a deep attachment and understanding to the cities project? It is incredibly hard to see the appointment of Minister Briggs as a meritorious appointment. It is almost bizarre. It is sort of like appointing Barnaby Joyce to the portfolio for animal welfare. The conduct of Minister Briggs in his previous gig was certainly antithetical to all those insights that the member for Ryan outlined previously. This minister wants to plough giant roadways not only through highly valued community wetlands but through inner city suburbs. He is literally the last man standing in support of the Fremantle Eastern Bypass, a highly discredited 1970s plan to drive an expressway through the heart of Fremantle. It is a plan that successive state Liberal governments declined to build because they knew it would be completely unacceptable to the community.

I use this opportunity to urge the Prime Minister to abandon the love child of the Fremantle Eastern Bypass, the Perth Freight Link—now the project that dare not speak its name—and to show that his government really does understand this cities thing by putting the money back into the Perth urban rail project and getting on with the planning for the Outer Harbour. I just find it quite extraordinary that the same minister who was racing around as the minister for roads, the minister for ploughing over suburbs and the minister for ignoring how we integrate land use and transport planning has now, quite bizarrely, been given this job as the minister for cities.

I want to make a final reflection on the comments that were made by the member for Ryan on the issue of inner city schools. This is an issue I have been talking on now for around 10 years. There is absolutely no doubt that, as we have had a resurgence of people living in the inner suburban areas, with families being prepared to stay in more dense formations and stay in apartments well into their breeding phase, we have not provided for the schooling that we need in the inner city area. In Perth, as the Mayor of Vincent, I drove this and finally got a reluctant state government across the line to provide more kindergarten spaces on council land. But the tsunami of babies that we are seeing in the inner city is going to hit high schools in the next four to five years, and I am deeply concerned that, if we do not plan for this now, it is going to undermine that very important agenda that we have about increasing urban density in the inner suburban areas.

Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to second the member for Ryan's motion on all points. It is an international fallacy that Australians are spread evenly throughout the country's outback. More and more Australians are gravitating towards our metropolitan areas for work, retirement and lifestyle reasons. This has provided both an impetus and a justification for Prime Minister Turnbull to create a Minister for Cities and the Built Environment. As the world around us continually evolves, we must persistently place the goal of bettering our cities at the forefront of what we do as a government.

Cities have been neglected by continuous Labor councils, and I want to acknowledge the hard work of Mayor Quirk and the LNP Brisbane City Council in advancing the interests of Brisbane and making it both a world-class city and a city of the 21st century. It is important, more now than ever, that governments do everything they can to fund infrastructure, technology and planning in our cities.

Of course, it is also important to acknowledge the contribution of Australia's rural and regional areas for their production of minerals, fruit and vegetables as well as animal products that have helped fuel this country's economy for more than a century. But it is also integral to acknowledge that, without a symbiotic relationship with our cities, our rural counterparts may not have been world-leading in so many industries. Cities lay claim to the high-tech tractors, the fertilisers, the efficient irrigation systems and even drones which help to contribute to Australia's clean and green image abroad. It is really hard to imagine how some of the most advanced farms in this country could ever operate without simple inventions such as wi-fi, which again was invented in a city. It is because of this symbiotic relationship, a testament to the strength of our cities, that Australia remains an economic powerhouse in comparison to the size of its population.

Cities are, similarly, at the coalface of curing disease and the provisioning of health services, issues that are becoming increasingly important as Australia's population ages. One example of this is the work being done by the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in my electorate of Brisbane. The institute not only researches causes and treatments for many cancers but is also investigating parasite genetics and developing new identification and treatment methods for many infectious diseases.

Similarly, cities are the drivers of innovation and lead the charge as are universities, like QUT in my electorate, which is a first-class innovator. Recently the new growth centre at the university was established by the Australian government, which will ensure Australia's mining equipment, technology and services sector is well placed to provide innovative solutions to the global resources sector. The Mining Equipment, Technology and Services Growth Centre—METS, as it will be known—was launched at the Queensland University of Technology by the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Christopher Pyne.

The resource sector's continual drive to increase efficiency and productivity will continue. Cities also act as a conduit for many cultures and races that contribute to Australia's national identity. This manifests itself in many ways, from the prolific arts scene, as is the case in my electorate, to the eclectic culinary choices the residents of cities enjoy. Indeed, cities are the economic linchpins in our economy. They are not only the biggest drivers of employment, but also produce the largest output of capital.

My electorate of Brisbane has some of the best education rates in the country. This is not by accident, but rather because cities create a hub for both people and ideas. Just last week the coalition government announced that two local businesses, Cloud Manager and Scio Technologies, would receive just under $1 million in funding between them to help accelerate their businesses to the commercialisation phase. Thanks to the government's commitment to the advancement of its cities, we are not only building capital that Australia wants to move to but creating destinations that the world envies.

I also wish to join in welcoming the minister for cities' establishment of a cities task force to focus on the three core principles of reform: better integrated urban planning, innovative funding, and the delivery of infrastructure and environmental sustainability. I echo the sentiments of Minister Briggs's comments made in The Advertiser recently that the fiscal constraints of all governments are also very real, so this government is looking at new ways to fund major projects around the country and to attract greater private sector involvement.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this motion. I do want to acknowledge the work of Jane Prentice and her ongoing interest in cities, first in her role as a Brisbane councillor and since then as the member for Ryan. Our cities do face unprecedented challenges in the coming decades. By 2031, our four largest capitals—Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth—will have all but doubled in size. The other capital cities— Adelaide, Canberra, Hobart and Darwin—are expected to grow by nearly 30 per cent. Congestion is estimated by Infrastructure Australia to cost the nation $53 billion at this time unless action is taken.

The cities of Australia's future must be more productive, sustainable and liveable. Yet, without leadership and investment from the national government, this challenge becomes even greater. Labor have always recognised cities policy as a priority of the national government. As the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport in the former Labor government, I set about returning cities policy to the heart of government following the coalition's disengagement from the space. Over the period of the Howard government, not a single dollar went into any public transport project around Australia.

In government, we set up the Major Cities Unit, which produced the annual State of Australian cities report to ensure that there was evidence based policy. We established the Urban Policy Forum and we established Infrastructure Australia to drive investment to projects based upon contribution to productivity rather to any particular mode of transport. We released Australia's first ever national urban policy, Our Cities, Our Future. And we invested. When we took office, Australia was 20th among OECD nations when it came to infrastructure investment as a proportion of GDP. When we left office, Australia was first. We doubled the roads budget and we allocated more investment to public transport than all other governments combined between Federation right up to 2007.

The coalition came into government and trashed that record. They abolished the Major Cities Unit, disbanded the Urban Policy Forum and cut funding from every single public transport project that was not under construction. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that infrastructure work conducted for the public sector declined by more than 20 per cent after the 2013 election based on the last quarter's figures. This year's budget included a $2 billion cut in infrastructure spending over the next two years over the allocation by the conservative government itself in their 2014 budget.

I welcome the change in direction we have seen in recent weeks and support the appointment of a minister for cities, but this change must be one of substance not just titles. Indeed, there is a lot of catching up to do. I am concerned that the minister for cities is working within the Department of the Environment rather than the department that actually drives infrastructure investment. This does not make sense. It appears to have confused the coalition too. At least five of Mr Turnbull's ministers lay claim to having some level of responsibility for cities. There is Jamie Briggs, the minister. Then there is the minister he report to, the Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt. Then there is the minister for major projects, Paul Fletcher, who reports to Deputy Prime Minister and the actual infrastructure minister Warren Truss. Then, somewhere in the mix, there is Josh Frydenberg, who is minister for northern development and has responsibility for infrastructure in that part of Australia.

So there has been a lot of talk in the cities policy area but no investment and no real change in substance. The Major Cities Unit remains disbanded. The only policy announcement has been the Gold Coast light rail project stage 2. But that was funding that was a saving from the Moreton Bay rail link. The funding that has been allocated for projects without a proper cost-benefit analysis such as the Perth Freight Link and WestConnex remain still with no business case and no transparency developed.

An elected Labor government will invest directly in public transport and in our cities. We will restore Infrastructure Australia to the centre of government activity to ensure that funding decisions on major projects are made on the basis of demonstrated public benefit. We are committed to cities policy and we will invest in our nation's cities to ensure they are productive, sustainable and liveable long into the future.

John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on this motion and recognise the member for Ryan, and recall the work that we did in forming the sustainable cities task force when we first joined this place. The settlement of Australia has occurred in the absence of planning, resulting in a constant of measures being undertaken to address the challenging situations that have evolved. This random behaviour has produced a full spectrum of challenges, from regional and rural settlement and the learning of the meaning of the tyranny of distance to the recent counter-trend of ever-increasing urbanisation.

The rapid concentration of settlement in our cities has created some serious challenges that must be overcome for us to maintain optimal growth, productivity, competitiveness and quality of life. The imbalance of settlement has produced an extraordinary imbalance of cost of living. Our biggest cities rate as amongst the most expensive in the world to buy land—an extraordinary situation when you consider that our greatest asset is land. However, all is not good in these most expensive cities, born in part out of the decay and decline of our regions because of the lack of planning for and commitment to infrastructure. Their capacity is limited and therefore the capacity for growth of Australia is compromised. It is overdue to replace the pattern of random settlement and infrastructure programs produced in haste to react to a situation as a constant catch-up emergency management with long-term planning for our cities and strategic settlement to restore balance.

The Prime Minister should be recognised for his initiative in appointing a dedicated Minister for Cities and the Built Environment. In his position of holding office, the decision to form a parliamentary standing committee is the most genuine demonstration of the importance of cities to our future and the fact that it is essential to form a common strategy to build an unshakeable foundation through planning and timely commitment to infrastructure that will survive any government. The task now before the minister and the standing committee is to develop policy that addresses the imbalance between our cities and our regions—that combines to relieve the cities of growth beyond their infrastructure capability through strategic decentralisation.

I have long been on the record to champion decentralisation. It is difficult to retrofit infrastructure into our major cities while they are bearing the full load of growth—to put out the fire while you are adding more fuel. The strategy must combine the retrofitting of infrastructure into our major cities with planning, while a plan for strategic decentralisation is undertaken. In the work done with the member for Ryan on the sustainable cities project, it became very clear that cities are not islands—that they need connectivity—and that the imbalance of cost of living in our major cities compared to the decay of regional areas needs to be addressed.

One of the most misunderstood pieces of infrastructure—which has long been debated in this place, without much success—is the role of high-speed rail, the purpose of high-speed rail. The Sydney to Melbourne air route is the third busiest in the world in terms of flights, the fourth busiest in terms of passengers. So there is a role for high-speed rail to connect those two cities. But that is missing the point. The worldwide experience with high-speed rail is that it is the most essential piece of infrastructure to strategically decentralise—to take the pressure off major cities and allow regional areas to grow. With high-speed rail, cities outside the southern highlands, around the Goulburn area, around Shepparton and around Albury Wodonga could to grow to be significant cities. Their land prices would be competing with the very high cost of land in Sydney and Melbourne. When you bring into the strategy the opportunity of value capture there is a perfect storm to effect a value capture of the uplift in property values created by high-speed rail to fund the high-speed rail and to effect a plan of decentralisation to optimise the growth of Australia.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about the city that I represent: Canberra, our nation's capital. Canberra has been my home for close to 30 years. I love this city and I love this community. The nation's capital is home to around 360,000 people, some of who are the most altruistic people I have ever met.

Canberra is home to our national memorials, like the Australian War Memorial, the National Gallery, the Portrait Gallery, the High Court, the National Library, the National Botanic Gardens, the Mint, the Arboretum and the list goes on. Canberra is the heart of this nation's democracy. It is a city that was built by a federated nation. Without Canberra, there would be no Australia. To borrow the words of Sir Henry Parkes, the crimson thread of kinship runs through us all. Those threads are drawn together in this city, in our nation's capital, Canberra. They run from every corner of this nation, those crimson threads, and the knot that binds them is this House in this nation's capital, in the city that I represent, Canberra.

During my time here I have seen Canberra flourish, and I have also seen it suffer. There is a clear trend that has emerged in that ebb and flow over time. Under Labor governments Canberra prospers, while under coalition governments Canberra suffers—just like it did in 1996, when I lost my job. I was with Foreign Affairs, and I was one of the 15,000 public servants that lost their jobs here in Canberra, and 30,000 right throughout the nation. We were all victims of the Howard government's public service job cuts. At that time, non-business bankruptcies jumped sharply, in 1995-96 by 38 per cent, and again in 1996-97 by 17 per cent, while business bankruptcies jumped in 1996-97 by 38 per cent. I remember 1996 and seeing local shopping centres resemble ghost towns. The newsagent closed, the hairdresser closed, the video store closed. And they closed because incomes and wage earners just disappeared—they left town.

We have seen the same contempt for the public service under this government, which has cut more than 8,500 public servant jobs here in Canberra, 17,000 public service jobs right across the country. We read late last week that there is a new round of cuts coming. Even though we were promised that there was not going to be a new round of cuts, Prime Minster and Cabinet has announced that it is getting rid of 200 jobs by Christmas. There are suggestions that there are more on the way, not just in PM&C but in other government agencies.

CommSec's October State of the states report says the ACT's economy is the sixth best performing in the country. That is second last. It says that the ACT's indicators are mixed and the jobless rate is rising. So I find this motion frustrating. The member for Ryan is encouraging all members to continue to give strong support to the wellbeing of Australian cities, and that is a great sentiment. But I ask: where is the government when it comes to support for Canberra? Where is the government's support for our nation's capital? Where is the support for the wellbeing of this city and the support for its infrastructure, its work force, its economy? This year's budget included no—zero—new infrastructure spending for the ACT. Contrast that to when we were in government, and the millions that were invested in the Majura Parkway, which everyone would be familiar with as they fly into the airport; millions invested in trade training centres; and millions invested in school halls, libraries and facilities to enhance the primary school experience.

I note the member's motion congratulating the Prime Minister for recognising cities policy as a priority of government through the appointment of a Minister for Cities and the Built Environment. I am now calling on the Prime Minister and the new Minister for Cities and the Built Environment to recognise Canberra, to invest in Canberra, to stop denigrating its work force, to stop cutting its work force, and to start investing in new infrastructure. I have a few suggestions. They can start with the Australia Forum, a new convention centre here in Canberra. The member here suggested high-speed rail. Bring it on. Bring on high-speed rail. The studies have shown that the link between the eastern seaboard and Canberra would be most efficient and economically effective for the first round, so bring it on. Canberrans want it now.

Until now, this government's approach to Canberra has seemed to just be cut, cut, cut. I am sick and tired of coalition governments' continued contempt for my home. I will continue to stand up for my community. I will continue to stand up for Canberra. I will continue to stand up for our proud service to democracy and the businesses that support it.

Fiona Scott (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

·   I rise today in support of the motion put forward by the member for Ryan. The Turnbull government recognises Australian cities as the powerhouses they are, through management, investment and the appointment of the Minister for Cities and the Built Environment. I note the motion recognises that two-thirds of all Australians live in capital cities. As it stands, Western Sydney is one of the largest economies in Australia, with the Penrith local government area alone having a gross regional product of $7.61 billion. The Penrith region is also home to some 200,000 people, and that number is likely to swell to 260,000 by 2031. What does this mean? This means we have to plan for some 30,000 new homes. We need to create an additional 50,000 jobs just to account for the new residents moving in. That is before we take account of the fact that two-thirds of our current local workforce have to commute out of the region every single day for work. This is a huge challenge for Western Sydney and requires big thinking.

Future major developments across the region include a proposed science park at Luddenham; a sports academy, entertainment and leisure precinct at Penrith Panthers; a health, education and innovation precinct that should alone create 13,000 new jobs; and the planning of the Western Sydney Employment Area, an area of some 10,000 hectares which is substantially within the Penrith LGA—the state government suggests that as many as 200,000 jobs might be possible in this space. But no longer can we see innovation as something that can be defined by the inner urban areas of capital cities. We need to look at the outer regions as well and at what innovation can happen in our greenfield sites. Western Sydney is in a key, prime location for this. We also need to look at the collaboration between the universities, industry, business and government to ensure that the best attributes and potentials of all of our cities are realised, ensuring the development and growth success of our cities, particularly in growth regions like Penrith.

Western Sydney University's innovation corridor strategy is a prime example of such university driven collaboration for the building of better cities. Barney Glover, the vice-chancellor of Western Sydney University and the chair of Universities Australia, said:

The Innovation Corridor sends a signal, regionally, nationally and abroad, that Western Sydney is an exceptional and thoroughly capable place to build and grow the world's best innovation based enterprise. The Commonwealth's and NSW government's recent investment in large-scale infrastructure across the region provides additional security and capacity for the region.

These are great words. The Western Sydney strategy defines the opportunity of the outer corridor, with work already underway on many of the projects—for instance the Sydney Science Park, a 250-hectare site with fully-integrated commercial and residential properties and a town centre, providing 12,200 jobs in high-end research. The Western Sydney University's Werrington Park Corporate Centre, or Sydney HQ, and the new federally co-funded administration building is another such project.

We have international companies wanting to come and invest and innovate in our region. The Penrith Panthers Rugby League Club's expansion includes developments such as mixed-use accommodation, as well as leisure, lifestyle, retail and sporting facilities, including the Panthers academy and the multi-use, world-class Western Sydney Community and Sports Centre, which will essentially be an indoor rugby league field on a timber-sprung floor and, when not hosting sporting activity, will be the third largest exhibition space in New South Wales.

The planned Western Sydney Airport will act as a transport feeder to many of these visionary developments and will connect our region to the world. But, for it to work, we have to make sure that we get all of this right. That includes roads, and I am proud to be part of a government that has invested $3.6 billion into the road infrastructure across Western Sydney, not only through the Western Sydney Infrastructure Plan—WestConnex and other projects will also get our region moving. We are a prime example of a growth city. We are a prime example of where the future of our region will go. I am proud to be part of a government that now has a minister in charge of this to ensure we get this development right.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about cities. The electorate of Lalor is one of the fastest-growing electorates in the country. The bulk of the electorate is in the city of Wyndham, which has grown from a population of 90,000 a decade ago to a population of over 200,000 today. It has gone from the shire of Werribee, known as a country suburb surrounded by green wedges, to a city butting up against the city of Hobsons Bay. In this place I note high recognition for Werribee, but most members of this place would not recognise the city of which Werribee is now the centre.

People come to live in Wyndham because it is affordable and because it is welcoming. It is now home to people from 120 countries of origin. Young couples come from other suburbs, often closer to the city, to build their first home. Families come to build their second, larger home. This growth brings challenges, not least of which is city policy. With the right policies in place, Melbourne's west and Wyndham can be at the centre of 21st century Australian innovative industry. With the right policies in place, the outer suburbs and growth corridors of our cities, including Wyndham, can be places of equity rather than disadvantage. Australia is the world's most urbanised nation, and cities matter. They are home to four out of five Australians and produce 80 per cent of our GDP.

But we have wasted two years under this government—and 10 years were wasted under John Howard—with no clear city policy. Two years is a long time in a growth corridor. Today, despite this private members' business motion, I question whether the Turnbull government has a plan for sustainable, liveable cities. I question that because I stand today following the shadow minister for infrastructure and cities, the member for Grayndler; and I follow the member for Perth—because Labor has a plan for cities. In opposition we have maintained our focus on cities. I stand here as a member of the caucus committee for cities. Sitting behind me is the member for Scullin, who chairs that caucus committee. We have been out talking about cities for two long years while this government has done nothing about city policy. Where I live and where the people I represent live, that is two long years without any policy.

Many will have spoken about the limitations and inequity that are being built into our cities while we ignore city policy. The book City Limits by Jane-Frances Kelly and Paul Donegan highlights some of the issues being faced in the electorate of Lalor and in other growth corridors across this country. It identifies that more than 50 per cent of people are moving to suburbs over 20 kilometres from the CBDs in our country—that is where I live. It highlights the emerging drive-in-drive-out suburbs that we are developing which are having a huge impact on the balance of family life for people living in my electorate. Allowing such a trend to continue leads to entrenched inequity. I have mentioned this in speech after speech. Labor in government addressed these issues. In government we delivered the regional rail link which has made such a difference in my electorate. The former Labor government provided $3 billion to fund it—it was the biggest Commonwealth investment in any public transport project in the nation's history.

On top of that, Labor has understood the importance of city development and city policy. We had RDAF funding and major infrastructure projects in regions. Labor worked with state and local governments to deliver much-needed infrastructure in growth corridors. But under this government we now have a Prime Minister who was in charge of delivering one of the most important infrastructure projects this country has seen—the NBN—and who has failed to deliver on the promises he made. He has taken longer, stretched out the delivery time and increased the cost of that project.

I stand here as a proud member of the Labor caucus, a proud member who can say that a Labor government will deliver for cities, because we have already done the policy work on cities. We have the runs on the board for cities. Our approach will be evidence based, using business cases to leverage private sector funding. Our $10 billion infrastructure financing facility will unlock billions of dollars in the private sector to build the cities that we need for the future, to ensure that the people who live in my electorate are not disadvantaged by the number of kilometres they live from the Melbourne CBD.

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be able to participate in what is a very important debate, and I thank the member for Ryan for bringing this matter before the Federation Chamber. In part this is a motion that is appropriately bipartisan. But there are some matters, as my friend the member for Lalor touched upon, where there remain key and important distinctions between the positions of the major political parties, notwithstanding the change in attitude following the change of Prime Minister that we have seen.

The motion before the House notes the work of the bipartisan Parliamentary Friendship Group for Better Cities, a group that I co-chair with the member for Ryan and the member for Melbourne. I think it is appropriate that the work of this group is recognised in terms of the role it has played in elevating the discussion in this place and more broadly in public discourse around urban policy. The Parliamentary Friendship Group for Better Cities has brought together a diverse range of stakeholders linked by a common concern for urban Australia, the places where 80 per cent of us live and where more than 80 per cent of our GDP is generated. The health and wellbeing of our cities is vital to the health and wellbeing of Australians, and the diversity of involvement in the better cities group has been an exemplar of how this public policy debate should play out in the future. We have seen the involvement of not only stakeholders that might be traditionally associated with urban policy, such as those concerned with infrastructure, but also groups like the landscape architects and the Heart Foundation as well as groups concerned with active transport options, looking at the health and wellbeing of those who live in urban Australia as well as some of the more traditional bricks-and-mortar aspects of urban policy.

Urban policy is of course an evolving area of public policy and of national government responsibility. Labor's story has recognised since the sixties the critical role of national government in shaping the environment in which most Australians live, particularly in the most urbanised nation in the world, a nation I like to think of as perhaps the world's most suburban nation. My friend the member for Lalor talked about the drive-in drive-out suburbs, a concern that goes to the heart of Labor's engagement with the shape of our cities, particularly rapidly growing major cities like Melbourne and Sydney where, increasingly, affordable housing is located a long way from employment opportunities and from social and leisure opportunities for people to enjoy. This poses real questions for quality of life as well as questions for productivity—looking, at one level, at the depth of labour markets that are on offer. This is a matter of great concern to me. I think of a conversation I had only the other day with the executive members of a residents' association at the northern end of my electorate. One of them, an accountant from Deloitte, explained to me that she was no longer able to continue in her work simply because the commuting time, combined with her responsibilities for her children, meant that it was not no longer viable. What a loss to her and what a loss to our community. Similar stories can be told across my electorate, and I know they are also told in the electorate of Lalor and right across suburban Australia. This is why it is so important that we do more than mouth the words about an interest in cities policy.

The words the Prime Minister has delivered and the appointment of a Minister for Cities and the Built Environment are of course to be welcomed, but they open up the conversation that the parliamentary friendship group has been leading. It has not been leading this conversation in isolation. Labor has continued since leaving government in September 2013 to set an agenda for urban Australia. The shadow minister, the member for Grayndler, has set out a 10-point plan for urban Australia and the role of national government. We have also very recently announced an innovative approach to infrastructure funding. In respect of both of these critical announcements we are yet to hear the view of the government. Indeed, there are many signals that we should still be concerned. While the Prime Minister has spoken about evidence based decision making, we have not seen that in respect of a range of significant infrastructure announcements in Victoria, where there still seems to be an enthusiasm for the East West Link despite the evidence coming in. It is one thing to talk about an enthusiasm for public transport—and indeed to be fond of a selfie on a tram. It is another to think about the role and responsibility of national government in ensuring everyone has an opportunity to live in productive, livable and sustainable cities.

Debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 13 : 00 to 15 : 58